The most noticeable change to the upcoming WM Phoenix Open, tournament chairman Matt Mooney said Wednesday, is the new entrance gate to TPC Scottsdale that will be set up at Greenway-Hayden Loop just past the Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard intersection.
The gate will not open at exactly the same time as the main entrance to the tournament, but it should alleviate the foot traffic that became an issue during the rain and foul weather that hampered the experience for everyone at the Open in February of this year.
“We’ll still have the main entrance and so everyone who comes in on a shuttle or parks will still go through that main entrance,” Mooney said from the WM Phoenix Tee-off Luncheon at Chase Field. “But to have this new entrance that essentially drops you off right at the 18th tee, one of the most amazing views on the course is above the 18th hole looking down at 17 and 16.
“And so one of the things that we’ve been planning for is how do we account for the fact that we think everybody is going to come in and want to take a selfie or a picture to look at that background, because it is really incredible.”
The new entrance gate is among the improvements for the 2025 WM Open. The trouble at the 2024 tournament, largely due to weather, included overflow crowds, a lack of space on the cart paths and walkways, closed parking lots due to flooding, and players complaining about fans — intoxicated or not — being too close to the action.
In the end, conversations with players, primary sponsor Waste Management and the city of Scottsdale didn’t bring about change to the nature of the tournament, only some adjustments to the course infrastructure.
Mooney and Thunderbirds executive director Chance Cozby flew to Southern California 36 hours after the 2024 WM Open to meet with members of the PGA Tour Players Advisory Council.
“The thing that we came away with was how much they all love this,” Mooney said. “We were honestly surprised with how little they had in terms of recommendations or tweaks to the event. …
“We want to find the right tweaks. But there’s a reason this has been the five-time tournament of the year in the past decade and is the biggest event on the PGA Tour. So we’re being really mindful not to change that fabric.”
So the Thunderbirds looked to be better, not bigger, in 2025.
Other changes in 2025:
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Removing general admission any-day tickets and having day-specific tickets, allowing organizers to control the crowd exactly to the number each day. “And then by going digital we know that we’re going to be a lot more efficient at our entrance but also have better data about our users and more accountability with each user,” Mooney said.
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Infrastructure changes such as making the Taylor Morrison Fairway House and the Desert Oasis venues on the course open to all attendees. New landscaping on top of some small grassy hills on the course will allow fans to watch multiple holes of golf from a higher vantage point.
Some of those hilltops were roped off in the past, and people used one such hill to form a muddy slide in the rain this year.
The early-morning rush to the stadium hole at 16 will continue to be a staple of the WM Open. Mooney recalls thousands of fans lined up in 38-degree temperatures and rain, ready to make the mad dash.
“People travel from all over the world to do that,” he said. “We love that moment, wouldn’t want to go too far from that.”
Also at Wednesday’s luncheon, the Thunderbirds presented Arizona State men’s golf team member Joséle Ballester with a sponsor’s exemption for the WM Open in 2025. Ballester, of Spain, won the U.S. Amateur tournament this year.
National championship-winning football coach Nick Saban, now a media personality with ESPN, answered questions from Diamondbacks president Derrick Hall on Wednesday. Saban reiterated that ASU running back Cam Skattebo is his favorite college football player, as he said on ESPN’s “College Gameday” last weekend.
Saban said he would pick ASU to beat Iowa State for the Big 12 championship on Saturday’s show, which drew applause from the hundreds seated at the home of the DBacks.
Saban played in the 2024 Pro-Am tournament, calling it one of the most enjoyable events he’s ever been a part of.
“What was interesting is, every SEC fan in that arena made sure I knew they were there,” Saban said, recalling his tee shot at the 16th hole.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: WM Phoenix Open Tee-off Luncheon features Nick Saban, chairman comments
