PGA West (TPC Stadium)

The toughest of the three public tracks at the PGA West golf complex, Pete and Alice Dye’s TPC Stadium course plays host to the PGA Tour “Q-School” Finals every two years. And such is the scale of the operation at this facility, there are another three 18-hole layouts – designed by Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf – available for private play.

First opened to the golfing public in 1986, the TPC Stadium course was one of the earliest venues for the end of season Skins game – the popular televised 4-ball match that ran for twenty six years – and golfers of a certain vintage might still remember the hole in one that Lee Trevino made in 1987 at the par three 17th, winning a carry-over skin of $175,000.

Water plays a prominent part in proceedings at half the holes on the card, most notably at the 5th to the 7th, around the turn and on the closing two holes. “Alcatraz,” the aforementioned 168-yard 17th, is probably the toughest of all these aquatically-challenged holes as it requires a do or die tee shot to a tiny island green – now where have we seen that sort of Dye feature before?