The Short Version

• PGA Frisco began as a modest “urban golf park” pitch and grew into a 660-acre development anchoring the $10 billion, 2,500-acre Fields.
• A public-private partnership among the PGA, the city of Frisco, the state of Texas and Omni Hotels & Resorts made the project possible.
• The campus includes PGA’s headquarters, a 500-room Omni resort, multiple golf courses and additional city-funded golfing activities.
• PGA Frisco has helped spur the Fields development, a “city within a city” with housing, retail and green space.
• PGA Frisco has created more than 1,000 jobs and is generating long-term economic, tourism and community benefits for North Texas.

From Urban Golf Park Pitch to Award-Winning Public-Private Partnership

It started as a vague idea for an “urban golf park,” pitched to U.S. cities in 2014 by the PGA as it sought new ways to grow the game of golf.

What eventually transpired in Frisco, Texas, 30 miles north of Dallas, was a grand expansion of that vision and an economic developer’s dream. The city parlayed that modest pitch into PGA Frisco, whose PGA headquarters office, multiple golf courses and luxury resort and spa would come to anchor the $10 billion, 2,500-acre development known as Fields.

Credit an incentive-heavy, public-private partnership offer that proved too inviting for the nonprofit PGA to refuse. In fact, the 660-acre PGA Frisco, just off the Dallas North Tollway and Highway 380, opened in 2023 and received a 2025 ICSC Excellence in Community Advancement Award in the Urban/Suburban New Development category. The newly created award program recognizes public-private partnerships.

Inside the Public-Private Partnership That Brought PGA Frisco to Life

The first meaningful talks surrounding a potential PGA facility made the rounds in Frisco in 2015, said Frisco Assistant City Manager Ben Brezina. Following a formal PGA request for proposals in 2017, the government put together a $160 million package in city and state incentives that wowed the organization, then-PGA CEO Seth Waugh said upon the deal’s announcement. The package was designed to entice the organization — housed in a cramped, 60-year-old home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida — to the wide-open spaces of Frisco. It was a generous offer, even by Texas standards. Omni Hotels & Resorts, owned by Dallas-based TRT Holdings, chipped in $525 million for a lavish resort and two courses. It all was too good to bypass, Waugh said.

Negotiations with the four public and private partners — the PGA, TRT Holdings, the state of Texas and the city of Frisco, including Frisco Independent School District — began in earnest in 2017. A built-in advantage for Frisco, said Brezina, is its identity as Sports City USA. In 2017, the city already was home to the practice and headquarters facility for the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, executive offices and a practice complex for the NHL’s Dallas Stars, the Dallas Mavericks’ NBA G League affiliate the Texas Legends, and the Texas Rangers’ MLB Double-A affiliate the Frisco RoughRiders.

The site — though partially sitting on a remediated flood plain previously used as a cattle ranch by former owner Bert Fields Jr. — is roughly 20 minutes from both DFW International Airport and Dallas Love Field airport. “You can fly anywhere in the continental United States in three hours or less and nonstop to almost every major destination in the world,” Brezina said.

Frisco City Council approved the deal in December 2018, he said. Still, the development nearly cratered, said PGA Northern Texas Section CEO Mark Harrison, who helped shepherd the headquarters move to Texas. He told D Magazine that the deal “died hundreds of times” in the intervening years from personality conflicts, land issues and other obstacles. Local women’s golf champion Pat Taylor made a behind-the-scenes save, according to D Magazine: Her husband, William Taylor, had spurned multiple previous offers to sell a parcel needed to develop a key stretch of PGA Frisco, but ultimately she convinced him to sell.

Why Mixed-Use Design Makes PGA Frisco a Community Destination

“The reality of what was built is better than the dream that was conceived,” stated Brezina.

The $33.5 million, four-story, 106,622-square-foot PGA of America headquarters opened on 6.2 acres in August 2022 with offices, terraces, meeting rooms and a PGA Professional Development Center, which hosts sessions on golf operations, teaching, coaching and executive management for PGA pros and comes complete with chipping and putting areas, a sand trap, access to the practice range, driving-range simulators and a video room.

Additionally, the PGA Coaching Center, a 100,000-square-foot facility owned by the PGA and open to pros and duffers alike, offers a data-driven coaching, high-tech club fitting, golf-fitness plans and 10 indoor bays/simulators.

The city of Frisco spent $35 million to build out public-facing facilities. Those city-owned components within PGA Frisco are:

• The Swing: a lighted, 10-hole, par 3 course
• The Dance Floor: a two-acre, lighted putting area — believed to be the largest of its kind in the world, Brezina said — where participants pay to play three “courses” totaling 45 holes
• Fields Ranch Clubhouse: a facility for golfers and nongolfers that includes a golf shop, locker facilities and the Ryder Cup Grille

And from the city, Omni leases the land for the 500-key Omni PGA Frisco Resort & Spa, including the two PGA-managed, 18-hole golf courses: the challenging Fields Ranch East and the more forgiving Fields Ranch West.

PGA Frisco’s Role in Building the Fields: A City Within a City

PGA Frisco has helped forge the massive Fields — totaling 10 million square feet of commercial development and 15,000 residences — as a city within the city of Frisco, which itself is one of the U.S.’s fastest growing. Frisco’s population growth has surged from 6,138 in 1990 to nearly 244,000 in 2025, according to the city. And the Fields development, said Brezina, “is likely the largest project like this under construction in the U.S.”

Under construction near PGA Frisco is The Preserve, a luxury, gated community that will be Fields’ “signature” housing development, said Brezina.

Joining it is Fields West. In the core is a 55-acre mixed-use village with 350,000 square feet of retail and restaurants, 1,200 multifamily residences, office and hotel. Proposed in 2015, The Karahan Cos.’ project just secured a $425 million construction loan on July 1. Additionally, the city executed the sale of $70 million of municipal bonds on June 27 to support the project. “I can’t wait to see buildings coming off the ground early this fall,” Karahan said.

MORE FROM C+CT: Karahan Follows Up Legacy West With Fields West

And rising just outside Fields is The Links on PGA Parkway, whose first two phases already have delivered 690 apartments. Another two phases will feature a five-story, 352-unit apartment complex with a freestanding fitness center, co-working lounge and rooftop terrace, plus 815 underground parking spaces. Also in the works just east of PGA Frisco is Firefly Park, a 200-acre public-private venture. When complete, it will include, townhomes, more than 300,000 square feet of multifamily, a 300-room Dream hotel, upscale shopping and dining, a music hall, an outdoor amphitheater and a 40-acre, $30 million greenbelt that runs along a chain of lakes.

Jobs, Tourism and Growth: PGA Frisco’s Economic Impact

PGA Frisco, which employs 1,000 full-time and about 100 part-time workers, was initially projected to generate $2.5 billion in economic impact over 20 years. “That’s probably tracking a lot higher,” said Brezina.

Next summer, those numbers will get an additional boost. The 97-acre, $550 million Universal Kids Resort and adjoining 300-room hotel will open in Fields at the corner of Dallas Parkway and Panther Creek Parkway. Meanwhile, nine FIFA World Cup 26 matches will occur in Frisco in June and July.

And of course, golf will continue to lure plenty of visitors. The PGA has committed to a succession of tour events at PGA Frisco. The KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship occurred at Fields Ranch East in 2023, a PGA Professional Championship utilized both Fields Ranch East and Fields Ranch West, and the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship occurred at Fields Ranch East this year. Still to come are another PGA Professional Championship, plus the PGA Championship in 2027 and again in 2034. The heated Ryder Cup for U.S. and European teams is tentatively pegged to happen there in 2041, though sites have been selected only through 2037, Brezina said, noting: “Fields Ranch East is the first golf course designed and constructed to hold major championships and the Ryder Cup.”