Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course

Origins

Long before golfers arrived on the south shore of Lake Tahoe, the land beneath Edgewood was cattle country. The Park family bought the ranch in 1896, next to Friday's Station, a 19th-century Pony Express and Wells Fargo stage stop that still stands across the highway from today's 5th green. For decades the property served ranching, not recreation.

That changed in the 1960s, when Brooks Park set out to build a golf course on land his family had grazed for generations. He hired George Fazio, a former PGA Tour player turned architect who had worked out of Pine Valley and co-designed the Jackrabbit Course at Champions Golf Club in Houston, to route a course around the lake. Fazio's design opened in 1968, and the Park family has held onto both the ranch and the course ever since.

Design Philosophy

Fazio moved the routing through pine forest, meadow and wetland before turning toward the water for the finish, saving the shoreline rather than spending it early. Fourteen holes bring water into play, and by the 17th and 18th the course runs directly along the lake, with greens built to the water's edge. Edgewood sits at roughly 6,200 feet of elevation, high enough that shots carry farther than at sea level but thin enough that spin-reliant approach shots release more than golfers expect.

Tom Fazio, George's nephew, took over the design work in later years and has revisited the course periodically rather than through one wholesale rebuild. His most substantial changes came in a 2001 remodel that reworked several holes and pushed the back tees past 7,500 yards, and again around 2017, when construction of the resort's lodge required rebuilding the ninth hole — part of which now plays across the state line into California.

Recognition

Edgewood got its first taste of USGA competition in 1980, when the U.S. Public Links Championship became the first USGA event ever held in Nevada; Jodie Mudd won the title. Five years later, the U.S. Senior Open returned Miller Barber to the winner's circle for his third Senior Open title and second in a row, with Barber finishing four strokes clear of Roberto De Vicenzo on a week when no one else in the field broke par.

Since 1990, Edgewood has been the fixed home of a celebrity tournament that has run as the American Century Championship since American Century Investments took over as title sponsor in 1999. Broadcast nationally every July, it has drawn athletes, actors and musicians including Michael Jordan, John Elway and Mario Lemieux, with quarterback Mark Rypien winning the inaugural event, and has raised millions of dollars for charity over its history. Golf Digest has ranked Edgewood among America's 100 Greatest Public Courses, and named its Brooks' Bar & Deck one of the country's best golf pubs in 2016.

Today

Edgewood remains open to the public, with tee times bookable up to 60 days ahead. The Edgewood Companies took full control of the property in 2013 and added a 154-room lodge in 2017, along the rebuilt ninth hole. In February 2021, the grounds hosted an entirely different event when the NHL built a temporary outdoor rink over the 17th and 18th holes for the NHL Outdoors at Lake Tahoe, with the Colorado Avalanche and Boston Bruins each winning games played beside the lake the course was built to showcase.