TPC Scottsdale — Stadium Course

TPC Scottsdale Stadium is Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish's 1986 design, host of the WM Phoenix Open since 1987 and home to the loudest, most heavily attended event on the PGA Tour calendar. During tournament week, roughly 700,000 spectators pass through across seven days. The par-3 16th, played to a green enclosed by temporary grandstands seating 20,000, is the only fully enclosed hole on the PGA Tour. It is also the most recognised par 3 in American tournament golf for reasons that have nothing to do with architecture and everything to do with atmosphere.

When you play the Stadium outside tournament week, the experience is fundamentally different. The grandstands are gone. The desert is quiet. The 16th plays as a straightforward par 3 of roughly 160 yards to a green that, without the noise, reveals itself as well-defended but unremarkable. You'll be playing the same hole that produced Phil Mickelson's 2024 ace and Sam Ryder's in 2022, but you'll do it in silence with the Sonoran Desert stretching to the mountains. The contrast is part of what makes the round memorable.

The rest of the course deserves more attention than the 16th's celebrity tends to allow. Weiskopf and Morrish designed a layout that rewards positioning over distance. The par 4s place a premium on finding specific sectors of the fairway to open up approach angles. The 15th, doglegging around a lake, is the most strategically demanding hole and the one that tends to decide professional tournaments. Drive to the correct side and the approach is manageable. Chase distance from the wrong angle and you face a carry over water to a shallow green.

The desert landscape is present but not overwhelming. Unlike the more dramatic target-golf courses farther north, the Stadium was designed for televised tournament play, which means wide fairways, accessible greens, and enough room for gallery movement. First-time desert golfers wary of forced carries will find this more forgiving than Troon North or We-Ko-Pa.