The new darling of the already strong Southern Utah golf scene, Black Desert takes desert golf to a new extreme with Tom Weiskopf’s final design. The course was completed and opened for preview play in 2023 and features bright green fairways through a large, ancient lava field framed by the beautiful red sandstone cliffs and snow-capped mountains. The visuals that the course presents are truly one-of-a-kind and are one of the most picturesque settings one can experience.
Part of a sprawling $2 billion resort, the course immediately won favour with professional golf tours hosting the Black Desert Championship in 2024 as part of the PGA Tour’s Fedex Fall Series ending a 60 year drought of PGA Tour golf in the Beehive State. The LPGA will make their debut at the resort in May of 2025.
The design itself is of extremely modern golf architecture with the 18-hole layout stretching to 7417 yards from the Tournament tees. A short par-3 19th hole is also included in similar vane to the island green of the 19th hole at Payne’s Valley. The rolling ground upon which the course is built gives links-y vibes wherein sand dunes are replaced with razor sharp lava rock that effectively plays as a lost ball hazard on every hole.
The routing opens with an uphill, par-4 to an elevated green, giving a panoramic view of the red cliffs and the surrounding valley below. The generous fairway and open-fronted green serves as a good handshake hole to get your round started through a very strong opening stretch of holes.
The second, another par-4, introduces an obscured tee shot that is featured multiple times throughout the remainder of the round. An elevated tee box requires a committed line over a ridge of lava rock on the right to the fairway 50ft below. A large lava pit jutting into the right portion of the fairway frames a distinct landing area that often requires less than driver from the tee. The green complex on the second is nestled into a corner of the lava rock ridge and shares its putting surface with the par-3 eighth.
Continuing that strong opening stretch is the par-3 third. The mid length hole emulates the sixth at Riviera with a bunker in the middle of the green accompanied by a larger bunker short of the tiered putting surface.
The first of two drivable par-4’s, the fifth gives golfers two distinct options from the teeing ground. A risky option going for the green requires navigating another ridgeline of lava rock right and multiple rock features and bunker short left, while the layup serves up a welcoming, flat fairway to hit approaches to the guarded putting surface.
Moving to the second nine of the routing, the par-4 eleventh utilises the most extreme elevation on property to create a speed slot for the longer hitters as the fairway drops to the lower portion of the property. The greensite at the eleventh is heavily guarded with a small bunker and retention pond guarding the right side of the green and two more bunkers long to keep balls from bounding into surrounding rock formations.
The fourteenth is the second of the two drivable par-4’s on property playing uphill 326yds from the back tees. The green complex is inset into a lava formation with two bunkers flanking short of the green and long of the bailout area. The hole serves as an inviting scoring opportunity for longer hitters.
The final highlight hole comes in the par-3 seventeenth built as an imitation of the Postage Stamp hole at Royal Troon where Weiskopf won his Open Championship according to the designer. The hole plays only 151yds from the Tournament tees to a small undulating green, but is missing the iconic dune left of the putting surface.
