INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — The Indian Wells Golf Resort’s Players Course has officially re-opened after a $ 13 million John Fought renovation, and to mark the importance, there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony and and even a champagne celebration after the firs group completed the first hole on Tuesday, Dec. 2.

Truth be told, though, that the resort and the city were so excited to re-boot the 36-year-old municipal golf course that tee times were actually booked on Black Friday, a few days earlier than originally planned, to give the resort all 36 holes (along with the Celebrity Course) for play over a busy holiday weekend.

The renovation came in under budget and easily on time, so why not get back to the fun sooner rather than later at this Southern California desert locale, right?

The Palm Springs area has a long tradition of golf and a long list of premiere golf destinations. The Indian Wells Golf Resort’s Players and Celebrity courses are right there in the thick of it, offering resort layouts for golfers coming from all over. The two courses are side-by-side but golfers may be surprised to find two 18-hole layouts that are quite different from one another.

The Players Course, the current home to the Epson Tour’s season-ending championship, is a course that Fought first redesigned in 2007. The course opening dates back to the ’80s. At the time, Fought’s deal with the resort was to have the 17th and 18th holes play south of the Whitewater Wash, away from the other 16 holes, so as to offer golf course views from the resort.

During this latest reworking, Fought had the freedom to re-do the closing stretch and get those last two holes where he felt they belonged all along. While that was a key feature of this renovation, the task wasn’t about trying to re-do the entire golf course. Eleven of the 18 holes weren’t re-done but they were modernized with new greens, new tees and new irrigation.

“I’ve worked in this business for like 37 years in some capacity or not, you know, and so I’ve probably done close to 100 projects,” said the 1977 U.S. Amateur champion whose best finish in a major was fifth in the 1983 PGA Championship. “If I choose to make it hard, I can make it hard. It’s the easiest thing to do. I put more slope in the greens, I make them smaller, I have big deep bunkers, I make it so that the fairways are very narrow. Hard is easy. Fun and interesting, that takes skill. To make them fun and interesting and blend well together, that takes some serious talent.”

And the Players course is fun. Formerly a par 72, it now plays as a par 71, with the 15th hole now a long par 4 that goes 515 yards from the tips (aka the Cabernet tees). The mountain views abound out here and the 15th is a great example. The hole, along the eastern edge of the property, plays south with the Eisenhower Mountain offering the backdrop. As you come upon the closing stretch of the par-4 16th, the par-3 17th and the par-5 18th, play heads towards Mt. San Jacinto, which is often a snow-capped peak in winter months.

Playability at the Players once again shines through.

“We’ve all been to golf courses that hadn’t been touched in 30, 40, 50 years. The bunkers are all mis-shapen. The drainage isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. The greens have become too small. Golf courses, just like everything else, wear out. Bunkers wear out quickly. The drainage wears out. The bunkers get misshapen because people are blasting sand out of them every day,” Fought said. “This golf course is, you know, this was 17 years ago we built this. We figured it out that they played 600,000 rounds, 600,000 people, since it was built. … You put 600,000 people roaming around on that golf course, doing stuff. It’s going to get changed.”

The Players and the Celebrity courses are municipal tracks, both owned by the city of Indian Wells and managed by Troon. Keeping up with the Joneses was simply a fact of life.

“It’s a jewel in our community. It’s something that we’re quite proud of for our residents and enjoy, but also for, you know, the fact that our community is tourism based,” said Indian Wells city manager Chris Freeland. “And so, we needed to keep up with our competitors in the region, whether it be PGA West, Desert Willow, and for us, it’s about making sure that we’re competitive with the market, maintaining our market share.”

The golf courses have variable pricing, based on time of year, day of week and time of day. But the city made sure to not forget about its residents, who pay $ 50 to play either course ($ 35 during the hot summer months), even when the rates for visitors can soar into above $ 300 in peak season.

“It’s a commitment that the city has made to the residents,” Freeland said.

With change comes commentary but Fought said he’s not paying attention to any of that noise. He says he feels good about the renovation and looks forward to another 600,000 rounds over the next several years.

“I always tell people ‘I’m not going to be very popular in the beginning. I want to be popular at the end,'” he said.

“We are beyond excited to showcase our fantastic new Players Course to the golfing world,” says Robin Graf, general manager of Indian Wells Golf Resort. “Our Indian Wells residents and resort guests will quickly discover that one of the heralded municipal courses in both California and the U.S. is now even better thanks to the incredible vision and expertise of John Fought and his team.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Players Course at Indian Wells re-opens after John Fought renovation