Puerto Rico Welcomes PGA

Filed in archive Golf News on April 11, 2007

Coco Beach Golf and Country Club

For all the time that Chi Chi Rodriguez played the PGA Tour, he must have longed for a sanctioned tournament in his home country of Puerto Rico.

Well, now he's got it.

The PGA has announced that, starting next year, the tour will include Chi Chi's hood on its burgeoning schedule.

Puerto Rico becomes not just the latest venue but the latest country added to the list which includes Canada and Mexico.

The Puerto Rico Open will be played from March 17 to 23rd at the Tom Kite-designed Coco Beach Golf and Country Club.

The tournament will have a purse of three and a half million dollars with a Puerto Rican bank, Banco Popular, signing on as title sponsor.

But the tournament is as much a tourism push as anything else. The Puerto Rican Tourism Board was an active player in creating the new tournament.

And it's been a while since the TV cameras visited the Caribbean country, which is a US unincorporated territory.

The first time golf was televised from Puerto Rico to North American audiences was back when Shell's Wonderful World of Golf was on the air.

No program did more to demonstrate the widespread popularity of golf around the world than that show and in 1964, Chi Chi Rodriguez welcomed Doug Sanders to Dorado Beach for a match.

In 1969, the penultimate year of the original series, the show returned to Puerto Rico, this time to El Conquistador Hotel and Golf Club where Chi Chi faced Arnold Palmer and Gay Brewer.

The famous series was re-born in 1994, although with far less success, but there was Chi Chi again, taking on Lee Trevino in 1995 at the Palmas Del Mar.

So Chi Chi (whose real names are Juan Antonio) must be thrilled that, finally, the PGA Tour will be coming every year.

And everyone in Puerto Rico is hoping that the TV coverage (The Golf Channel gets all four rounds next year) will help to drive golf tourism dollars into the country.

I find it interesting that the PGA has landed in Puerto Rico before it has launched a tour stop in any of the continental states not already hosting a tournament.

I guess it's called "following the money" but I can't help wondering when Alaska gets a PGA event?