TPC Las Vegas: A Premier Desert Golf Experience Near the Las Vegas Strip

Next year will mark the 30th anniversary, believe it or not, of Tiger Woods first victory on the PGA Tour.

At just 20 years old, in just his fifth professional event, Woods beat Davis Love III in a playoff to win the Las Vegas Invitational. It happened at TPC Summerlin (a little over 10 miles from the Las Vegas Strip) in a Las Vegas community that combines some rich PGA Tour history with public golf experiences that truly embrace the Vegas brand.

That includes golf under the lights at nearby Angel Park, where a 12-hole short course is converted to nine holes after the sun goes down. It also includes TPC Las Vegas, which sits just over a mile from TPC Summerlin on the other side of parkway, as one of the best public resort offerings Sin City has to offer.

The TPC (Tournament Players Club) Network is an elite list of over 30 courses owned and operated by the PGA Tour. Only about half are available for public play including the TPC Las Vegas which features arroyos and barrancas, bouldered tee boxes and various other desert landscapes in a stretched out 18-hole routing.

"This was a very difficult golf course to construct," course designer Bobby Weed said in a PGA Tour promotional video for TPC Las Vegas. "This desert is extremely harsh. It's an extremely harsh environment out there. We basically had to blast and dynamite every day and then we would crush that rock and sometimes we would use the boulders to fortify edges, to create lines and angles.

"Every great golf course starts with a great routing plan," he continued. "This particular routing plan was dictated by these natural features."

The course property sits at the base of the Red Rock Canyon mountain range so there is an additional 1,500 feet of altitude from the Strip, thus offering some fantastic views. The layout runs through the Canyon Terrace and Canyon Ridge residential communities and No. 4, a par-5, has the luxurious JW Marriott Resort as a backdrop. The Resort also can be seen nearly two miles away on the course from the 14th and 15th holes.

Outside of its natural desert features, TPC Las Vegas is defined by some uncommon movement in a few fairways and bunkering which will affect where a player intends to land a shot. Tour-level greens are supported by many pinnable sections. Most of the greens have chipping surrounds and few even have sharp drop-offs which make for difficult up-and-down shots. Bunker placement plays its biggest factor on some of the short par-4s and par-5s. Most of the bigger forced carries on the course are limited to the back tees which play modestly at just over 7,000 yards (par 71).

The best stretch on the course might be holes 12-15. Hole 12 is the shortest of the par-3s playing to a peninsula-like green with a ridge running through the middle of it. Hole 13, nicknamed "Death Valley" starts a par-4, par-4 par-5 stretch that is separated by a giant arroyo. This area gives TPC Vegas its "desert elegance" label.

The only water hazard, so to speak, on the course separates the 10th and 18th holes. On the finisher, it protects the left side of the green and the approach shot. On No. 10 it really only comes into play for the tee shot from the back tees, which were more designed for the Tour events the course has held.

PGA Tour legend Ray Floyd was a consultant on the design at TPC Las Vegas. He has won PGA Tour Champions events in Las Vegas including the Wendy's Champions Skins game. The TPC has hosted the professional Tours going back to the 1990s including the Las Vegas Senior Classic. Major champions Jim Furyk and Hale Irwin have won there.