Golf Channel has selected Scottsdale, Ariz., as the backdrop for the 2014 Golf Channel Amateur Tour National Championships, Sept. 8-18, 2014.
The 2014 season’s culminating event for the world’s largest amateur golf tour, the Golf Channel Am Tour National Championships are scheduled to attract more than 1,200 amateur golfers of all ages and skill levels. Participants will qualify via season-long points rankings from their respective local tours.
Hosting the national championships for the first time and often touted as one of the world’s finest golf destinations, Scottsdale boasts more than 200 courses and is home to several professionals on the PGA TOUR and LPGA Tour. Host courses for the 2014 national championships will be Grayhawk Golf Club’s Talon and Raptor Courses and Talking Stick Golf Club’s North and South Courses. Talking Stick Resort – Scottsdale’s premiere resort and casino – will be the host resort and tournament headquarters for the national championships.
“Given the level of enthusiasm that our members exhibit each time they tee it up, we are looking forward to having an exceptional golf destination like Scottsdale as the stage for the 2014 Golf Channel Am Tour National Championships,” said Kenny Booth, senior director of events for Golf Channel. “Grayhawk and Talking Stick Golf Clubs will offer challenging tests for each handicap flight and should present some compelling drama.”
“As a longtime resident of Scottsdale, I am thrilled the Golf Channel Am Tour National Championships will be contested here in 2014,” said Brandel Chamblee, Golf Channel analyst and Scottsdale resident. “Scottsdale is one of the top golf destinations in the world. I’m excited that the participants and their families will have the opportunity to experience the beauty of this city and some of its top golf courses.”
“We look forward to hosting the tournament,” said Joe Shershenovich, director of golf at Grayhawk Golf Club. “The Golf Channel Am Tour is a great way for amateur golfers to test their mettle against hundreds of their peers – something they don’t get to do very often. This is analogous to a major event for them, so we’ll pull out all the stops and treat them to a tournament that is every bit as rewarding as the experience enjoyed by the many professionals who have competed at Grayhawk over the years.”
“We are ecstatic about the opportunity to host the Golf Channel Am Tour National Championships and to have finalists tee it up on our award-winning Coore/Crenshaw designs that were both recently ranked in the top 20 best courses you can play in Arizona by Golfweek,” said Scott Heideman, general manager of Talking Stick Golf Club. “Not only that, but also the national finalists will get to experience all of the luxury and casino excitement of our stunning Talking Stick Resort as well as taking in the sights, attractions and great weather Scottsdale has to offer.”
Host to a long-list of professional events over the years, Grayhawk’s Raptor course (a Tom Fazio design) most notably was home to the Fry’s Electronics Open, a PGA TOUR Fall Series event contested in 2007, which returned to Grayhawk for two more years (2008 and 2009) under its current title, Frys.com Open. Talon and Raptor also have hosted Pro-Am events for the Waste Management Phoenix Open in the past, and both courses made Golf Magazine’s 2012 list of the Best Public Courses in Arizona. Talking Stick Golf Club (a Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw design) was the site of the PGA TOUR’s Q-School in 1998 and 1999 and has since held a number of state and national qualifying events. Talking Stick’s North Course was rated as one of the best public courses in in Arizona by Golf Magazine in 2012.
Following play each day, competitors will retreat to the four-diamond luxury of Talking Stick Resort – Scottsdale’s premiere resort and casino. Throughout competition week the resort will host a number of activities for participants and their families, including welcome dinners, nightly scoring functions and activities for families and spouses during tournament competition.
The 2014 Golf Channel Am Tour National Championships will be divided into two tournaments: the traditional National Championship (below 50 in age), Sept. 8-12, and the Senior National Championship (age 50 and above), Sept. 14-18. The 72-hole event, broken into flights by handicap, will include rounds at Grayhawk’s Talon and Raptor courses and Talking Stick’s North and South courses to ultimately crown individual national champions. The 2013 national championships at PGA West featured the largest field in tournament history, with more than 1,200 participants.
