Preparation Underway At Southern Hills For PGA Championship

The PGA Championship starts in May and crews are getting Southern Hills ready.

"It almost just goes by too quick, so seeing it go up means we're that much closer which is exciting but also bittersweet," said Bryan Karns, PGA Championship Director.

The tournament will put Tulsa in the national spotlight while benefiting people from all over our area during the week of May 16 through the 22.

PGA Championship Director Bryan Karns said Tulsa is often overlooked. People will say, 'Tulsa's doesn't have a professional sports team so it's not a professional sports town,' but he said that couldn't be further from the truth.

He said May will set the tone for years to come. He also said people are starting to notice that the corporate support and volunteers in Tulsa are unmatched.

"Probably my favorite part of this job is talking to people who will go back to 07 and 94 and they'll talk about these moments and they're like these seminal moments in their life because they remember bringing their kids here. They remember seeing Arnold Palmer in 94 at his last PGA Championship. Everybody's got a story and we fully anticipate that happening again in May," said Karns.

"Every metric we use to measure success we've not only met but we've exceeded. And so, what that does is it makes us sort of over the moon about this one but certainly as we look at the calendar for future years, we want to make sure Tulsa's a part of that rotation for future championships," said Karns.

Karns is an Oklahoma native and has traveled all over with the PGA but has spent the last three years in Oklahoma, preparing for the championship.

"It always means something to us because in my job we move around, and you know move into a community for 24 to 36 months. There's always a sense of pride because you know whether it's Rochester, New York or Louisville, Kentucky, or other places I've been you feel like you're a part of that community, but when it's your home, when you have a connection to this golf course, I mean I was a kid growing up in Stillwater and coming over in 94 and my first internship with the PGA was in 07 so there's a deep connection here that just makes it that much more important," said Karns.

Karns said it's like building a little city from the ground up. All the work, for seven days of play. He believes, ultimately, it's about growing the game of golf.

"Everything on here we've been sort of tweaking 2, 3, 4, a hundred times over [...]," said Karns. "People who've been to a golf course or been to Southern Hills certainly know, there's hills, there's terrain change, so it's critical that we have all that information so we can stay on track," said Karns.

Karns said about 200 employees from across the country are on site, focusing on scaffolding and setting up close to 100 tents.

"These guys will work in almost any condition. It's pretty amazing," said Karns.

Karns said they only lost half a day during the winter storms and are on track. He said closer to tee time, upwards of 2,000 local, short-term hires will benefit from this championship including food and beverage employees, non-profit workers, and interns.

"Just in the food and beverage space, for example, I have over 1,000 people and that includes again whether it's servers, bar tenders, we'll have nonprofits that'll be working concessions stands, fund raising. Probably 250 to 300,000 will be going back to those NPOs just for that work," said Karns.

He believes this will boost business for Tulsa, specifically the hospitality industry after it was previously hit hard by the pandemic.

"When the senior PGA, you know, coming off of sort of the tail end of covid, when that industry in particular, restaurants, hotels were decimated, to have this news was really awesome to be a part of that," said Karns.

The Regional Chamber estimates an economic impact of $140 million.

"You look back at the last 40 years, we've had a major championship here almost every decade. This is gonna be a record fifth time that Southern Hills has hosted the PGA Championship and so if that doesn't scream professional sports town, I don't what does," said Karns.

Grounds tickets are sold out Friday through Sunday, but there still are practice round tickets for sale Monday through Wednesday, and limited tickets are still available for the first round on Thursday.

https://www.pgachampionship.com/