ARLINGTON, Texas -- Tierra Verde Golf Club, the crown jewel of the City of Arlington's four public golf facilities, will host the Texas Public Links Championship, an annual showcase of the state's best male amateur golfers that are not affiliated with private clubs, in June 2010. In the process, the 11-year-old golf club continues taking its rightful place among the best public courses in the state.

The State Public Links will be held June 3-6 and conducted under the auspices of the Texas Golf Association, which was founded more than a century ago as a nonprofit membership organization to promote and advance the game of golf in Texas. The TGA provides a wide range of services for the benefit of its member clubs and their individual members and for all golf enthusiasts across the state.

Holding the event at Tierra Verde Golf Club - which hosted the North Texas Amateur Championship in August and held its own against the region's top amateurs - is a well deserved honor for both the golf course and the City of Arlington, said Bill Brown, the TGA's director of tournaments.

"Tierra Verde has held a handful of qualifier events during the past several years, and the course has always proven to be an ample challenge for the best golfers," Brown said. "The City of Arlington and the staff of Arlington Golf have always gone out of their way to make sure the course is in top shape and to give us the things we need to make those tournaments a success.

"The resilience and challenge of Tierra Verde while under the gun from the best players in North Texas proved it is ready and worthy to hold the Public Links," Brown added.

Tierra Verde Golf Club recently was ranked at No. 80 in the Dallas Morning News' 2009 rankings of Top 100 Golf Courses in Texas. The course, a Graham-Panks International-design that opened in southwest Arlington in 1998, also ranked high in the DMN's specific course categories. Tierra Verde earned kudos as the 25th Best Course in The State that You Can Play (a category for all public, municipal and resort courses) and was named No. 6 on the list for Best High Priced ($55-$75) Courses (up from eighth a year ago).

The latest DMN rankings join past accolades for Tierra Verde Golf Club. The track is a constant honoree on Avid Golfer magazine's Best Public Courses, garnering notice as the Top Mid-Priced Course in the DFW Metroplex in both 2006 and 2007 and finishing second in 2008.

In past years, Tierra Verde Golf Club has hosted such events as qualifiers for the PGA Tour's Byron Nelson Classic, the North Texas PGA Club Professional Championships, and USGA qualifiers, but this year's North Texas Amateur Championship was the first time the course had held such a regional.

"We are honored to be hosting this event and are aware of the service and course conditions that such a championship demands," said Jason Amis, Tierra Verde's head golf professional. "As we strive to have the golf course in the best shape possible at all times, these are events when Tierra Verde can bear its teeth by utilizing faster greens, longer rough and harder pin placements to bring out the best in these top amateur golfers."

Entries for the State Public Links are open to male amateur golfers who are members of the Texas Golf Association, are residents of the state of Texas and have a GHIN Handicap Index of 8.4 or less. Additionally, all applicants must meet the USGA definition of a public golfer (i.e., applicants may not have held privileges of any course that does not extend playing privileges to the general public, or privileges of any private club maintaining its own course as of January 1st of 2010).

About Tierra Verde Golf Club
Seeking to establish a premiere golfing experience with a design sensitive to the environment, Arlington Golf closely partnered with the designers as well as Audubon International to assure that Tierra Verde Golf Club emerged as a spectacular championship facility.

Tierra Verde's 18 holes of fabulous golf are set on gentle, rolling hills and with more than 7,000 yards of golfing terrain, players have an opportunity to use all the clubs in their bag to negotiate the strategically placed bunkers and hazards. The course's environmental design capitalizes on the natural beauty of this largely untouched land, blending native vegetation and rolling design with the beauty of a modern championship golf course.

Through its commitment to environmental preservation, Tierra Verde Golf Club achieved Audubon Signature status in 2000, awarded only to new developments designed and constructed using Audubon International's Principles of Sustainable Resource Management. These principles include wildlife conservation and habitat enhancement, water quality management and conservation, energy efficiency, waste reduction and integrated pest management.

Few golf courses offer the beauty, strategy and variety of Arlington Golf's Tierra Verde Golf Club. This superior course was the recipient of the 2004 Golf Digest Environmental Leaders in Golf Award, which recognizes golf courses worldwide for their environmental excellence.

For more information about Tierra Verde Golf Club, check out the Arlington Golf website at www.arlingtongolf.com.

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