The less than 7,000-metre long course at the Delhi Golf Club in India held its own last week against players like Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy and several other big-faced names. When the dust settled on the DP World India Championship, Fleetwood had the upper hand with a 72-hole score of 22 under, but McIlroy could only manage 11 under, American Ryder Cupper Ben Griffin finished at nine under and 54 of the players who missed the cut failed to break par. The main defense of Delhi’s rankings: trees, which pinched every landing zone and made many pros think about hitting not only the driver but every other class of wood.
Now, a week later and half a world away from New Delhi, there’s a different kind of threat on the minds of many of the world’s best players: lava.
More specifically, black lava rock, as in the hardened magma that frames the holes of the Black Desert Golf Course in Ivins, Utah, the direct Golden Tee site of this week’s PGA Tour event, the Bank of Utah Championship. The lava is visually appealing and contrasts beautifully with the green fairways, but players still go to great lengths to ensure they can only admire the volcanic flood from afar.
“One bad swing is an instant re-tee,” Jesper Svensson said Thursday after a six-birdie six-under 65 that didn’t feature a single bad swing — or at least none that got him a re-tee.
Svensson, who is Swedish, grabbed a share of the early clubhouse lead with another Scandinavian, Thorbjorn Oleson of Denmark, who also minced no words in identifying Black Desert’s particular challenge after his own opening 65. “If you go off the fairway, you’re in big trouble,” Oleson said. “It does take some discipline.”
To be clear, the late Tom Weiskopf, who designed the course with his partner Phil Smith, was not a masochist; the fairways are generous, so there is room to miss. They’re really bad misses that players should avoid: big blocks, pulls, and other loose swings of that nature.
Taylor Montogomery learned that the hard way Thursday when he pushed his first swing of the day into the lava to the right of the first fairway. Reload. Double bogey. Ditto Will Gordon in the opener, all he could do was a triple. Lanto Griffin missed the right fairway on his second hole of the day – the par-4 11th. Tee again. Triple.
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The ball-consuming rockscape would not have been a surprise to the field players who played this event a year ago when Black Desert, which opened in 2022, made its PGA Tour hosting debut. Among that crop was Utah native Zac Blair, who said earlier this week: “Once you get off the fairway, it’s pretty much a lost ball in a lot of scenarios. I think I saw the stat last year of most penalty shots, or whatever it was.”
In fact, Black Desert didn’t generate the most penalties among the Tour’s host venues in 2024. That distinction went to TPC Twin Cities, home of the 3M Open, which racked up a whopping 344 penalties, according to data the PGA Tour provided to GOLF.com. Next on the list was PGA National (Champion Course), which dished out 279 penalties at the 2024 Cognizant Classic, followed by the Players Championship site, the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, where the field dished out 253 penalties. Fourth on the list, at 236: yes, Black Desert.
But the thing is, on the three courses before Black Desert, players have to deal with a wealth of water hazards, especially at TPC Twin Cities, which has 27 bodies of water touching 15 holes. PGA National and TPC Sawgrass are also dotted with water. At Black Desert, water only comes into play on three holes, meaning most of the penalties come not from drownings but from disappearances in the steep magma.
Alex Noren shot a neat four-under 67 on Thursday, but he is still acutely aware of the devastation the Black Desert can wreak. Earlier this week, he described the course’s primary defense as “probably the toughest punishment you’ve ever seen.”
The first round of the Bank of Utah Championship was suspended due to darkness. Play resumes Friday at 8 a.m. local time.
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