by With Black Desert Golf Course on the PGA Tour schedule this week, Brendan and Joseph sat down to pen a back-and-forth on the suitability of resort courses as professional golf venues.
Brendan: Joseph, the PGA Tour goes to remote St. George, Utah this week for its first event in the state in almost 60 years. Black Desert is a high-cost resort with a ton of money behind it. This is likely why they were able to get on the Tour’s radar and also land a tournament. We’ll set aside some of the merits and analysis of the specific course, which our colleagues who visited the area this year did expertly on Wednesday. But is this a suitable and model way to work around and experiment in the fall for the PGA Tour? Find new corners or less-populated spots—like Jackson, MS, and Utah—and drop in with the b-team for a week? And find resort courses or big money parties willing to pay to host such a b-list event? Is there anything to glean or adapt from this week’s new event schedule-wise?
Joseph: Brendan, with Black Desert joining the schedule this year and El Cardonal at Diamante added last year, my mind goes to the same place. Humor me for a second.
In the modern media landscape, content and distribution are increasingly converging towards being the same thing. The best advertisements are seamlessly integrated into products themselves, largely because the shift to a digital world has made audiences, especially younger ones, expect fewer traditional advertisements. My brain is programmed such that I have completely blocked advertisements out of my consciousness (with the exception of TruGolf, of course). When commercials pop up, my attention immediately diverts elsewhere.
From that standpoint, PGA Tour events at resort courses are a natural fit. These venues are scenic, enjoy favorable weather, and hosting a PGA Tour event functions as an effective advertisement, attracting viewers to come play the golf course. A pro golf tournament hosted on an accessible golf course is simultaneously an entertainment product and an advertisement. I can only imagine how much demand the Pinehurst resort generates each time the U.S. Open returns to No. 2.
For better or for worse, as I think about the future of professional golf, private courses may not be long for the tour golf world. The constant overhead of needing to negotiate contracts with wealthy memberships who may be reluctant to give up their golf course during peak months is neither efficient nor sustainable. Just look at what happened with Austin Country Club and the demise of the Dell Match Play.
I can easily envision a future, 25 years down the line, where the dominant tour hosts tournaments almost exclusively at venues owned by the tour itself, maybe with some resort partnerships sprinkled into the schedule as well. The Players Championship is a wonderful tournament on its own, and it carries the significant additional benefit of generating demand to go play TPC Sawgrass at $1,000 a head. Whether it’s tour-owned properties or resorts, it makes sense to capture some of the value generated by fan interest in a professional golf product. Hosts like the Country Club of Jackson or even Riviera may end up being transitioned out.
So yes, Black Desert is a suitable venue for PGA Tour golf. It’s attractive on television, provides lodging for players, and will generate value by way of the public booking trips to the resort.
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The par-3 third hole at Black Desert Golf Course
Brendan: Woooooooooof. That is a dystopian outlook for most readers of this newsletter and Fried Egg followers. But it seems based in the reality, rather than shouting about “venues matter” and the need to go to elite walled-off American golf courses.
So as much as we decry the TPC Network, is that actually the most workable solution right now? If so, a commitment to better quality TPC courses might be nice but seems like a pipe-dream. Are we in an “it is what it is” scenario?
A next-step impact of this is how dire that must make the options and selection process for the Korn Ferry Tour, where the kids are overpowering everything and basically racing to get to 30-under every week. Andy frequently mentions how this is a less-than-ideal way to prep for the big tour and identify the actual best talents suited for a card and promotion. So we’re not just talking about the 40-plus PGA Tour events, but drilling down on the other tours (shoutout Champs Tour and PJ) that need venues on a regular, if not annual, basis.
Lastly, this really highlights to me the need to knock any rotating championships out of the park, and perhaps add more rotating events if possible. So fine, we may need to concede on Travelers Championship or 3M Open types. But the playoffs must make a better effort to bounce around to better courses, with the promise to a club that you’re hosting only once every decade or so and it’s an elite field. The same goes for the Presidents Cup, which just completely whiffed at Royal Montreal. The elite courses are opening their gates to the USGA cups and other non-recurring events. The PGA Tour may not have that cache with some places, but the once-in-a-generation events and rotating championships must make an effort to break free from the shackles of this either-TPC-or-self-promoting-resort scenario you have laid out.
Joseph: Ha! Admittedly, parts of that didn’t feel amazing to type out, Brendan. But I will push back on the notion that venues mattering and the use of tour-owned golf courses are completely incongruous. That level of skepticism implies zero faith in whoever is running the show, and, to be fair, the PGA Tour has earned that distrust. They botch a lot of what they touch.
However, there are some strong TPC venues–Sawgrass, Scottsdale, and even San Antonio, for example. I have very little faith in the tour’s ability to create compelling venues, but under the right leadership, it is possible. And to your point, rotating to elite golf courses for high-profile events makes all the sense in the world.
This is probably the direction that pro golf should–and inevitably will–go.
This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
