First look: Tiger Woods-designed Legacy Club, a ‘Shadow Creek’ in the Baja desert, to be grassed in next 60 days

LOS CABOS, Mexico – Ken Jowdy looks out from the sales center at the Legacy Club, the invitation-only private resort community ensconced in the laidback luxury of Diamante Cabo San Lucas, and begins making the sales pitch that has sold its share of multi-million-dollar lots and has prospective members clamoring for a pen to agree to six-figure initiation fees already.

“If you can picture landscaping trees and palm trees, in different pockets, and home sites on top and home sites on the right. There’s only going to be 14 lots, the Founder Estates, that are within the golf course. I’m building one for Tiger and one for me, we’re No. 1 and 2. [Jowdy let Tiger have No. 1.] I promised Tiger I’d have his done next year so I’ve got to get on my horse,” Jowdy says with a smile.

The Legacy Club will be Tiger’s third design at Diamante, joining El Cardonal, his first course design and the host course of the PGA Tour’s World Wide Technology Championship, and the Oasis Short Course. Diamante’s first course, The Dunes, was designed by Davis Love III, and is T-3 in Golfweek’s Best list for Mexico, Caribbean, Atlantic islands and Central America. El Cardonal is 26th on that list.

Legacy Club will be the final course Jowdy builds here and as he noted, “We’ve got plenty of golf for everybody.” The idea behind the Legacy Club was to build something special with the number of members capped at 250.

“It’s been said we’re building a little city and this is going to be the country club inside the city,” Joudy said.

Legacy Club at Diamante Cabo San Lucas (Adam Schupak/Golfweek)

An exclusive Shangri-La in the desert with five lakes, waterfalls behind greens and lush vegetation sounds a lot like Shadow Creek, the famed Tom Fazio layout not far from the Vegas Strip, and Jowdy realizes the comparisons, especially with his fondness for the place, are going to be made.

“I love that place. It’s one of my favorite places in the world, and I’m there quite a lot,” Jowdy said. “But I wouldn’t be arrogant enough to say that it would be like that. Sure, you could say it’s being used as a model. Yeah, that said, I don’t think anything’s going to match that, what they’ve created there, which is so unique and special. But with the water features and how the course flows here, we’ll have something unique and special too.”

Why bring back Tiger for the latest course? It’s really quite simple as Jowdy explained. “We did a long-term deal, so whatever we were going to do on the property he was going to do. And at this point in my life, I want to work with people I want to work with, if that makes sense. So pretty much, even if we didn’t have a long-term deal, if he was available and willing, I’d want him to do it. And frankly, if I do another place anywhere else, he’d be at the top of my list.”

The Legacy Club will sit in striking contrast with the existing, gently-sloped desert terrain at the Dunes and El Cardonal. The Legacy course takes golfers from the open, arid landscape of southern Baja into a secluded environment of lush vegetation, what Joudy described as “an oasis in the desert.” To do so, Tiger’s design team — Scott Benson of Beau Welling Design has been taking the lead and Tiger’s childhood pal Byron Bell had just visited a week ago — is moving more than three million cubic feet of dirt one truckload at a time. As many as 30 dump trucks have been lined up to transport the dirt away or to be used elsewhere in creating mounding and pads for home sites.

When the dirt has been moved, the course will sit in a low bowl, creating an intimate environment protected from wind while higher elevations will open to panoramic views of the nearby Pacific Ocean.

Much like Tiger’s previous design at El Cardonal, players at the Legacy Club will be presented with options to navigate routes from tee to green while playing alongside and over water on 13 holes. It will also feature the now-mandatory comfort stations, but a throwback to the old halfway houses at a place called Mr. A’s.

“They’ve turned into Costco’s out there. That was never the purpose of comfort stations. We think it’s time to reinvent the concept again,” said Mike Abbott, the vice president of operations of the Legacy Properties and for whom Mr. A’s will be named. It’s a fitting tribute as Abbott is considered the Godfather of the comfort stations. Abbott, who spent much of his career with Discovery Land and has worked with Tiger Woods before at Bluejack National, also brought in former PGA Tour pro Brian Watts to oversee the Legacy Club.

Grassing the course is expected to commence in the next 60 days. The range will be grassed first and used as a nursery. Pipes for drainage have been laid and the irrigation is well under way. Jowdy envisions Legacy Club transitioning to the future home of the World Wide Technology Championship, the annual Tour stop in Cabo – 2026 may be too ambitious but by 2027 expect it to be the new star of the show.

Does he envision Tiger competing in a tournament on the course that be built someday?

“If he’s healthy enough, I’m sure he will. You just don’t know how many bullets he has left in him,” Jowdy said.

To rub shoulders with Woods at Jowdy’s Shadow Creek in the Cabo desert, the initiation fee has climbed to $300,000 with annual dues of $60,000. Jowdy said he expects Tiger will be a fixture at the Legacy Club. Woods also already owns a restaurant, The Woods Cabo, inside the clubhouse at El Cardonal, which is open to the public. He usually attends the member-guest at Diamante, something he won’t be able to do his year due to a scheduling snafu: it’s being held the same weekend as the Hero World Challenge, the unofficial 20-man field Tour event that Tiger hosts in the Bahamas.

“Hopefully,” said Jowdy, “when his house is done, he’ll spend more time here.”

Check out some photos of Legacy Club.