CASTLE PINES, COLORADO | From the first tee at Castle Pines Golf Club, perched approximately 6,400 feet above sea level, the par-5 spills 662 yards downhill, a green sliver of fairway bending gently to the left, but it’s the longer view that is magnetic.
Beyond the flat plains about 25 miles south of Denver, the Rocky Mountains rise in the distance and by afternoon, it’s where the clouds gather and the summer storms can be seen building.
Imagine the hills at Kapalua, the emerald elegance of Augusta National and a heavy dose of Rocky Mountain mojo and you have Castle Pines, where the BMW Championship begins Thursday.
It was once a star on the PGA Tour, hosting the International for two decades before it departed 18 years ago. The event used a modified Stableford scoring system, a rare break from the traditional 72-hole, stroke-play format, but it was Castle Pines with its streams, scenery and famous clubhouse milkshakes that tended to steal the show.
The stakes are different this week – only the top 30 in FedEx Cup points after Sunday will advance to next week’s Tour Championship where a $25 million prize awaits the winner – but Castle Pines has gotten better with age, having received a makeover from designer Jack Nicklaus 18 years ago.
It’s still a place where a herd of approximately 250 elk make their home along with bears, mountain lions and the fortunate people whose impressive homes are discreetly tucked into the hillsides.
None of the 50 players in the BMW field played here in the International, and only a handful were in the field in 2014 when the BMW Championship was played up the road at Cherry Hills in Denver, the last time the tour came through this sports-rich area.
As the only one of the three FedEx Cup playoff events to move annually (Caves Valley near Baltimore will be the 2025 host), Castle Pines isn’t so much making its debut as it is making an overdue return to the game’s biggest stage.
“The golf course is really pretty, very beautiful. But it’s quite the walk,” Ludvig Åberg said, reiterating an inescapable truth about Castle Pines.
“There’s going to be some tired caddies at the end of this week with the uphill and the downhill and the 8,100 yards. The ball is going farther, but we’ve got to walk all that way.” – Patrick Cantlay
It’s literally the biggest golf course on the PGA Tour this year, checking in at 8,130 yards, the longest in tour history.
“There’s going to be some tired caddies at the end of this week with the uphill and the downhill and the 8,100 yards. The ball is going farther, but we’ve got to walk all that way,” Patrick Cantlay said.
One caddie looked across the property, which starts and ends at the layout’s high point, and quietly said he’s already looking forward to Sunday night to be done with the hills.
The yardage comes with a caveat: at more than a mile above sea level, the ball flies farther, which explains how Rory McIlroy could hit a 250-yard 6-iron in his Wednesday pro-am round.
To cope with the elevation, players have spent their pre-tournament days checking and rechecking their Trackman numbers and redefining what hitting a stock 7-iron means in the thin Colorado air.
They also have had to make their own adjustments, getting acclimated to being more than a mile above sea level. It’s not like Bogotá, Colombia, at more than 8,000 feet where Scottie Scheffler said he struggled to sleep and, after strange dreams, found himself awake and straining to breathe during a 2019 Web.com Tour event. He’s also fresh off a recent vacation in Telluride, Colorado, so he may be a half-step ahead of others as they acclimatize.
“I was working out in the gym yesterday, and I was definitely getting out of breath a lot faster than I would at home, but I feel like I’m doing a good job of getting adjusted,” said Scheffler, who leads the points race.
Part of golf is coping with the playing conditions, whether it’s temperature, precipitation or elevation. As pretty as seaside courses can be, the ball typically doesn’t go as far in the thicker air, requiring players to adjust.
Attacking Castle Pines, which is likely to surrender low scores with its soft and generous fairways and immaculate putting surfaces, requires a different equation.
The simple rule of thumb is to figure shots go approximately 10 percent farther, meaning a 150-yard shot will go 165 yards. But there is more to it than that.
Scheffler and caddie Ted Scott have baseline numbers they use week to week. In this case, there are Colorado numbers to factor in as well.
Xander Schauffele, who starts this week second in points, joked that he may hit an extra club off some tees so he will have time to catch his breath while waiting for his playing companions to hit their approach shots.
“I have a stock number of what the club goes here, so if my 8-iron goes 165 at home, let’s say it’ll go like low 180s here, something like that,” Scheffler said.
“We can do it that way or Teddy can do the percentage just based on the time of day. It also changes based on how long the ball is in the air. Uphill shots, the ball doesn’t have as much time to fly in the air just based on it being uphill, so it’ll be a smaller percentage, and then downhill it’ll be a bigger percentage. There is a lot of work that goes into it.”
Xander Schauffele, who starts this week second in points, joked that he may hit an extra club off some tees so he will have time to catch his breath while waiting for his playing companions to hit their approach shots.
Some of it is as simple as accepting the one-week reality that playing at Castle Pines is different.
“The only weird thing we have sometimes is when you’re hitting over water and you’re hitting a 4-iron from 265 yards. It’s kind of weird when you think of it that way. It looks far away, but once you and your caddie break it down, the number you have in your head seems like you’re at sea level, for me at least,” Schauffele said.
In the case of Castle Pines, where views of the Rocky Mountains are never far away, it’s more like see level.
Top: A pre-tournament view of the scenic 16th at Castle Pines. Photo: Harry How, Getty Images
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