Last year, Jesse Muller won the Walter Hagen Cup at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa. Whereas many major USGA events are contested on private courses, the PGA Professional Championship - featuring all of the best 'club pros' from around the country - regularly visits compelling public playgrounds. Golf Channel will televise coverage for two hours each day. It is being hosted April 30-May 3 by Twin Warriors Golf Club and the 27-hole Santa Ana Golf Club, two nice resort courses 25 minutes north of Albuquerque, New Mexico. This year's PGA Professional Championship - known for years as the 'national club pro championship' - is another. The Western Intercollegiate at Pasatiempo, the week after The Masters at the famous Alister MacKenzie course in Santa Cruz, Calif., is one. If you're a savvy golf traveler, or golf course architecture fan, there are certain tournaments on TV where it's just as important to see the course as it is to watch who's playing it. This year's championship, run by the PGA of America, is a little bit of an exception. You'll enjoy a 27-hole championship links-style golf course, five sets of tees on every hole, play from 5,500 yards to 7,400 yards (depending on which tee you play from), a 22,000-square-foot Club House, eight lakes, a full-service Pro Shop, excellent practice facilities, hospitality quarters, and a four-star restaurant, a casual bar and grille.Normally, the PGA Professional Championship isn't much more than a blip on a crowded professional TV golf calendar dominated by the PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions and LPGA Tour, plus all their majors.

'The New York Times' calls Santa Ana 'one of America's three best true links-style golf courses.' The course follows in the tradition of golf's first and finest links-style courses and was highly rated by both Golf Week and Golf Digest. The Santa Ana Golf Club offers golf the way it was meant to be played. Designed and developed with meticulous care and cultural sensitivity, the Twin Warriors Golf Club offers both the championship golfer and the resort-style golfer a unique high-desert golfing experience. Today, this sacred area borders one of the Southwest's finest golf courses.

The people of Santa Ana believe the Twin Warriors showed them the path to the Upper World along the banks of the Rio Grande. As sister courses, these two gems offer a rare opportunity to play two of the best while remaining in the desert retreat of Albuquerque.

Both golf courses are ranked within the Top 100 Public Golf Courses by Golf Digest. Play the legend that is Twin Warriors Golf Club and conquer the tribute to tradition that is Santa Ana Golf Club. Two of the Southwest's most prestigious golf facilities beckon you.

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