ST. GEORGE — As far as traffic and parking for this October’s PGA tournament is concerned, one key phrase is emerging: It’s not going to be so bad.
Local officials, Santa Clara-Ivins Police and Fire and Black Desert Resort representatives are still working on the final plan and logistics of the parking and traffic plan for the Oct. 7-13 PGA Tour Black Desert Championship at the Black Desert Resort in Ivins.
The plan coming together reportedly indicates they will be able to accommodate “thousands” of cars on site – including in a nearly complete underground parking structure. The large parking lots at the Tuachan Amphitheatre in Ivins and Tech Ridge in St. George will be utilized with shuttle busses transporting spectators to the course.
Black Desert has also brought in staff who have previously handled traffic and parking for PGA tournaments in Southern California where the courses were nestled among residential neighborhoods.
After several meetings, both police and fire officials say they are less worried about traffic and parking impacts now than they were when it was first announced that Black Desert would be regularly hosting PGA and LPGA tour events.
“I’m confident it’s not going to be as impactful on our streets and roads as initially thought,” Santa Clara-Ivins Police Captain Rich Rogers told the Ivins City Council on April 4.
In addition, Santa Clara-Ivins Fire & Rescue Chief Andrew Parker said he also feels reassured about plans for the upcoming tournament, noting the department has been preparing for more than a year and is coordinating with other local agencies to ensure there will be more than enough emergency medical services workers on hand to handle the crowds.
Ivins City Council members aren’t expected to discuss the traffic and parking logistics at their meeting this Thursday, but they will entertain a resolution to make Oct. 7-13 “Tom Weiskopf Week” in the city of Ivins. The Black Desert course was the last designed by the former golf pro Weiskopf, who died in 2022 and will be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in June.
Patrick Manning, the managing partner of Black Desert Resort, said he is excited about the honor for Weiskopf to coincide with the PGA Tour event. But he also said there isn’t too much to be excited about as far as fears of wall-to-wall traffic or spectators parking in driveways during the PGA tournament.
He compares it with the Ironman events, which have been Southern Utah’s first taste of an international or professional sporting event.
“It’ll be fine. It won’t be remotely as impactful as Ironman,” Manning said, noting that no streets will need to be shut down.
As far as the usually quiet neighborhoods of Ivins, city officials note that the position of the Black Desert Resort – at the eastern edge of the city, means that any traffic going into the Ivins area won’t go farther than the Snow Canyon Drive roundabout.
City officials and police are also confident that people utilizing local streets as an easy parking spot won’t likely be an issue. Even so, police said they are ready for a zero-tolerance policy as far as people parking in the wrong places. Police and city officials have been joking in City Council meetings that it might be a great week for the area’s local tow truck services.
And another design aspect of the Black Desert Resort – with the tournament spectator entrance being far from Snow Canyon Parkway – will make parking on a nearby street and trying to walk there a much more laborious effort than just utilizing on-site parking or taking a shuttle from a remote site.
As for Santa Clara, during his State of the City address on April 23, Mayor Rick Rosenberg said he felt a little more on edge about the traffic situation, as the plan is for vendors and other workers to use the southern area of the resort that’s in Santa Clara as a staging area. But Rosenberg said several studies have been conducted since that’s put him a little more at ease.
That said, Rosenberg there will still be “significant” impacts during the tournament on Rachel Drive.
“When you go online and look at a PGA event, the number of people kind of freak you out. When you’re (in) Santa Clara … (with) a lot of two-lane roads, it really freaks you out,” Rosenberg said. “We’ve asked them for some transportation impact studies, but the developer’s been good and working closely with the city.”
Rosenberg noted that among the staff Black Desert hired to help to mitigate those concerns is John Coolbaugh, who previously served similar roles for PGA Tour events at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, and the Washington, D.C., area as well as working with the Tiger Woods Foundation.
Both events have been at courses in more suburban areas like Ivins and Santa Clara, so this isn’t Coolbaugh’s first rodeo.
“We have such seasoned veterans of putting on tournaments on our team,” Manning said, “We’re a little more comfortable because those guys know what we can do.”
Torrey Pines, the longtime host of the PGA Tour’s Farmers Insurance Open, as well as the annual PGA Tour stop in the Los Angeles area at suburban Pacific Palisades’ Riviera Country Club, use remote parking sites far from the course where spectators park and are shuttled into the event.
In the case of Pacific Palisades, host of the annual Genesis Invitational in February, those not playing, covering or working at the tournament park more than 4 miles driving distance away at the Santa Monica Promenade and take shuttles in.
Pacific Palisades, like Ivins and Santa Clara, is an upper-class suburban neighborhood. Unlike Ivins and Santa Clara, it can boast having Tom Hanks, Martin Short, Steven Spielberg, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez as residents.
Star-quality aside, Riviera and Pacific Palisades is a similar setting as far as location and demographics to Ivins and Black Desert Resort.
Steve Galluzzo, who has been the sports editor of the local newspaper in Pacific Palisades, the Palisadian-Post, since 1998, said thanks to the shuttle busses, traffic and parking issues don’t necessarily clog up the two-lane Pacific Palisades roads but “it’s no picnic.” But, he said, local residents in Southern Utah don’t need to be worried about the PGA Tour coming to town – just prepared.
“Just be smart and anticipate that there will be delays and inconveniences the week of the tournament,” Galluzzo said. “If you live on streets or in neighborhoods near the course, be prepared for increased car and foot traffic and plan your schedule accordingly, particularly in the morning and afternoon when the event is going on.”
Galluzzo said that there is a clog-up on the streets near Riviera where the shuttle busses arrive. However, what differentiates Riviera is it’s 98 years older than Black Desert and it isn’t buffered by a roundabout or resort space like Black Desert.
Manning notes another advantage for Black Desert will be its ability to handle a great deal of on-site parking including a nearly complete underground parking structure with more than 1,000 spaces.
“We can house thousands of cars on site,” Manning said. “Most tournaments can’t do that.”
There will also be nearly 800 rooms at the resort itself, expected to be online by the time of the tournament, leaving many of the spectators likely to need no transportation at all.
For those not parking at the resort, Manning said deals have been made with Tuacahn, with more than 1,000 parking spaces, and an agreement has been made with St. George Shuttle to provide the shuttle services. Any additional overflow will go to Tech Ridge and its own hundreds of parking spaces with an additional shuttle to transport spectators from there.
If there’s any place that might see a hike in traffic during the tournament, it’s St. George Regional Airport.
As the airport was handling overflow traffic from this year’s Super Bowl, the airport’s managing director told St. George News they were anticipating something bigger later in the year.
“The PGA will probably have twice the number of airplanes here that we’ll have for this one,” Rich Stehmeier said.
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