TULSA, Okla — Southern Hills went from hosting the PGA Championship in 2030 to hosting it this year.
The PGA Championship Director, Bryan Karns, along with other leaders spent the past two years coordinating the event.
At the PGA Championship at Southern Hills in 2007 Bryan Karns was an inter, fifteen years later he's back but this time as the director.
His history with the golf major goes back even further and he told 2 News, "It's a dream come true being here."
“1994 when I was a kid growing up in Stillwater my first major championship was the PGA Championship that year and so for it to be such a significant moment sort of in my growth and my love of the game of golf and then obviously kind of launched my career with the PGA Championship", Karns said.
He said the event has gone as well as they hoped for.
“You get to this day and you feel just incredibly proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish," Karns said.
And it's not just what they accomplish at the event that is making him so proud.
Karns said he is proud to leave a legacy for Tulsa to leverage.
“Having a wildly successful PGA Championship to sort of point to, it's going to get on everyone's radar. All event sizes, all organizations and so I think that’s for me as a native Oklahoman just another benefit to this.”
He anticipates the event could circle back around to Tulsa in about ten years.
“Hard as it is to believe there are places we go, particularly those large metropolitan areas where we don’t have this kind of an impact or we don’t receive the kind of spotlight that we do in Tulsa and it’s been kind of the perfect marriage and there’s certainly been discussions this week about what’s next and I think there’s no question we would love to come back down the road," Karns said.
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