The PGA Tour wants to protect par at the Phoenix Open. Brandel Chamblee isn’t sure they should. Thomas Detry torched TPC Scottsdale at –24 in February 2025. The Tour’s response? Grow the rough until golf balls vanish. But Chamblee, who has built a career advocating for tougher conditions, draws the line at Scottsdale.

“In this particular instance, I’m not sure it’s a great thing because the Phoenix Open is about excitement,” Chamblee said on a recent podcast.

The distinction matters. TPC Scottsdale wasn’t designed to grind players into submission. Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish built a risk/reward theater — a course where aggressive lines unlock birdies and conservative play surrenders ground. “You’re playing on a golf course that was designed to test the very best players in the world and make it more dramatic,” Chamblee explained.

He zeroed in on the back-nine par-5 15th as the litmus test. If a player misses the fairway and thick rough prevents him from going for the green in two, the calculus changes entirely. “If someone’s in the rough off the tee and they can’t go for it in two, well, then they just lay up.”

Layups don’t move the needle at the loudest event in golf.

Jean, a TPC Scottsdale member and podcast producer, has lived the consequences firsthand. For the past two months, the agronomy team has transformed the Stadium Course into something unrecognizable. “It’s US Open conditions,” Jean said. “If your ball misses the fairway and goes into the rough, there’s a chance you won’t find the ball.”

The member’s frustration cuts deeper than inconvenience. “I’ve been losing golf balls constantly. I almost can’t afford to play golf anymore.”

That tension — between protecting par and preserving spectacle — sits at the heart of what 2026 could become.

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TPC Scottsdale’s 40-Year identity faces its toughest test

The Stadium Course opened in 1986 and has hosted the Phoenix Open since 1987. For four decades, the event has traded on one promise: spectacle over survival.

The 16th hole, “The Coliseum,” embodies that philosophy. A three-story grandstand encloses the par-3, making it the only fully enclosed hole on the PGA Tour. Fans erupt for perfect swings and turn brutal with boos for misses. The hole played to a 2.973 scoring average in 2024, with pros finding the green around 70% of the time.

But here’s the paradox: if thick rough suppresses birdies on the surrounding holes, does The Coliseum become the only drama zone — or does conservative play dampen even that energy?

The Phoenix Open draws 500,000 to 700,000 fans during tournament week, the most attended event in golf. Those crowds arrive expecting fireworks, not a procession of wedge layups and scrambling pars.

Chamblee, who has watched this event for decades, offered a telling observation: “I don’t think I can ever remember it with thick rough out there.”

Jean, meanwhile, counts the days until the tournament ends. “I can’t wait for the tournament to be over so they cut that down.”

The 2026 WM Phoenix Open runs February 5–8. The agronomy team has made its choice. Whether that choice honors or undermines 40 years of Phoenix Open identity remains the question the Tour hasn’t answered.