CASTLE PINES — Castle Pines Golf Club will combine a lot of length with thin air in August. 

The famous course will host the top 50 players on the PGA Tour for the BMW Championship from Aug. 20-25, and changes have been made to what was an already challenging golf course. 

“We’ve added over 600 yards in length to get our championship tees to 8,130 yards,” George Solich, who is the chairman and president of Castle Pines Golf Club, said during Tuesday’s BMW Championship media event. “We’ve reshaped this golf course completely. What I like to say is we started with a Picasso, and we just made that Picasso better.” 

The Jack Nicklaus-designed layout sits at over 6,300 feet of elevation and measures 7,635 yards. The PGA Tour’s The International played there from 1986-2006 and had winners such as Retief Goosen, Davis Love III, Phil Mickelson, Brad Faxon, Ernie Els and Greg Norman. 

The 8,130 yards will break the record for longest course in PGA Tour history. The second-longest course on the 2024 PGA schedule was Torrey Pines at over 7,700 yards. The 2021 PGA Championship held at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C., measured 7,876 yards. The latter championship was won by Mickelson.

“We couldn’t have done this without Jack Nicklaus,” Solich said. “Jack’s been here a couple times a year for the last eight years straight, and he takes great pride in what we’ve collectively created here at Castle Pines.  

“These improvements, paired with our passion for excellence, quality at every turn and a unique and warm and welcoming service, ensure we are ready to once again host the best players on the PGA Tour.” 

Former Broncos quarterback John Elway, who has been a member at Castle Pines since 1989, was an important part of the BMW Championship in 2014 when it was played at Cherry Hills Country Club. The Hall of Famer is excited to see pro golf back in Colorado. 

“The support of this membership and wanting pro golf to come back to Colorado and the support that this membership has given this event as well as the club to get it in the position where we are now to really feature what Colorado is all about,” Elway said Tuesday. 

And fans are showing their excitement for the event. Tickets for Saturday’s third round are sold out with Sunday not far behind, according to BMW Championship tournament director Vince Pellegrino.  

“To sell out Saturday this far in advance of the championship is unprecedented and a true indication of how excited the fans are here in Denver,” he said.  

The top 50 players in the FedEx Cup standings will be playing Castle Pines. Denver native Wyndham Clark is in good shape to be one of them. Clark currently sits fifth in the standings after his win at Pebble Beach and second-place finishes at The Players and Arnold Palmer Invitational. 

“It’s very rare to be able to play in your home state,” Clark said. “For me growing up, the first tournament I ever attended was The International. I actually sat on the 9th green, and I remember watching David Duval and Retief Goosen and Ernie Els at the time being some of the best players in the world.” 

Clark also attended the BMW Championship at Cherry Hills in 2014 while he was in college. He sees the challenges of Castle Pines after playing it a couple times and feels his fellow tour players are aware of it as well. 

“This is probably the most challenging course in Colorado because you do — I mean, first, the altitude, and then you have a lot of elevation change, which can be a challenge. As George (Solich) said, it’s 8,100 yards, so it’s very deep, long,” Clark said.  

The altitude will take some time to figure out for PGA players, Clark said. 

“It’s very tough off the tee, and then around the greens you have to be very precise. At altitude where we normally don’t play, that’s going to be difficult,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot of us Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, spending a lot of time on the range with Trackmans and all the measuring devices on distance, trying to figure out how far the ball is going.”