Source: The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.)
If updating the courses in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic is a battle of respecting tradition versus looking toward the future, the PGA Tour is firmly behind embracing the future.
"If you don't change, you are not improving," said Henry Hughes, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the PGA Tour. "We applaud the tournament for taking a very significant step here, to leave tradition in favor of being able to grow the game and grow the charitable aspect of the event."
Hughes and officials of the Hope tournament got a glimpse of the event's future Monday during a tour of the Classic Course at NorthStar, now under construction but already secured a spot in the 2006 Classic. The Arnold Palmer-designed course, a gift to the Classic from the philanthropic H.N. and Francis C. Berger Foundation, should give the Classic a perpetual source of funds for its charities. The course also could become a high-profile public-access course to enhance the desert's already rich golf image.
"This course has a very good possibility of being rated the best new public course in America," said John Foster of the Classic's executive board. "I think that in the next 10 years, this might be a top-100 course in the United States."
New Hope courses public
Along with the soon-to-open SilverRock Resort in La Quinta, the NorthStar course will give the Hope tournament two new courses for its four-course event next year. Each course will be open to public play, a significant change for a tournament that has been played almost exclusively on private golf courses built in the 1950s.
The planning and construction of NorthStar, set to open in the fall of 2005, has been a collaboration between the Palm Desert-based Berger Foundation, Hope officials, the PGA Tour and architects from Palmer Design. Even with a PGA Tour event in its future, the design had to be mindful that the Classic will be on the course just one week a year.
"You have to make it fun and user-friendly for the people to just come in and have a good time," said Vicki Martz, lead designer at the NorthStar project for Palmer Design. "But it really needs to meet the expectation of the tour player today."
The NorthStar course will be able to stretch to just over 7,500 yards, more than 400 yards longer than any current Classic course. Another important element will be open space for fans, parking as well as hospitality and television tents - areas the Classic has struggled with as the older, private clubs have filled in empty areas with homes and other development.
"Our concern in trying to do a better job is being able to move crowds, get bigger crowds to where they can have a very enjoyable experience, where they are not just shoved into a small area," Foster said. "This course will have a lot of expanse where you could have a picnic on a hole and watch the golf."
Donation may up donations
NorthStar's impact on the desert changed when the board of the Berger Foundation, which wanted to use the course to raise funds for desert charities the foundation supported, decided to simply give the 220-acre course to the Classic, which is also a non-profit organization.
"We're just happy to be partners of the Berger Foundation," Foster said. "We both have the same ideals and goodness in our hearts, I hope, to help the kids in this community," Foster said.
"This gives (the tournament) a year-round presence where they can promote the tournament and promote golf in the valley," Hughes said.
Classic officials believe their charity donations will jump next year with the revenue from NorthStar, for which the Classic will have no debt, and contract payments from the city of La Quinta for SilverRock. The Classic has donated more than $40 million to desert charities since 1960, including $1.5 million each of the last seven years.
"That's the kind of thing our tournaments have to consider all of the time, how do we stay at the head of the competitive marketplace," Hughes said. "These two golf courses, and this one in particular, are really going to add to that for the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic."