Tom Fazio designed The Summit Club west of the Las Vegas Strip. Take a look at Puttview’s hole-by-hole maps of the private club.
The Summit Club in Las Vegas, host of this this week’s CJ Cup on the PGA Tour, was designed by Tom Fazio and opened in 2017 about 10 miles west of the Strip near Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.
The private desert course is a Discovery Land Company property and offers high-end homes in a 555-acre development. The course features more than 300 feet of elevation changes and, reaching around 3,000 feet above sea level, can play slightly shorter because of the thinner air. It will play to 7,431 yards with a par of 72 for the CJ Cup.
Fazio has built several courses around Vegas including Shadow Creek, Golfweek’s Best top-rated casino course in the U.S., and the recently reopened Wynn Golf Club. The Summit Club has not yet received enough votes from Golfweek’s Best national panel of raters to appear in the various course rankings.
Thanks to yardage books provided by Puttview – the maker of detailed yardage books for more than 30,000 courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges that players face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.
Xander Schauffele has had plenty of success in no-cut events. He admits there’s something to that freedom.
Xander Schauffele has an Olympic gold medal and winning Ryder Cup memories to file away for 2021, but those two details alone won’t make the past year of his golf life go down as a complete success. As he makes his first start of the 2021-22 PGA Tour season at this week’s CJ Cup at the Summit Club in Las Vegas, Schauffele reflected honestly on the past year.
“I feel not that I failed on the PGA Tour season, but I didn’t really accomplish what I wanted to,” he said. “And I did get worse in certain categories throughout the year, but I was able to step up to the plate in sort of, I guess, tournaments that don’t count for the PGA Tour, or to a certain extent, I should say.
“It’s an interesting feeling. I feel like I’ve had success, but then again I missed out on a lot of things that I wanted to accomplish on the PGA Tour.”
Success in the Ryder Cup – one of those “tournaments that don’t count” – certainly helped wash the bad taste out of his mouth from last season, but statistics gathered in the run-up to that event also exposed some harsh realities about his game.
“I mean, the scouts from the Ryder Cup let me know that from pretty much 80 to 140 yards, I got worse, I performed worse,” Schauffele said. “So I told them thank you for the kick in the rear end to be better.”
Xander Schauffele and Jordan Spieth celebrate after defeating Team Europe 19 to 9 during Sunday Singles Matches of the 43rd Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)
The Ryder Cup and Olympics are what Schauffele referred to as “non-Tour wins” but they bring a confidence boost all the same. In terms of mindset, no-cut events – like this week’s CJ Cup – bring a different vibe, too. Asked whether four guaranteed rounds helps him feel like he can free-wheel it a little bit more, Schauffele noted there could be something to that thinking.
Three of Schauffele’s four career Tour victories have come in such events.
Early on, when Schauffele was navigating the Korn Ferry Tour as a newbie pro in 2016, he missed eight cuts in his first 12 events. He didn’t explode onto the scene until later in her career, noting, “I never really had like an easy time running through tournaments.”
“So I think if I am playing well and I do get in these no cut events,” he said, “there’s a chance that mentally or subconsciously I am sort of freewheeling it, like you said. I’ll take more risk and not really feel any pressure to pull it off because I know there’s no penalty in the end.”
With 77 other golfers competing for a first-place prize of $1,755,000, that’s a particularly appropriate attitude for the gold medalist to take this week in Las Vegas.
Justin Thomas is naturally called JT, but he learned on Tuesday he has another handle halfway around the world.
LAS VEGAS – Justin Thomas is naturally called JT.
But he learned on Tuesday he has another handle halfway around the world.
Turns out he’s known in South Korea as the Icon of the CJ Cup.
“That’s a cool nickname, I didn’t know that,” Thomas said.
It’s a fitting moniker. The world No. 6 won the CJ Cup two of the first three years it was contested, in 2017 and 2019. Those tournaments were held at the Nine Bridges Golf Club on Jeju Island, South Korea.
Because of the global coronavirus pandemic, however, the tournament was moved stateside, with Jason Kokrak winning last year at nearby Shadow Creek.
Thomas, who tied for 12th last year, hopes to live up to his nickname this week at The Summit Club, a stunning setting with views of the Las Vegas Strip, desert mountains and Red Rock Canyon just 10 miles from Shadow Creek.
“I wish we could be spending this time in Jeju island. I have a lot of great memories there, developed a lot of great friendships and relationships,” Thomas said. “It’s a great week. The golf course, the food, the hotel. Obviously the travel’s a little bit easier this week just coming to Vegas versus Jeju, but it’s a great tournament and it’s great to see a lot of familiar faces and hopefully we can recreate some of the good memories here in Vegas.”
Thomas makes his season debut this week, coming off a 2-1-1 record in the Ryder Cup as Team USA trounced Team Europe. He’ll do so with a new caddie – Jim “Bones” Mackay. Thomas and Jimmy Johnson, who was on the bag since 2015, split two weeks ago. It was quite a run for the two, with Thomas winning 13 titles, including the 2017 PGA Championship and the 2021 Players Championship. He was the PGA Tour’s player of the year in 2017 and won the FedEx Cup.
Justin Thomas talks with his caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay on the 11th tee during the final round of the 2020 Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club. (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
Mackay, who spent 25 years as Phil Mickelson’s caddie before joining NBC Sports as an on-course commentator in 2017 and will continue in the broadcast world on a limited basis, has worked with Thomas before when Johnson was injured or ill. Thomas won the 2020 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational with Mackay on the bag.
Still, there will be an adjustment period to deal with between Thomas and Mackay.
“Obviously I’m comfortable right now and I think he’s comfortable now, but I’m sure as more and more events go on, like anything, you just get better and better. At least that’s the hope,” Thomas said. “I think that’s the exciting part about it is that we’re already very confident, I feel like we can do a lot of great things, but at the same time we’re just going to continue to learn and know each other better and better and hopefully get more comfortable.
“We’re going to learn about each other as we go on. I think we’re both very excited and looking forward to that.”
While it’s hard to say Thomas is looking to put last season behind him, seeing as he won the Players, he wasn’t thrilled with the campaign. After racking up 11 wins and 22 top-10 finishes in four seasons, Thomas won once and had only four other top-10s last season. Two of those top-10s, however, came in his last three starts.
“Last year was an up‑and‑down year,” he said. “Wasn’t showing the consistency that I feel like I could or just kind of finishing off tournaments how I felt like I could. I was close to playing well for a while, but just wasn’t really able to get much result‑wise out of it.
“I really feel like I kind of found some good stuff there at the end of the season and into the playoffs to where I started playing a little bit better, and hopefully we’ll be able to take some of that into this fall and into the 2021‑22 season.”
“I think overall the consistency throughout the season wasn’t there. I think it’s just a little more motivation for me.”
LAS VEGAS – Collin Morikawa’s meteoric rise to golf’s elite plateau has earned him a current world ranking of No. 3, a Claret Jug and a Wanamaker Trophy.
But the 24-year-old said he has one more step to take.
“I think overall the consistency throughout the season wasn’t there,” he said. “I think it’s just a little more motivation for me coming into this new season.
“I can’t get complacent. I always want to keep pushing myself, right? I want to keep getting better and I think there’s a lot of room for improvement.”
Guy sets a high bar. Since turning pro in 2019, he’s made 57 starts on the PGA Tour and has five wins – the 2020 PGA Championship, in just his second start in a major, the 2021 British Open in just his eighth start in a major, and a WGC title in 2021 among his wins. He also has three runner-up finishes and 13 other top-10s and missed only five cuts.
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But it’s those five missed cuts – and the 31 other times he’s finished out of the top-10 – that continues to drive him.
His destination would be current residence of Jon Rahm, the world No. 1 who racked up 15 top-10s last season and contends nearly every week.
“There’s a lot of things looking back at the past few seasons that I want to improve,” Morikawa said Tuesday at The Summit Club, home to this week’s CJ Cup. “I think if I improve those while still maintaining or getting better already what my strengths are, I’ll just be contending more. I’ll come down to those weekends a little more often and hopefully we can keep closing out tournaments.
“Can I find little aspects of my game that I can get better at? Absolutely. One thing, I’m pretty bad out of the rough. I need to be more specific in what consistency means, right? Whether that’s putting or chipping or ball‑striking, whatever it may be, there’s little aspects to building those kind of blocks for consistency.”
Morikawa makes his season debut coming off a sterling Ryder Cup debut where he went 3-0-1 as Team USA drubbed Team Europe. Besides his gaudy record, Morikawa took something away from that week in Wisconsin at Whistling Straits that he thinks will help him going forward.
Team USA player Collin Morikawa plays his shot from the fourth tee during day three singles rounds for the 43rd Ryder Cup golf competition at Whistling Straits. Mandatory Credit: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports
“The Ryder Cup is a whole other beast of itself, right?” he said. “You fight so much more. I think you’re ready by hole one. Sometimes you wake up on a Thursday in a tournament and you just aren’t mentally ready, but at the Ryder Cup you have to be ready, right, you want to be 1 up through 1, you want to be 2 up through 2.
“Those are lessons to learn, that a tournament is 72 holes and the 250th shot is going to be the same as the first shot, right? They all count as one shot, so you have to be prepared like that.”
Morikawa should be prepared this week. He’s one of only two players in the field who are members at The Summit, a spectacular venue with views of the Las Vegas Strip and Red Rock Canyon. Morikawa practices here on his off weeks and has shot a 62 over the expansive layout.
So he and Maverick McNealy, the other member, have a slight advantage. Just a slight advantage he said, because he’s facing the best players in the world and they quickly adapt to new courses many times.
“It’s nice to sleep in my own bed and to be at Summit. It’s kind of unique. I don’t think I’ve ever played a tournament on a home, home course,” he said. “I’m not sure how I’m really going to go into this week just mentally about that, but I have to remember that this is still a tournament, this is the start of a new season and I’ve got to be ready by Thursday just like every other week.
“There’s a sense of comfort, right? I’m comfortable with a lot of tee shots, I’m comfortable with the approaches, I know where the greens break, I know where to miss the shots, so hopefully we can execute the shots this week. There’s not that sense of urgency to figure out the golf course per se today on Tuesday or tomorrow during the pro‑am.
The PGA Tour will stay in Las Vegas for a second consecutive event after Sungjae Im claimed the title at the Shriners Children’s Open last week. The CJ Cup will be held at The Summit Club in Las Vegas, with the first round of this no-cut event getting underway Thursday. Below, we look at the 2021 CJ Cup odds and make our PGA Tour picks and predictions to win.
The limited field at the CJ Cup is strong this year, with many of the top 50 players in the world attending the event. Dustin Johnson is the favorite, but he’ll have to contend with the likes of Justin Thomas, Viktor Hovland and Louis Oosthuizen, who is fifth in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings. Olympic gold medalist Xander Schauffele is also in the field in Vegas, as is 2020 CJ Cup champion Jason Kokrak.
The Summit Club will host this event for the first time. It’s a par 72 course that plays at 7,431 yards, a layout designed by Tom Fazio. Thomas has won the CJ Cup two of the last three years that it was held in South Korea, but it’ll be played on American soil again this week.
Collin Morikawa (+1500) would be a good choice, too, considering he’s a member of The Summit Club, but I like the way Hovland is playing coming into this week and he’s a good value at +3000. He’s first in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and fourth in SG: Approach early in the 2021-22 season, once again proving to be one of the best ball-strikers in the world.
He does need to improve around the greens. He began to get better in that area last season, but he’s going to hit a ton of fairways and get a lot of looks at birdies. If the putter gets hot this week, he’ll have a chance to contend on Sunday. He finished T-44 at TPC Summerlin last week and will try to build on that performance.
Contender
Marc Leishman (+5000)
No one has started as hot as Leishman this season, going T-4 at the Fortinet Championship and T-3 at the Shriners last week. He’s putting better than just about anyone, ranking second in SG: Putting through two events.
There will be birdies to be found out there this week and Leishman is plenty long enough to get some short irons in his hands where he can be aggressive in his approaches. He’s 19th in SG: Approach after two weeks. At +5000, he’s a worthwhile bet as he tries to ride this hot streak.
Long shot
Tom Hoge (+20000)
Hoge bounced back from a missed cut at the Sanderson Farms Championship two weeks ago by finishing T-14 last week with three sub-70 rounds. He finished T-38 in his first appearance in this event last year. He’s not terribly long or accurate off the tee, but he’s gaining 1.00 strokes per round on approach to the green, which is 12th on Tour this season.
After missing a ton of cuts from April to August last season, he finished strong with a T-4 at The Northern Trust and T-49 at the BMW Championship in late August.
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