The post Penalty strokes will be prevalent on PGA Tour this week. Here’s why appeared first on Golf.

The post Penalty strokes will be prevalent on PGA Tour this week. Here’s why appeared first on Golf.

The not-even 7,000-yard course at Delhi Golf Club in India held its own last week against the likes of Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy and several other bold-faced names. When the dust had settled at the DP World India Championship, Fleetwood prevailed with a 72-hole score of 22 under, but McIlroy could manage only 11 under, U.S. Ryder Cupper Ben Griffin finished at nine under and 54 of the players who missed the cut failed to break par. Delhi GC’s primary defense: trees, which pinched every landing zone and made many pros think twice about hitting not only driver but also any other class of lumber.

Now, a week later and half a world from New Delhi, a different kind of threat is in the heads of many of the world’s best players: lava.

More specifically, black lava rock, as in the hardened magma that frames the holes at Black Desert Golf Course in Ivins, Utah, the straight-outta-Golden Tee site of this week’s PGA Tour event, the Bank of Utah Championship. The lava is visually arresting and contrasts beautifully against the verdant fairways, but the players are still doing everything in their power to ensure they admire the volcanic overflow only from afar.

“One bad swing is a re-tee immediately,” Jesper Svensson said Thursday after a six-birdie six-under 65 that featured not a single bad swing — or at least none that had him re-teeing.   

Svensson, who is Swedish, snatched a share of the early clubhouse lead with another Scandinavian, Thorbjorn Oleson of Denmark, who after his own opening 65 likewise did not mince his words when identifying Black Desert’s particular challenge. “If you get off the fairway, you’re in big trouble,” Oleson said. “It does take some discipline.”

To be clear, the late Tom Weiskopf, who designed the course with his partner, Phil Smith, wasn’t a masochist; the fairways are generous so there is room to miss. It’s really bad misses that players need to avoid: big blocks, pull hooks and other loose swings of that nature.

Taylor Montogomery learned that the hard way Thursday when he pushed his first swing of the day into the lava right of the 1st fairway. Reload. Double-bogey. Ditto Will Gordon at the opener, only the best he could do was a triple. Lanto Griffin, on his second hole of the day — the par-4 11th — missed the fairway right. Re-tee. Triple.

The ball-gobbling rockscape would have come as no surprise to those players in the field who played this event a year ago when Black Desert, which opened in 2022, made its PGA Tour hosting debut. Among that crop was Utah native Zac Blair, who said earlier this week: “Once you get off of the fairway, it’s virtually lost ball in a lot of scenarios. I think last year I saw the stat of the most penalty shots or most whatever it was.”

Black Desert did not, in fact, produce the most penalties among the Tour’s 2024 host sites. That distinction went to TPC Twin Cities, home of the 3M Open, which produced a whopping 344 penalties, according to data the PGA Tour provided GOLF.com. Next on the list was PGA National (Champion Course), which doled out 279 penalties at the 2024 Cognizant Classic, followed by the Players Championship site, the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, where the field absorbed 253 penalties. Fourth on the list, at 236: yep, Black Desert.

But here’s the thing: at the three courses ahead of Black Desert, players must contend with a wealth of water hazards, especially at TPC Twin Cities, which has 27 bodies of water that touch 15 holes. PGA National and TPC Sawgrass also are water-strewn. At Black Desert, water comes into play on only three holes, meaning most of those penalties come by way not of drownings but disappearances into the craggy magma.

Alex Noren shot a tidy four-under 67 Thursday, but he’s still quite aware of the havoc Black Desert can wreak. Earlier in the week he described the course’s primary defense as “probably the most penal rough you’ve ever seen.”

The first round of the Bank of Utah Championship was suspended due to darkness. Play will resume Friday at 8 a.m. local time.

The post Penalty strokes will be prevalent on PGA Tour this week. Here’s why appeared first on Golf.

The post How pros are prepping for ‘insane’ lava-rock strewn, high-altitude course appeared first on Golf.

The post How pros are prepping for ‘insane’ lava-rock strewn, high-altitude course appeared first on Golf.

PGA Tour pros are facing a lot of challenges at this week’s Black Desert Championship, which will be the tournament’s debut. From collecting FedEx points for next year, to trying to earn one last big payday, they have their hands full.
 
They also face an obstacle they aren’t used to: playing a new tournament course for the first time.
 
And it isn’t just any old parkland course. Black Desert Resort’s Tom Weiskopf-designed course looks unlike any other course played on Tour. The 18-holer is located in the Utah desert. Fairways and greens are lined with black lava rock, with red mesas surrounding the layout and the snow-covered Rockies looming in the distance.

Travel

Looking for a golf course to play? Try this genius search-and-booking tool

By: Alan Bastable

It’s also a high elevation course, coming in at around 3,000 feet.
 
All of these notable qualities about the course are forcing Tour pros to prepare differently than they usually would, as Patrick Fishburn and Zac Blair explained in their pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday.
 
Blair, who had never played Black Desert before this week despite being from Utah, first noted its stunning beauty.
 
“Obviously really pretty. The scenery out here is pretty insane. I think it’ll look amazing on TV and everything like that,” Blair shared. “Pretty interested to kind of see what the scores are like and what it plays like in tournament conditions.”

Fishburn explained the complications brought on by the course’s high altitude, which the Utah native has experience contending with after growing up in the state.
 
“Playing at altitude is definitely different for sure. I grew up in Ogden [Utah], playing Ogden Country Club, which is probably 4,000 feet elevation and we’re probably 3,000 here. The ball just does different things,” Fishburn said before noting another hurdle to consider: expected high temperatures. “With the heat this week, there is just a lot of different factors. If you’re maybe not used to that it’ll cause a few more calculations going on in the brain, which for me personally, less calculation is better.”

Looking for an affordable golf course near you? Visit our new Course Finder tool and search by price!

Both players also explained that accuracy off the tee will be essential given the challenge presented by the lava rocks strewn everywhere you look on the course. Blair noted that it would likely keep many players from hitting driver off the tee, though not necessarily him due to his lack of distance.
 
“I don’t hit it very far so a lot of people have talked about not being able to hit a lot of drivers,” Blair joked. “I kind of felt like could hit a lot of drivers. I’m the shortest player on the tour, so…”

According to Blair, a shot into the rocks this week essentially equals a lost ball.

“I think just the way all the lava rock is and it’s not hazard, just kind of lost ball, it’s not really like anything else. So it’s kind of some places you might go and might be hazard or you might go to Arizona and hit it in the desert and you can still find it and chip it out,” Blair said. “Here, you’re not going to find it most of the time. Especially in the rocks. So I think it’s very unique, very different. People are all kind of seeing it and learning it for the first time.”

Lifestyle

Black Desert Championship betting guide: 4 picks our expert loves this week

By: Brady Kannon

He continued: “But there is plenty of room to play out there. It’s not like it’s super tight all over the place. They have given us plenty of space to hit driver or anything off the tee. Just got to keep it out of the rocks.”

But Fishburn did mention one advantage newer pros will have this week with everyone playing the course under tournament conditions for the first time, as opposed to most Tour courses that veterans have years of experience playing.

“Playing against guys that have been around these things for 10-, 15-plus years. You know, you try to make up what you can in a few days,” Fishburn said. “So this week coming, haven’t seen the course, played it a few times, feel like it will be a level playing field with that at least. Then playing in Utah, having the experience I do playing in Utah, just hopefully something that that helps me.”

Fans and players alike will get the first look at the tournament-ready Black Desert course when the first group tees off on Thursday at 9:40 a.m. ET.

The post How pros are prepping for ‘insane’ lava-rock strewn, high-altitude course appeared first on Golf.