Tix On Sale • 71st Senior PGA Championship.

By Kim McHugh, Associate Editor

Colorado Golf Club in Parker

I was bummed when The International left the PGA Tour schedule in 2007. So when the announcement was made last year that the 71st Senior PGA Championship was coming to Colorado, there was cause for celebration.

“The PGA of America is truly honored to host a major championship at Colorado Golf Club,” said Championship Director Jeromy Manser. “This venue is a perfect match for our great championship and will provide players from all over the world with a difficult, but fair challenge in 2010.”

How tough is tough?

Invited to play the course as a journalist guest, I had a preview of what the guys will encounter—only their rounds will be considerably tougher.

“Today you played the blue tees, which are the third tees up,” said Mike McGetrick, owner, director of golf and managing partner at CGC. “The tour players are going to play it just under 7,500 yards, so that means of the 18 holes, 10 of them are going to be played all the way back and eight of them are going to be played up, which will make for a great test of golf.”

Fast and furious greens.

McGetrick who’s McGetrick Golf Academy has tutored thousands of students, commented that green speed may be around 11 or 11.5 on the Stimpmeter. Translation: marbles-on-glass fast.

“Tony Hartstock (course superintendent) is pulling the fairways in and the rough right now is about two inches,” added McGetrick. “The first cut will be at two and a half inches, the primary rough will go to four inches and then the native will be what the native is.”

Translation: don’t miss the fairways.

Expect big galleries.

“At the U.S. Senior Open in 2008, Thursday attendance was around 18,000, Friday near 20,000, Saturday around 25,000 and Sunday some 30,000,” commented Douglas Habgood, former director, now executive director of the 2011 Women’s Open Championship at The Broadmoor. “Colorado is a very supportive market for a spectator golf event.”

Habgood, who was also the director of the 2005 U.S. Women’s Open at Cherry Hills, knows that tourneys hosted in Colorado draw significant interest.

Tickets selling briskly.

Tickets, which went on sa

le last August for the May 25-30 event at Colorado Golf Club in Parker, are being snapped up quickly, so fans are encouraged to purchase tickets early as demand is expected to be extremely high.

“Sales of tickets and hospitality are strong," explained Manser. "It helps when you have new stars like Fred Couples and Corey Pavin making their Senior major championship debut."

To purchase daily and weekly ticket packages log on to www.PGA.com, call the PGA Ticketing Center at (800) PGA-GOLF (742-4653), or visit a TicketsWest outlet located at 115 King Soopers in the Rocky Mountain region.