PGA Frisco Disappoints While the PGA Tour Excites

Late June seems like a reasonable time of year for some random musings and ramblings. Plus, after watching the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship last weekend and having visited PGA Frisco, I’ve been sitting on some Fields Ranch East takes that I want to get off my chest.

1. I believe Fields Ranch East at Omni PGA Frisco will go down in the history books as a massive disappointment. At least that’s my expectation. Or, put more mildly, it will represent a huge missed opportunity. Fields Ranch East is a good golf course, but a great modern major championship venue should deliver the following, at minimum:

• Multiple outstanding, iconic golf holes
• An excellent fan experience
• An exciting, dynamic closing stretch

Pete Dye’s creation at TPC Sawgrass is a prime example of a course purpose-built to host one of the biggest tournaments in golf. Dye carved the Stadium Course out of a swamp. Despite the original site not necessarily being perfect grounds for building a golf course, the end result delivered. On top of Dye’s ingenious design, clever usage of moguls both increases the challenge of the golf course and provides ideal vantage points for spectators. The closing stretch is one of the most iconic and entertaining finishes in all of championship golf.

At Fields Ranch East, there are few, if any, outstanding golf holes. I cannot think of a single shot that will heighten fans’ excitement when players step over the ball, like on any hole in Amen Corner at Augusta National or No. 17 at TPC Sawgrass. From a fan experience standpoint, limited shaded areas provide respite from the sweltering Texas heat. Championships are going to be hosted here in May and June?

And for the life of me, I cannot comprehend how, on a golf course built specifically to host major championships, the ninth hole had to be rerouted as the 18th hole last weekend at the Women’s PGA for infrastructural reasons. The project was commissioned with the intent of hosting the biggest events in golf, but it has to be rerouted when the biggest events arrive? How does that happen?

While we’re discussing No. 9, I must challenge the design philosophy behind this hole. The ninth features a centerline bunker with about 20 yards of fairway on either side of the hazard. The tee box is positioned in line with the right side of the fairway, and the hole turns gently to the right once it traverses a penalty hazard about 100 yards from the green. Therefore, going left of the centerline bunker off the tee both requires a more difficult tee shot than aiming down the right, and it lengthens the hole by 10-15 yards.

Why would you go left? To get a better angle? Oh, please. With bunkers surrounding the green, it’s not like going down the left side off the tee gives players the option to bounce one up onto the green versus the right side requiring a forced carry. The shots required from each side are very similar. For an angle to truly matter and be worth pursuing, the required shots need to be dramatically different from each potential option. That is not the case on No. 9.

I would wager just about anything that if you had a Tour pro hit 1,000 shots from the right side and the left side of the fairway, they would not score meaningfully better from the left. For what it’s worth, 18 birdies were made on the championship 18th at the Women’s PGA. Only four came from the left side. Players should not and will not prioritize going down the left side.

Had the Women’s PGA used the standard routing, the closing stretch wouldn’t have been much better. The golf course closes with a fairly nondescript long par 4 (No. 16), a decent short par 3 (No. 17), and an underwhelming par 5 (No. 18). Like most of the golf course, the closing stretch is not egregious nor offensive. Still, nothing about it is spectacular.

Therein lies my problem with Fields Ranch East. We had a rare opportunity to build a modern major championship venue with an enormous budget and a vast blank canvas. Even if the land wasn’t optimal for routing a golf course, I’m puzzled as to how the end product didn’t check more boxes. I want to be clear: this is a good golf course. This is not an abomination. If you get the opportunity to play it, you absolutely should. There’s plenty to like about the golf course, like the seventh hole, which is a strategic and demanding standout short par 4.

However, at the end of the day, Fields Ranch East is a very safe, unremarkable golf course. The menu is solid, and the majority of the dishes are well-executed and enjoyable. But more goes into building a world-class restaurant than pleasant dishes. Fields Ranch East is not a world-class restaurant. And it should’ve aspired to be one of the great restaurants in the world.

It is possible that I will be wrong about this golf course. Gil Hanse deserves the benefit of the doubt, and I don’t want to rush to judgment too quickly. Perhaps when PGA Championships and Ryder Cups visit Fields Ranch East, the golf course will shine in ways I didn’t expect or have gone over my head.

However, everything I’ve seen so far suggests that PGA Frisco will underwhelm as a major championship venue, from how it tests elite golfers to the on-site fan experience and the television product. Given the level of effort and investment involved in this project, if it ends up falling short of serving as a premier venue for the biggest championships in golf…Oof.

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2. If I’m fortunate enough to have kids someday, and if those kids decide to play competitive golf, I may delay giving them a full set of clubs until much later in their journey than is typical.

Appearing on the Shotgun Start last week, Viktor Hovland talked about never being the best junior player in Norway but figuring out how to score and get better. It reminded me of Patrick Reed’s comments from our Q&A back in April, where Reed explained that he had to develop a strong short game because he never hit fairways as a kid.

I’ve been reading through A Life in Golf, a collection of Australian legend Peter Thomson’s thoughts and writings. He writes, “If you’re starting out and you don’t have a full set, don’t feel deprived. You’re learning skills that people with full sets are not learning.”

There’s probably some wisdom in that. Players learn through their struggles, and I can’t imagine there being many benefits to having an optimized bag from the time you’re six years old. What serves a player’s development better in the long run: learning how to hit different shots with limited tools in the bag or winning a one-day tournament in the 12-year-old division at Twin Oaks Golf Club?  

3. The PGA Tour product feels strong right now. Recent data points, like ratings from this past weekend’s Travelers Championship, also suggest that viewers are engaged with the Tour. The hiring of Brian Rolapp as PGA Tour CEO appears to be another promising step for the Tour’s future.

Should sponsor exemptions exist, especially in signature events? No. Would it be nice if the Tour were more global? Yes. On the whole, though, the PGA Tour seems to be in a strong position. There will always be a market for compelling storylines and high-level championship golf, and the Tour’s recent efforts to improve competition have yielded positive results.

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The easiest complaint for people to shout about is that PGA Tour fields should expand. It’s like yelling that the rent is too damn high. However, the part that’s always missing in the pleas for larger fields is an explanation on how it wouldn’t cripple field strength in non-signature events.

A handful of marketable names are showing up at the Rocket Classic this week because they need to stay above the top 50 cutoff in the FedEx Cup standings to earn a spot in signature events next season. The more you expand signature event fields, the fewer reasons top players have to show up to non-signature events. Full, 120-plus player fields in signature events would destroy non-signature events.

I do think there is a good case for expanding signature event fields from 72 to ~90 players, which would restore the significance of making a top-50-and-ties cut without offering so many spots that it would harm non-signature events.

Nonetheless, the energy at PGA Tour HQ seems to be as high as it has been in a long time.

‍This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.