The hot topic as City Park's championship golf course becomes reality is moving the PGA Tour's annual stop in New Orleans, the Zurich Classic, from TPC Louisiana to the new tract. It's a debate that is down the road.
The new course, on which ground was broken Thursday, won't be ready until at least the fall of 2016 and the Zurich is contracted with TPC Louisiana through 2019. The smart money is on the event eventually moving to City Park. Location and a new course are the primary reasons why.
The new City Park course, designed by Rees Jones Inc. and Torre Design Consortium, will be minutes from downtown and certainly more accessible for golf fans on the east bank of Jefferson Parish, Orleans Parish, St. Bernard Parish and St. Tammany Parish.
It's not that TPC Louisiana, located in Avondale, is a bad course. The PGA Tour players rave about it, especially the greens, which they say roll true. To them, that's a big deal, perhaps the biggest.
TPC Louisiana is maturing. Another advantage is the Pete Dye designed course is a good warm-up for The Players Championship, generally played two weeks after the Zurich. TPC Sawgrass, home to the Players in Ponte Verda Beach, Fla., is also a Dye course with similar site lines.
One hurdle for the City Park course is that PGA Tour players aren't crazy about Rees Jones designed courses. That's why the PGA Tour design team was brought in to help draw it up. But there is a lot more to the new course than just what happens seven days out of the year with the Zurich.
This could be a boon for golf in New Orleans and the surrounding region for many reasons. First, it'll be a first-class public course in a fantastic location. New Orleans is obviously a tourist draw and this will give it something else to make people, specifically golfers, want to come here. Imagine being able to go to a convention in the morning, then making the short trip from downtown to play 18 holes on a great course in the afternoon.
When the course is complete, New Orleans will have three first-rate courses, City Park, TPC Louisiana and English Turn, and it becomes a golfing destination.
When you think of Walt Disney World, you think of the four amusement parks that make it up. But there are three outstanding courses there, the Magnolia and the Palm and Lake Buena Vista, which help make it more palatable for golfers with families.
Another possible draw will be hosting all manner of golf tournaments, from junior and regional events, to Louisiana Golf Association state events and United States Golf Association tournaments, which are played at public courses. Getting USGA tournaments would be big for New Orleans. And the USGA prefers tough setups for its events. That's why the U.S. Open is the hardest of the four majors with its tight fairways and high rough. Rees Jones had a hand in the design Medinah, Pinehurst and Congressional, all favorites of the USGA.
City Park will also help grow the game in New Orleans. The First Tee of Greater New Orleans has taken off in the last year since Chip Patterson took over as executive director. Giving him this big new playground will be another tool he can use to not only introduce golf in the city but also advance the cause of First Tee, which is certainly a lot more than golf.
Finally, revenue from the new course will help the Bayou District Foundation, which will manage golf at City Park, in its honorable cause of developing Columbia Parc.
"From our standpoint, we've always approached this as we're looking to build quality golf in the park for the benefit of the park as a revenue generator,'' said Gerard Barousse Jr., chairman of the Bayou District Foundation. "We believe it will be capable of hosting local, regional, national events. Whether that's a U.S. Amateur event, a professional event, but we are really not working toward moving the (Zurich) here. That's really out of our context and not something that plays into the economics of this model.''
City Park's new course could indeed one day be the Zurich Classic's new home. But the bigger story is how much it will improve golf in the city and region.
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