When the nation’s top collegiate golf teams arrive at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in May for the NCAA Championships, it will mark the culmination of their season. For Omni La Costa, however, it will signal the beginning of a new era for a resort that has been a frequent destination for the PGA Tour and celebrities since its opening in 1965.
Leading up to its golden anniversary in 2025, Omni La Costa has been a whirlwind of activity for much of the past four years. After completing renovations to the resort’s lobby, bar, ballroom and its massive, 170,000 square feet of meeting space in 2021, Omni La Costa is preparing to unveil a reimagination of its 500-plus guest room, villas and suites this summer.
For Golf Channel viewers, the most visible sign of the new energy flowing through Omni La Costa will be the resort’s tournament course, which was given a complete overhaul by golf’s hottest architectural team, Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner.
“It’s kind of a rebirth of La Costa,” said club director Dustin Irwin. “We’re turning back the clock to La Costa’s glory days.”
As if to accentuate the resort’s recommitment to its roots, Omni La Costa is reverting to its original logo and course names – North for the tournament course, South for the second course.
It’s been six years since University of Texas men’s golf coach John Fields hatched the idea of bringing the NCAAs to Omni La Costa – capitalizing on the resort’s rich tradition, the region’s near-flawless weather and the chance to showcase the collegiate game in prime-time for much of the country. Fields and his family also created the College World Golf Championships Foundation to fund the NCAA Championships.
“My hope is that someday 10,000 people are out there watching collegiate golf at Omni La Costa,” Fields said. “If that happens, the trickle-down effect is going to be dramatic. What an unbelievable way for the college golf world to come together. … We know it’s going to be a home run.”
The vision for a potentially lasting marriage between Omni La Costa and the NCAAs was contingent on Hanse and Wagner working their magic on the tournament course, while architect Beau Welling, who regularly collaborates with Tiger Woods, tackled the new practice area.
The North Course opening won’t take place until the NCAAs, but Welling’s state-of-the-art practice range opened in late March. Omni La Costa’s undersized, L-shaped practice range is gone, replaced by a 380-yard, two-sided range. It’s outfitted with Toptracer technology on the members’ side, two short-game practice greens and a 14,000-square-foot putting green. All that, and La Costa still found room to convert the original practice tee into an outdoor event space.
Edward Fickett, who designed the La Costa clubhouse, declared 50 years ago that “all that is built in La Costa will be in harmony with the land.” That’s a philosophy that Hanse and Wagner can get behind. The architects are all about capturing a sense of place and using width, variety, angles and options to create more strategic choices.
“More width seems to create more drama and tragedy, as it allows the players to be more aggressive as well as getting themselves into trouble,” Wagner said.
Their courses are meant to exist in harmony with the surrounding terrain. For example, two man-made ponds near the middle of the layout were converted to natural barrancas. “That helped us tie into the adjacent hillsides and canyon floors outside of the golf property,” said Wagner, noting that the barrancas also created more strategic options, particularly on the tee shot at No. 9.
Wagner compared the design team’s mission at La Costa to building the Rio 2016 Olympic Golf Course in that they had to test the world’s best men’s and women’s golfers, but also create a layout that members and guests could enjoy year-round.
“We felt if we held to our normal design objectives in creating options for the players to think their way around the golf course, we would succeed for all levels of players,” Wagner said. “We do not have any long, forced carries and there is tee flexibility so the (NCAA) set-up teams can create similar play characteristics for both men and women.”
Inevitably, much of the tournament drama will play out over the closing holes. Consider the final five holes, which should make for great prime-time television during the tournaments’ final three days of women’s and men’s stroke play.
“It will be fun to watch shot selection and players’ thought processes through this stretch, especially if the tournament is on the line,” Wagner said.
Irwin anticipates the long, par-4 14th will come to be known as the course’s most difficult hole, even without a bunker across its entire 495 yards. A creek bisects the fairway landing areas and snakes around the right side of the green, which was moved 30 yards to the right to bring the water into play.
The 15th is a drivable par 4, but the bunkering in front of the green and water in back don’t guarantee an easy birdie. The 16th might become the fast favorite of Golf Channel’s producers. The par 3 is Wagner and Hanse’s homage to Augusta National’s 12th hole, but with more angles of attack.
The 17th is a par 4 that can be stretched to nearly 500 yards, followed by the reachable, par-5 18th, with water bracketing the landing area and fronting the green. Fields compared the 18th to Omni Tucson National’s closing hole, which for decades created some of the PGA Tour’s most thrilling finishes.
“It’s going to be a really great test for the college players, but it’s also going to be a lot of fun for our members and guests,” Irwin said. “I think it’s going to be a home run. I’m really confident we’re going to knock it out of the park the first year and (the NCAAs are) going to be here for a long time.”
Omni investing in golf
The upgrades at Omni La Costa are just the most prominent example of Omni’s commitment to delivering unique golf experiences to its resort guests and members. The company is less than a year removed from opening Fields Ranch at Omni PGA Frisco, the 46-hole property near Dallas that is the new home of the PGA of America.
Just last month, Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate opened Eagles Edge, 30 hitting bays outfitted with Toptracer Range technology. It’s a place where guests can get in a serious practice session or play games with friends while enjoying craft drinks and appetizers. There’s also a large indoor space for groups and 47 TVs to keep sports fans entertained.
This fall Omni Amelia Island Resort in Northeast Florida plans to reopen Oak Marsh Golf Course following a $7.4 million restoration led by Beau Welling and his design team. Welling also built the resort’s Little Sandy short course two years ago.