Last year, the PGA Tour made its debut at the Black Desert Resort in St. George, Utah, the final course designed by World Golf Hall of Famer Tom Weiskopf (which was finished off by his architecture partner, Phil Smith).

The course has only been open for two years but has already rocketed to the top of Golfweek’s Best public-access courses in Utah. The layout has quickly climbed the rankings and is No. 1 in Utah on Golfweek’s Best list of public-access courses, No. 26 among all resort courses in the U.S. and No. 81 among all modern courses in the country.

As the Tour prepares to return to the dramatic property, here’s a look at what players said last year, what the ownership group hopes to do with the property, and what Weiskopf’s widow had to say last year at the debut.

The backstory of Black Desert Resort

Smith had seen the site before, while pursuing a job at nearby Entrada Country Club. That job went to another architect, but Smith was able to look a mile or so northwest across the landscape at the then-barren lava field. The site had been the source of speculation and investment for years, but no golf course had been built.

Lava has at times blasted and oozed out of the areas near Ivins — several of which have become national and state parks — for millions of years. The National Park Service reports that the latest volcanic eruption was 32,000 years ago from what is now Snow Canyon State Park, just a couple of miles north of the golf course. The site for Black Desert looks much more like something to be found in Hawaii, minus the ocean views, but with plenty of promise.

When word came that new investors were ready to move on the site, Smith and Weiskopf jumped at the job. Then came the hard part.

Just surveying the site was ankle-breaking work. On several occasions, Smith and Weiskopf walked the site, which was almost all lumpy and sharp lava with just a few trails.

Weiskopf — known as a hands-on architect who would throw himself into his course projects — was 76 years old, but he was determined to keep up.

“We started trekking, and he walked every bit of it with us,” Smith said. “I always credited Tom with his personal attention to projects, which was just not matched as far as many player-architects goes, so I was always able to get a lot of information from him as an architect working with him that was just invaluable for me.”

Knowing there would be lava in play, and knowing that the winds can reach 40 mph on the Black Desert site, Weiskopf and Smith came up with a routing that provided plenty of room to swing away. This serves two purposes: Width provides strategic options for skilled golfers choosing a route to a flag, and it also allows plenty of room to avoid the lava.

“Because we knew you’re pretty much dead outside of the turf, we wanted really wide fairways,” Smith said. “That’s why when you’re out there, you see those really super wide fairways with just a nice band of rough around them.”

Who is the new sponsor at Black Desert?

“After celebrating a successful return to Utah last year, the PGA Tour is pleased to introduce Bank of Utah as title sponsor of our event at Black Desert Resort, which received rave reviews from Tour players and families following the inaugural 2024 tournament,” Tyler Dennis, PGA Tour Chief Competitions Officer, said in a release in July.

“The Bank of Utah Championship is staged in one of the most unique settings found on the PGA Tour schedule, and we are eager to welcome a proud Utah company into the fold ahead of the second rendition later this fall.”

What did Tom Weiskopf’s widow say about Black Desert?

“He would have been just thrilled. Really thrilled,” said Laurie Weiskopf, widow of Tom, during last year’s event. “You know there was talk of a PGA Tour event potentially coming as he was building it, but Tom thought that was super aggressive thinking. It would be a surprise to him that it came in 2024. I’m not saying he’d be shocked, but this would have been a surprise to him.”

While Laurie admired how much love her husband had for each of the courses he designed, and he has over 70 to his name, she also knew his doggedness would make it difficult to slow down as he became more ill. In a famous story, Weiskopf tumbled into the black lava rocks at Black Desert while he was on there putting the project together. Laurie remembers her husband coming with bloodied hands, but he simply wouldn’t stop working on the project.

“The whole thing was scary for me,” she said. “He fell more than once. I sent him out with the best boots, but he came home with blood all over his hands and I had gloves for him the next day. But I knew he wasn’t going to stop. For him, this wasn’t work. Well, most of the projects weren’t work.”