Golf Club at Pronghorn (Tom Fazio)

Overview: The Tom Fazio Course at Pronghorn is a high-desert layout outside Bend, where ancient juniper, lava-rock ridges and broad views of the Cascades define the setting. Fazio’s routing uses the open ground to create generous-looking landing areas, then places the real questions around angles, rough lines, bunkers and the volcanic features beside the greens. At 7,456 yards and par 72, it has championship scale, but the character comes from the contrast between the cultivated fairways and the dry, rocky land beyond them. The course asks players to read the ground and the wind as carefully as the scorecard.

History: Pronghorn was developed as a high-desert golf community with the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course first in the project and the Tom Fazio course following beside it. Nicklaus Design reported that the first nine holes of the Fazio layout were scheduled for spring 2006 and the full course for fall 2006; the completed course is recorded here as the 2006 routing. During construction, work on the eighth hole exposed two ancient lava tubes, which became part of the visual and geological identity of the course. The result is a design shaped both by an architect’s plan and by what the ground revealed during construction.

Did You Know? The par-three eighth is built above two lava tubes discovered during construction. The cavities are a reminder that Pronghorn’s most memorable hazards are geological as well as golfing features.