The Inaugural Puerto Rico Open

Filed in archive Golf News on March 18, 2008

Courtesy: Coco Beach Golf and Country Club

Puerto Rico is host to the first-ever fully sanctioned PGA tournament to be held in the U.S. territory, the 3.5 million dollar Puerto Rico Open sponsored by Banco Popular.

The tournament takes place at the Coco Beach Golf and Country Club, one of the latest additions to The Donald's Trump International chain.



Puerto Rico has plenty of golf courses on the island and many have been designed by the so-called big names like Norman, Fazio, Player and Trent Jones Senior.

Tom Kite has designed all 36 of the holes at Trump's hangout and some of them sound interesting. Two of the par-5s come in at 600 yards while three of the par-3s are more than 200 yards long. The course for the PR Open will be designed to involve holes from all four 9-hole courses and will measure over 7500 yards in length.

It certainly sounds like a decent test.

Kite himself will be in the field; he received a sponsor's exemption to play and it will be his first PGA tournament since the 2006 Booz Allen Classic.

John Daly also received a sponsor's exemption to play and he promptly pulled out. So what else is new?

That's just one blow to the sponsor and the tournament organizers.

The really unfortunate thing about the Puerto Rico Open is that, outside of Puerto Rico, no one is going to see it or care very much about it.

North American TV coverage will be focused squarely on the WGC CA Championship at Doral in Miami.

It's a shame that an inaugural tournament has to go up against round two of the World Golf Championship where Tiger Woods is defending and gunning for season win number 6 (in a row) and sole possession of third on the all-time win list.

With that kind of spotlight, anything else fades into the shadows, no matter how shiny and new it is.

The Puerto Rico Open, at least this year, is just another weekly whistle stop where that second tier of PGA players - the journeymen, rookies and come-backers - make up the lion's share of the field.

But for Puerto Rican golf fans, it will be a priceless chance to see PGA players up close and see swings that can propel a golf ball 300 yards from the tee.

Yes, they're all really good golfers; they're just not Tiger Woods. Not this week, anyway.