LOUISVILLE, KY (August 23, 2020) – It is time for Valhalla Golf Club to host its latest professional competition. While it may not carry a worldwide audience like the Ryder Cup or PGA Championship, the Kentucky PGA Professional Championship is as big as it gets for the Membership of the Kentucky Section. Especially when the tournament comes to the site of the 1996, 2000, 2014, and 2024 PGA Championships along with the 2008 Ryder Cup.

There will be 56 players teeing it up tomorrow morning to start the hopeful journey of qualifying for the 2021 PGA Championship. Valhalla is naturally a fitting site to begin the first step of this quest. The top finishers this week will advance to the 2021 PGA Professional Championship which is scheduled to take place in April at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Florida. The low twenty competitors that week will then advance to the 103^rd playing of the PGA Championship which is scheduled for May 20-23 at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course in South Carolina.

This week’s field will play 36 holes of stroke play on the fabled Jack Nicklaus design. Blake Watts, PGA Head Professional at Wildwood Country Club enters the week as the double-defending champion. He won this competition a year ago at Indian Hills Country Club and won the last time the event was held at Valhalla which was in 2016. Those victories account for half of his total Kentucky PGA Professional Championships, having also won in 2010 and 2017. Watts’ bid for a fourth win in five years begins at 11:24 a.m. EDT on Monday. He is one of five past champions in the field, joined by the following players:

• Ralph Landrum, PGA General Manager at World of Golf (9:36) – Winner of the Championship in consecutive years in 1986 and 1987.
• John Bachman, PGA Director of Instruction at Lake Forest Country Club (10:12) – A two-time champion with wins coming in 2012 and 2014.
• Keith Ohr, PGA Head Professional at Lake Forest Country Club (10:24) – Also a two-time victor having won in the opposite years of his Lake Forest counterpart in 2013 and 2015.
• Andrew Stephens, PGA Director of Instruction at Stephens Golf Center (11:36) – The winner in 2018 at Kearney Hill Golf Links.

Golf House Kentucky will have full coverage of the event on its Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages. A live video will be available to view on Facebook when the final group reaches its last hole on Tuesday afternoon. Another live video will become available if a playoff is needed to determine a champion. (NOTE: If the Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Kentucky Mid-Amateur finishes at the same time and could overlap the finish of the Section Championship, the conclusion of the Section Championship will be streamed on Twitter instead.)  Please remember that due to COVID-19, caddies and spectators are prohibited throughout the competition.

Click here for Monday’s tee times

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