[PHOTOS: Ben Jared]
Matt Mooney might need to upload a new version of the Weather.com app to his phone shortly. He has been wearing it out for the past month, anxiously checking this week’s forecast. Such is life as tournament chairman for the 2025 WM Phoenix Open, a year after some rain-soaked days at TPC Scottsdale resulted in overcrowding issues and a muddy mess, most notably on the Saturday when both the main entrance and alcohol sales were temporarily closed.
That experience inspired multiple changes being implemented this year by the Thunderbirds, organisers of the infamously raucous tournament. “I think ‘you can’t control the weather’ was the biggest lesson from last year,” Mooney said. “We definitely have made a concerted effort to evaluate the way people flow through the golf course during those really high traffic times, on midday Friday and Saturday. The biggest challenge we had last year was this is a stadium-built golf course. It’s made for fans to be able to sit on these big hillsides. It was designed that way. When that all turns to mud, and people are jammed into cartpaths, nobody wins.”
Last year, rain on Thursday and Saturday turned those usually grassy hillsides into slippery quagmires, forcing spectators to crowd onto the cartpaths. That created logjams of dangerous proportions in numerous areas, including packed walkways leading to the first tee, behind the second green, and in between the 10th and 16th greens. At one point on the Saturday afternoon, organisers briefly closed the main entrance (much to the dismay of ticket holders trying to enter at the time) and suspended alcohol sales for the rest of that day, all in an effort to rein in the chaotic crowd and alleviate the congested atmosphere.
That led directly to what Mooney called one of the most impactful changes this year: a new entrance/exit located just south of the main entrance area on Hayden Rd adjoining the course.
“The ability to have all the people that are coming out of 16, 17 and 18 to be able to go straight out of 18 tee and be right on Hayden is, I think, huge,” he said. “The area at the main entrance coming through the main entrance behind 18 green has always gotten so congested. Even though we know we’re going to have a little bit better syncing of our crowd numbers, I think that probably gives me the most comfort. Fans just have a lot of options.”
The infamous race to the 16th hole on Saturday morning – fans start lining up the night before for the 800-metre run to snag one of the coveted 3,700 general admission seats at the par-3 16th – will still commence from the main entrance at 7am, followed by the new entrance opening 30 minutes later.
Entirely digital ticketing is being introduced for the first time, enabling organisers to monitor crowd figures efficiently each day (totals are capped per day but organisers would not release numbers), a far cry from more haphazard methods used in the past. Also gone are good-any-day tickets sold in previous years.
“The weather last year gave us a good excuse to change some things that we’ve wanted to change, and digital tickets are a great example,” Mooney said. “Not everybody is going to love it, but we’ve got to do it. You can’t make everybody happy, and we have filtered every change through a long-term lens to make sure we’re not deviating from the fabric of what’s made this the best event on the PGA Tour.”
Spectators will also find wider walkways around the course, including one across the 17th fairway and another behind the 10th and 16th greens. “We’ve always had kind of a tight pinch point there where people are waiting to get into 16’s general admission seats, so by having a wider walkway we can keep the flow of traffic moving more efficiently,” Mooney said. “We’ve also reworked concessions in that area to give fans more options on the north side of 16.”
There’s a cost for all that work, too. General admission tickets have risen from $US50 to $US75 on Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and from $US75 to $US125 on Friday and Saturday. “We think if you look at the golf industry and similar events, we’re still well below [in terms of pricing],” Mooney said. “The Ryder Cup this year at Bethpage is [more than] $800 for a Saturday general admission ticket. We never want to go in that direction, and we never frankly want to use the pricing leverage we probably could. We want this to be an approachable event. But at the same time, we’re making significant investments back into the golf course and into the experience. So we’re walking that line.”
Part of that line includes alcohol sales, a major revenue source and fuel for the party culture that permeates the event. No changes are known to have been made this year to the tournament’s alcohol policy, which requires valid ID for those who appear to be younger than 30; no sales to customers who appear intoxicated; a two-drink limit per transaction; and no outside alcohol can be brought into the event. Still, over-exuberant fans are a hallmark of the event, creating a much different buzz than that found at most PGA Tour events.
“Normal [fan behaviour] is normal golf etiquette,” said Matt Fitzpatrick, whose best result in three WMPO appearances is a T-10 in 2022. “The polite golf clap, a few cheers. But this week is different. It’s definitely louder. It’s almost like that LIV slogan, ‘Golf But Louder.’ It’s good fun. The only times when it’s not is when you get a few that have had a few too many, shouting for your ball to go into the water or doing something crazy. But for the most part, it’s always good fun.”
Added Gary Woodland, the 2018 Phoenix Open winner: “We should let people have a good time. Now, when you start throwing gambling and stuff involved and people are interacting while you’re swinging and it becomes an issue, that’s where it kind of gets out of control. But I think they’re going to do a zero-tolerance policy from what I’ve heard this week. So hopefully if there’s a couple of bad apples out that gets taken care of early and everyone can go out there and have a good time and enjoy and have a party, right?”
Being sandwiched between two signature events (the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last week and the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines next week) has impacted the field, which includes just 11 members of the OWGR’s top 25 and almost half of the field being ranked 100th or higher. But six previous champions are teeing it up, including 2024 winner Nick Taylor and world No.1 Scottie Scheffler, who won in 2022 and 2023.
“At the end of the day we want to make sure we have the right changes but that we don’t overcorrect,” Mooney added. “We think this event stands alone on the PGA Tour. There’s a reason we are by far the largest event on the PGA Tour and last year we generated $17.5 million in charitable donations back to this community.”
Now Mooney and his team hope for good weather, which according to Weather.com should be mostly sunny in the mid-20s with virtually zero chance of rain.
