Special Places - TPC Summerlin

With the nerves beginning to jangle for the players hovering around 125 on the Money List as they battle to retain playing privileges on next year’s PGA Tour, focus shifts to TPC Summerlin and the predictably hot and sunny weather of Las Vegas, Nevada for the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

The TPC (Tournament Players’ Club) network was created to provide superlative venues to host PGA Tour events, and to give ordinary fans the opportunity to walk the same fairways as their heroes and play from the same spots they have seen golf history being made. Summerlin is a suburb on the western edge of Las Vegas and the golf club is at the heart of the community. TPC Summerlin is a stadium course purpose built for the PGA Tour in 1991 by golf architect Bobby Weed, with assistance from veteran tour player and two-time major winner Fuzzy Zoeller. The stadium concept is designed to provide golf fans with unrestricted views of tee shots, fairway approaches and putting through strategically placed spectator mounds and natural amphitheatres.

TPC Summerlin is an oasis carved out of rugged desert terrain and features lush bentgrass greens, numerous water features, pine and mesquite trees, and other raw landscape features as the course meanders through arid canyons. Set up as a 6700m par 71, the round begins with a short slightly downhill par 4 that will give up many birdies. Three long and demanding par 4’s follow before the deceptively difficult 175m par 3 fifth which, has never been played under par by any winner in the tournament’s history.

Whilst all the course’s holes have been designed to balance playability with strategy, the closing four holes present a classic risk and reward scenario. The driveable 290m par four 15th has a well bunkered and severely sloping and undulating elevated green that will make an up-and-down for birdie difficult if the tee shot misses the target. The 16th, 17th and 18th are par 5, par 3, and par 4 respectively. All three are potential birdie holes for well-struck, aggressive shots. However, as each green is closely guarded by water, sometimes bogey is a good score.

This visually dramatic and beautiful setting is a challenging and innovative layout that will retain a place in golfing history as it was the scene of Tiger Woods’ first professional victory in 1996.