EarthGolf

Updates from all over on the ever changing TPCs.

TPC Avenel

Geoff Shackelford heads off the updates, with the find of Leonard Shapiro’s WaPo coloum on changes being made to Avenel - who hopes to nab Tiger’s event from Congressional. The Tour is sinking some major cash into the deal.

The PGA Tour, Sullivan said, has set the money aside. They’ll pour $8 million into the clubhouse, including expansions to dining areas, upgrading locker rooms and new fixtures and furniture. Another $12 million will go into the course, with what Sullivan described as “significant changes in design of tee boxes, bunkers and green complexes, as well as all new bentgrass on the fairways and greens.”

That’s $12 million into a course that is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Now the $8 million is only 25% of what the Tour dropped on its new digs at Sawgrass last year, but beggars can’t be choosers.

TPC Boston

Following up on the previous updates to the course, the Boston Herald sums up what changes have taken place at the course.

“This was obviously to a great degree, and still is, a modern golf course,” [architect Gil] Hanse said. “We tried to put in some little touches, some little quirks that we think are important parts of playing golf in New England, the things that make playing golf here more fun.”

…

Hanse and his staff worked with Rhode Island tour player Brad Faxon, a budding architect himself. The PGA Tour solicited ideas from the four Deutsche Bank winners, Woods, Olin Browne, Vijay Singh and Adam Scott, and got feedback from all except Singh. Faxon was the liaison with his colleagues. Woods wanted more definition on some of the holes.

Singh didn’t give any feedback? Well, that’s totally understandable - he wouldn’t want to give away any of his design secrets.

TPC Myrtle Beach

This is not nearly as exciting as the other stuff, but TPC Myrtle Beach is closing to have its grassed replaced. Hey - it still counts.

The TPC of Myrtle Beach is closing on June 11 and will be the first Strand course to plant Mini-Verde Bermuda on its greens in place of the current L93 bentgrass. Legends Group will be making other renovations and improvements to all three courses while they are shut down.

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At the TPC, drainage work will continue on holes and compaction areas in bunkers will be repaired while the course is closed. As early as this fall co-owner Chip Smith intends to begin building a 5,000-square-foot teaching, fitness and performance center on the back side of the driving range complete with indoor hitting bays through garage doors, video and computer equipment, and a lounge. An 18,000-square-foot chipping and putting green complex with a bunker will also be built.

TPC Scottsdale

No - not that one. The other TPC Scottsdale where the 16th hole isn’t turned into golf’s version of the running of the bulls. The Desert Course (as opposed to the Ocean Course?) is being renamed the Champions Course.

Long overshadowed by the TPC of Scottsdale’s adjacent Stadium Course, where the FBR Open golf tournament is played, the new Champions Course might give the more famous course some competition, said course designer Randy Heckenkemper.

“Is this still the little sister course?” Heckenkemper asked. “I hope some of you will think this is a better golf course” than the Stadium Course.

Heckenkemper worked with Tom Weiskopf and Jay Moorish on the original designs for both courses.

The course renovations total $10 million - $7 million more than what was spent to build the course 20 years ago. The press release on the changes has some interesting points of interest.

Every hole has been completely redesigned, with an emphasis on holes 1 through 5 and 15 to 18.

What does that mean?

Managed by Pinehurst, North Carolina based Caddie Master, which manages caddie programs at premier golf properties nationwide including TPC Sawgrass and Augusta National, caddies will provide all of the traditional services such as carrying bags, offering shot selection advice, raking bunkers, spotting wayward shots, reading greens, tending pins, cleaning balls and getting yardage, in addition to educating golfers on the history and heritage of golf and the TOUR. Caddies will serve as Storytellers, sharing anecdotes about past competitors and pointing out locations on the course where memorable moments have taken place.

Memorable moments have taken place at the Desert Champions Course? A photo tour of the work in progress - which began in January and is scheduled for completion in November - can be found here.

TPC San Antonio

Set to break ground next month, the Greg Norman designed course - with soon to be son-in-law player consultant Sergio Garcia - is being talked a big game.

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem and his staff, in public and private, have expressed aspirations that the San Antonio project will be a major jewel in the tour’s necklace of luxury complexes strung from coast to coast.

Indeed, the Texas Open, contractually guaranteed to occupy the next prime schedule opening, knows its future is strongly linked with a move to the TPC layouts.

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“The sun will come in from this direction, and the hotel is right there,” Pierret said. “It will be great closing hole for television.”

That’s a prospect sure to tickle Finchem’s ear in coming months, especially as he considers some of the weaker stops on the celebrated FedEx Cup portion of his calendar, including recent disappointments in Irving, Fort Worth and New Orleans.

Taking shots at the fellow Texas stops? And he doesn’t even mention the red headed step child in Atlanta? I wonder what the writer’s definition of “disappointment” is?

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