by Earlier this year, my Fried Egg Golf colleague Matt Rouches and I got to play and photograph Black Desert Resort, the site of this week’s Black Desert Championship on the PGA Tour. Completed in 2023, Black Desert is the final design of Tom Weiskopf, who died at the age of 79 in August 2022. The course rambles through lava fields near the high-desert city of St. George, Utah.
To get ready for this week’s fall-series action, Matt and I traded a few paragraphs about our impressions of this newcomer to the PGA Tour rota.
Garrett: I’ll start with the obvious: television is going to love Black Desert. This place seems to have been built with photography—specifically drone photography—in mind. The contrast of the ink-black lava fields against the bright-green (i.e., heavily watered) fairways makes the golf course immediately legible and appealing to the eye. Then you have the surrounding red-rock foothills, with the snow-capped Pine Valley Mountains in the distance… I mean, it’s a visual feast.
Now, if you’ve ever heard me talk about golf courses, you’ll know that I prefer a tawnier, more rugged look. But that’s just not the game Black Desert is playing. This is premium, high-tech, 21st-century golf—a fitting opening salvo for a planned $2-billion (!) mega-resort.
Matt: Black Desert is certainly as visually stunning as they come, and while you’re right that it will be a television darling, I think there are some things that will turn off the PGA Tour pros playing this week.
To start, blindness and obscured sightlines are ever-present at this golf course. The rugged lava-field site has some fairly dramatic elevation changes, which create a lot of interest for golfers but likely posed some challenges to the architects. Holes like 2, 4, 5, 7, 11, and 14 all have some element of blindness because large lava-rock outcroppings, which couldn’t be easily moved during construction, cut into the fairway or obstruct the view from the tee. I know for a fact that high-level golfers playing for piles of cash don’t like to leave anthing to chance, so I suspect there will be some grumbling about the funkiness of Black Desert’s land.
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Tee shot on No. 11 at Black Desert
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Tee shot on No. 4 at Black Desert
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Tee shot on No. 7 at Black Desert
Another result of the severe terrain is a disjointed and seemingly cart-focused routing. This may also add fuel to the fire of player disapproval. I can’t imagine the on-site fans will be thrilled with the walk, either.
At the same time, Black Desert’s wild land should make for a different and exciting viewing experience for those of us at home.
Garrett: Well, speaking of made-for-TV elements, my second thing to look for at Black Desert is a pair of tricky drivable par 4s, both of which deserve some attention from the telecast. The fifth and 14th holes are highlights on a course that often lacks strategic personality. On the fifth, driving the green requires a precise shot to an angled target benched into a lava ridge. The safest layup spot—the center-left portion of the fairway—leaves a nervy pitch. The 14th hole is less treacherous but just as fun to play. The green sits in an amphitheater of lava, completely blind from the tee, and tends to feed slight misses to the middle. This is an eagle opportunity, and players who merely make par will walk away feeling like they’ve dropped a shot.
Tom Weiskopf was a noted connoisseur of the drivable par 4, and he built a number of effective ones in his career, including the famous 17th at TPC Scottsdale. Watching the action on 5 and 14 at Black Desert this week will be a good opportunity to reflect on his design legacy.
(Sidebar: Matt, you mentioned Black Desert’s “cart-focused” routing. The ultimate example of this is the 14th hole, which is awkwardly offset from both the 13th green and the 15th tee. I wonder how players and fans will negotiate this part of the course. Will there be shuttles?)
Matt: I’m also curious to see the pros play the fifth hole because of its risk-reward nature. Just left of the green is a long lava-rock outcropping. This essentially makes the green a peninsula surrounded by lava rock, with short right being the only bail-out option for players going for the green.
I don’t say this lightly: the lava rock at Black Desert is extremely penal. You can basically chalk it up as a lost ball or unplayable the second your ball crosses over from maintained turf to the jet-black lava. This should create some interesting scenarios and strategy for players to negotiate, especially on holes like No. 5, which appears on the scorecard to be a birdie chance but can easily turn into a bogey with a slight misstep.
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The fifth hole at Black Desert
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The 14th hole at Black Desert
Garrett: Right, and the harshness of the lava-rock penalty could get in the heads of longer players with broad dispersion patterns. We may see shorter hitters thrive here. The tournament course tips out at 7,371 yards—fairly short by PGA Tour standards, especially given the 3,000 feet of elevation—so as long as you stay on grass, you’ll score well. Burly-boy ball speed may not be a prerequisite.
(For a more betting-focused analysis of which players might thrive in Utah, check out this week’s edition of Paulie’s Picks.)
Let’s wrap up with a few words about the finishing trio at Black Desert. The one-two-three punch of a tough par 4, a Postage Stamp-inspired(-ish) par 3, and a gettable par 5 strikes me as solid in theory. Any thoughts about how the holes will actually play?
Matt: While I enjoyed the finishing stretch personally, I think it will be straightforward for the tour pros. The long, uphill 16th is a brute for players like you and me but won’t be much of a challenge for the modern 350-yard-driving pros. If they just keep it between the lava, they will be just fine.
When resort guests arrive at the 17th tee, a Weiskopf narration describing how this short par 3 was inspired by the Postage Stamp at Troon, where he won the Open Championship in 1973, will ring out of the cart’s GPS monitor. But you may not see many similarities between this hole and its supposed inspiration. The green does fall off on three sides and is guarded by a handful of bunkers, but you just can’t compare the natural windswept duneland of Scotland to this manufactured rocky desert. Plus, the Black Desert hole is not nearly as intimidating as the original.
The 18th, on the other hand, should produce some drama. Taking on the lava on the left and carrying a massive diagonal bunker will set up players for a monumental eagle chance and heroic victory on the 72nd hole. I really hope something like this happens.
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The 16th hole at Black Desert
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The 17th hole at Black Desert
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The 18th hole at Black Desert
Garrett: I agree with your critiques of the 16th and 17th holes. They’re photogenic, for sure, but I wish they had more bite.
But hey, at least we’re getting a little spice this week. The PGA Tour’s fall series is stacked with bland courses—Silverado, the Country Club of Jackson, TPC Summerlin, things of that nature. I appreciate that Black Desert brings something different to the table.
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