Black Desert welcomes the PGA Tour back to Utah in stunning fashion – Deseret News

IVINS, Utah – Since it was a television production, the PGA Tour liked the idea of ​​hosting an event at the Black Desert Resort in Ivins because of its on-screen “pop” value: a picturesque black lava field surrounding green fairways , White sand bunkers, all under a blue sky, framed by red desert rocks.

There are so many color schemes here that the producers had a real palette problem in the production booth: which scene to choose, which camera, which angle?

Everything banged.

As owner Patrick Manning tells it, the PGA Tour selected Black Desert for this event before he had even planted grass – it was a stunning scene for television. It was also the last course design by the late Tom Weiskopf.

During Thursday's opening round, the Black Desert Resort and its course delivered, even amid construction around a massive 791-room resort hotel and water park still under construction. 240 of these target guestrooms were sold to owners, 95% of which were added to a rental pool operated by the resort.

While this week's Tour event didn't attract many top names, there were plenty of hungry, if not fearful, players in the 70s, 80s and 100s of the FedEx Cup standings chasing points.

Locally, Mike Weir, former Masters champion, Presidents Cup captain and BYU star, fired 6-under on his front nine to lead nine locals competing in the event. He then went from a T4 down the well with four bogeys before birdieing the final hole and finishing with a 3-under 68.

For St. George native Jay Don Blake, the Black Deseret Championship marked his 500th career start. Blake, a former NCAA champion who played at Utah State University, grew up in the Dixie Downs neighborhood, not far from this spectacular resort and golf course, where he lived in a trailer.

Manning, owner of Greater Zion and Black Desert Resort, surprised Blake with a sponsorship exemption in the final minutes of a tell-all documentary about his life as a St. George legend.

Blake called Thursday's first round an “emotional experience” surrounded by family and friends. “Black Desert” fascinated him from the start.

“When I first came out and played I was pretty impressed with what the golf course offered, the lava rocks and the beautiful green grass and sand traps. I knew in the back of my mind that I grew up right next door.

“It wasn't until I thought about the second time I played that I had a little more time to stand on some of these little peninsulas of lava rock and look a little deeper into the valley where I grew up in a trailer park. And as I stood there, I may have stood on that same peninsula when I was a little kid. I used to come up here in this valley and there was nothing out here except lava rock, sagebrush and a few rabbits that I chased around.”

Blake has his own uniformed army on his first tee, 30 to 40 men wearing tan T-shirts with “Blake's Birdies #500” printed on the back. His wife, Marci, carried his PGA Tour bag, something she had done for him as his caddy on the Nationwide and Senior Tour circuits. When play was suspended for the day, Blake was 3-over after 15 holes.

This is the first PGA Tour event in Utah since the Utah Open Invitational at the country club in 1963, as the Vietnam War was brewing and Dr. Martin Luther King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In that event, former senior tour veteran Bruce Summerhays, father of current BYU women's golf coach Carrie Roberts, was the weak amateur.

Black Desert gave up a course record in the first round when Canadian Adam Svensson shot an 11-under 60. Norwegians Henrik Norlander and Matt McCarty finished the day two shots behind.

As wide as the fairways are and as large as most of the greens are built, there were plenty of problems for some of the leaders, like Harry Hall, who reached his target hole, the par-5 No. 9, and discovered that his approach stuck in there were some sagebrush bushes near lava rocks.

Hall, who was leading at 7 under at the start, spent almost ten minutes deciding whether to move a few stones and play his ball as it lay or take an unplayable two-hitter penalty should shoot at a sandy surface. After lifting three basketball-sized bricks to get a footing, his punch with a sand wedge moved his ball six inches. He then returned to the unplayable penalty shot and blasted his shot 8 feet and made bogey.

Ben Kohls scored the first ace of the tournament at No. 17 when he went 130 yards with a spin-back dunk. He finished at 6 under par. Many players who took too close an approach to this hole ended up watching their ball roll backwards down a hill to a catch area 40 feet from the green.

Weir and former BYU star and Utah Open champion Zac Blair led nine local players in the field with 3-under-par rounds of 68, a tie for 41st. Patrick Fishburn of Ogden shot an even-par 71.

BYU transfer Kihei Akina is in a good position to be the bottom amateur at 2-under after 16 holes since play was suspended due to darkness.