ELMSFORD, N.Y. - The 96^th PGA Championship heads to Louisville, Ky.,  August 7-10 at Valhalla Golf Club for the third time and a few of the best Met Area local club pros earned their way into the field. It will be one of the strongest PGA Championship fields in recent memory as it features 29 major champions and barring any withdraws, for the first time in major championship history every player ranked in the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking will play for the Wanamaker Trophy.

 Leading the way for the Met Area is Frank Esposito of Florham Park, N.J. Esposito, the Head Professional at Brooklake, will be making his second PGA Championship appearance, his last coming in 2008 at Oakland Hills where he failed to make the cut. The 51-year-old earned his spot in the PGA after finishing in the top-20 at the PGA Professional National Championship in Myrtle Beach, S.C. this past June. Not only did he finish in the top 20, but he finished in solo 4^th, two shots away from the winner.  Esposito has had an unbelievable past few seasons, including three wins in 2014 alone. He won the NJPGA/NJSGA Senior Open, the NJPGA Head Pro Championship, and the NJPGA Match Play Championship, and that’s not to mention his tied for second finish at the NJ State Open in July at Essex County. The two-time NJ State Open Champion hopes to keep the hot streak going heading into Valhalla, where he will be one of the 20 club pros who earned their way in at the PGA PNC hoping to shock the golfing world.

Also from New Jersey, and earning his way into the field via his top-20 finish at the PGA PNC, is Jim McGovern of Oradell, N.J. The Head Pro at White Beeches finished tied for 16^th in Myrtle Beach at the PNC and will be making his fifth PGA Championship appearance and first since the first time the event was at Valhalla in 1996. McGovern’s best PGA finish came in 1993 at Inverness Club when he tied for 22^nd. The former Met Open and Met Amateur Champion has had a pretty solid summer so far, with a tied for fourth finish at the NJ State Open Championship and a tied for ninth finish at the NJ PGA Head Pro Championship.

The last and third local who is off to Kentucky is Rob Corcoran of Bridgehampton, N.Y. Corcoran works at the Poxabogue Golf Center as a PGA Professional and it his tied for twelfth finish at the PGA PNC that punched his ticket to Valhalla. First Corcoran had to earn a spot in the PNC, which he did by shooting a 61 in the second round of the 2013 Met PGA Professional Championship at Rockland County, setting a new course record (he finished T-2^nd). This summer his best finish came recently at the Met PGA New York State Open, where he tied for fourth at Bethpage Black.

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