Southwest: Pegging the Meter

by Ken Van Vechten

You'll Hear the Roar, Too, Even If It's Just Your Foursome

Andrew Magee drove the par-4 17th and chalked up a hole in one using Tom Byrum’s putter.

I’ve driven the par-4 17th green, too.

During the 2001 Phoenix Open (now known as the FBR), Magee hit the 332-yarder with a group on the green. His drive tinked off Byrum’s putter and rolled into the hole for that ultimate rarity in the game, a double-eagle ace. When I reached the 292-yarder last summer (blue tees, thank you very much), only a few ducks were on the green, and all were too disinterested to offer up a webbed assist, so it was up to me to decisively roll my third put into the hole for that rarity on my card, a par.

That is why Magee has four PGA Tour trophies in his office — or wherever he keeps such things — and I have, hmm, ah, yes, four awards for supposed writing excellence in my office.

Scottsdale’s Tournament Players Club oozes great golf tales. How could it not? The Stadium Course is the 20-year host of the Tour’s equivalent of a World Cup soccer match, the type of athletic event that’s almost overshadowed by the sheer number of its fans and notably their antics. The play has been memorable: Magee’s ace; young Tiger Woods’ own ace on the par-3 16th; the gallery assist Woods received on that little moveable obstruction; Phil Mickelson escaping the desert seemingly every year and winning twice; the 60s both Mickelson and three-time champ Mark Calcavecchia have posted. Plus, this joint is public, so all of us have goat vs. glory opportunities galore. And there’s a second course that is about as underappreciated as any sibling could be, except by those in the know.

Like Augusta before 18-hole coverage, most fans know the Stadium Course for its inward nine, where the holes that get most of the airtime are the most dramatic on the course, which just further rivets the scene into the gray matter. I last played the course flip-flopped, starting on 10 and concluding on nine, and a seven-stroke differential shows the hazard in thinking too far ahead, or in my case too far behind.

Bad course management exacerbated the situation, as on the par-4 No. 1 with the seemingly rainforest-dense canopy of mesquites that in nature couldn’t possibly grow like that. Normally 366 yards from the “championship” or blue tees (6,508 yards total), the markers were way up, and like an idiot, I tried to carry the desert that divides fairway from green approach, and I ended up getting an earlier-than-usual look at two. And so it went.

If you’re not a guest of the resort, make sure you check out the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess as you play nos. 4 and 5. Whether vaguely Moorish or Arabesque in design — I majored in American history, not architecture — the resort is both stunning and warm, even if done up in a shade of pink straight from the Barbie collection. It’s a welcoming place to find yourself between rounds and a sure-fire way to ensure that you’ll get in 36 as any needs of a non-playing significant other will be graciously and smoothly handled. The resort is pretty big by desert resort standards — 600-plus rooms, suites and casitas — even if but half a wing of a typical Vegas monolith. Because of its relative size, the Princess accommodates a lot of business and meeting groups, yet it doesn’t suffer one iota in the romance quotient. The folks at AAA make it a Five Diamond recipient with the regularity of Santa Claus’ visits.

One course trait that’s easily betrayed through the first nine is the hazard in biting off more than you can chew. From the “TPC tee” tips, three 4-pars exceed 450 yards. The average distance saved when moving forward one green pad is about 40 yards. The gap is 65 yards per hole on average if the regular tees are played. Both those numbers hold true all the way around. That the spacing isn’t as great on 3-pars gives more quarter on the multi-shot holes, and at times I actually found myself in the fairway with the same yardage to the green as the guys with the pressed slacks. Any similarities typically ended there.

Another characteristic of the course comes to the fore early on, and that’s little in the way of forced carries, save an island green (but that’s a par 5 and most of us should be thinking wedge third not two-iron second, so it doesn’t count). Evidence of Sonoran landscaping abounds, in a highly manicured way, and it’s best not to try the low-and-roll approach, yet there is none of the connect-the-dots effect of the big, bad — insert reverberating voice from above — desert … target … courses.

I’m as guilty as the network guys, for when Tom Weiskopf and Jay Moorish put mechanical pencil to paper and blade to desert, it resulted in a closing nine that to my way of thinking is all game, whether the reward is seven figures, a Bass Ale or a rapturous raspberry on 16. During tournament play, nearly 170,000 spectators come through the gates, and that’s just the busiest day. For the week, more than a half-million show up, souse up and speak up; OK, perhaps every last one isn’t blotto. And most are clustered toward the end of the track, where pretty much every attribute you’d want to see come into play on trophy Sunday is on hand. (Right now I’d like to pause to put in a plug for the water-left, bend-right par-4 11th, which even for us plays 440 yards, and the peninsular 170-yard 12th.)

Most fans know the rest of the story:

Number 15 is an easy-to-reach, risk-reward par 5 with lake all the way down the left and the previously mentioned island green.

Sixteen is where the screaming hordes camp out. Thousands and thousands and thousands of ’em, times some large multiplier, and the shift in barometric pressure they unleash when all lungs unite as one is the only thing that can explain how such a benign-by-the-stats hole — easiest on the back side, only 162 yards from the TPC tees — can be so tortuous to the pros.

Iron-wedge-putter or driver-putter is the question at No. 17, the golfing equivalent of baseball’s can of corn, the sure-thing birdie that like the every-once-in-a-while fly ball isn’t so routine. If the hole is burrowed into the back tier of the green, with the water tucked in close on the left and the bunker snuggling up even tighter on the right, remember to leave the driving to someone else, and in my case, the putting, too.

And No. 18, where a long carry over water, fairway-crimping bunkers and a multi-level boomerang green with sand in the kink put a lot of fire into a hole that on paper looks rather tepid with a span at its greatest of 440 yards. If no one’s dusting your bumper, stop and play this one from the backs, after a swig of Pepto.

Amen Corner gets 80 percent of the press yet not a hole at Augusta is forsaken, so exclaiming “what a finish!” is no slight to TPC.

And that’s what our entire throng did — all four of us — the din certainly audible to the two rabbits noshing over by our carts. FG

TPC of Scottsdale

Scottsdale, Ariz.  |  888.400.4001  |  www.tpc.com/daily/scottsdale
The aptly-named Stadium Course is the longtime home to the PGA Tour’s FBR Open, the most raucous, well-attended event on Tour. While none of us has to play the par-3 16th with tens of thousands of salacious, screaming fans ready with a hardy cheer for a shot well-played or an even more hardy boo for a green missed or bunker found, it’s always a kick to play where the pros go. The lesser-known Desert Course looks like an arboretum and is one of Greater Phoenix’s best value plays. 

Stadium Course
Par: 72
Yardage: 7,216
Rates: $88.50 (seasonal)
TPC is offering an $85 summertime 36-hole-plus-lunch special Sundays through Fridays, non-holidays. The morning round is on the Desert Course with the afternoon on the Stadium Course. The special rate is only available by calling in, not online.
Desert Course
Par: 70
Yardage: 6,423
Rates: $45 to ride, $23 to walk.
For all the hype rightfully accorded the Stadium Course, the Desert Course requites itself very well and very uniquely. Three attributes make this course a winner. First, value; with a high-season rate of $60 when the Stadium asks $238 and others around here a lot more, it defines bargain. Second, despite the length, there is no hit-and-giggle allowance. Third, it’s just flat-out pretty, from all the cottonwoods and mesquites and flowering shrubs to the views toward the McDowell Mountains that the spectator mounding across the street doesn’t allow.