It’s been a long time coming for Tiger Woods Design. After several golf courses and designs that he started fell through during the financial crisis (South Carolina, Middle East), Tiger Woods’ first golf course, El Cardonal at Diamante, opened this past week in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Influenced by the old-style courses of Southern California that he grew up playing, Tiger’s vision is to create a course that brings back the need for strategy — with several options to navigate each hole. As you can imagine, the course will challenge expert players, but it will also provide options for those with higher handicaps as well. It will truly be accessible and fun for golfers of all skill levels.
El Cardonal features generous fairways, large greens and focuses on playability for golfers of all skill levels. It starts gently with the first three holes wandering through natural sand dunes, then transitions into what Woods called “the meat of the course,” where the layout plays over and around arroyos and showcases native cacti.
It definitely looks like a great golf course and the fact that it can play so many ways and is accessible to golfers of all levels is a great way to grow the sport. Tiger Woods Design is getting busy already – the company has been signed to build another cours, tentatively called the Oasis, within the Diamante resort, which also includes the highly regarded Davis Love III-designed Dunes Course.
In addition to this, Tiger Woods will design the new 18-hole championship golf course in Dubai to be built by luxury real estate developers, DAMAC Properties and operated by The Trump Organization (Trump World Golf Club). And soon, his first golf course in the USA will be opening as well in Montgomery, Texas at Bluejack National. In the video above, watch as Tiger Woods talks with Bob Harig about designing El Cardonal at Diamante.
Source: ESPN Golf
