An aerial look at the 1st hole at Black Desert Resort
Brian Oar
Utah’s professional sport clout used to be confined to the hardcourt and the soccer pitch, but joining the Jazz and Real Salt Lake this week is a freshly minted NHL team that won their debut game in style 5-2 against the Blackhawks, plus a PGA Tour stop that tees off today.
The inaugural Black Desert Championship, the third chapter of the eight FedExCup Fall, is the first time the PGA Tour has rolled into Utah since 1963 when Tommy Jacobs beat out Don January by a stroke to take the state open, which at the time was part of the circuit.
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Golf fans will get to take a gander at the par 71, 7,371-yard Black Desert Resort Course, the centerpiece of a brand new $2 billion project in Southern Utah spanning 630 acres. Tom Weiskopf’s final design, with emerald green fairways set against black lava rock fields and red-hued cliffs, promises plenty of drama for tour players outside the top 50 as they jockey for status on golf’s top circuit.
Fall events carry the same weight as in-season contests. Winners earn 500 FedExCup points, a two-year exemption, and in addition, secure spots in the majors that invite PGA Tour winners, as well as entry into the Sentry Tournament of Champions and The Players Championship.
ST GEORGE, UTAH – OCTOBER 09: Mike Weir of Canada looks on from the third hole prior to the Black … [+] Desert Championship 2024 at Black Desert Resort on October 09, 2024 in St George, Utah. (Photo by Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images)
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There are quite a few native Utahns in the field including Zac Blair, Patrick Fishburn and Jay Don Blake. When you include those with strong ties to the Beehive State, the contingent swells to nine. Other notables include Presidents Cup Internationals captain Mike Weir who lives in Park City and attended Brigham Young University where he won WAC Player of the Year in his senior season. Then there’s 18-year-old phenom Kihei Akina, who received scholarship offers from a flood of top tier golf schools, including Oklahoma State, North Carolina and Arizona State before deciding to commit to BYU’s program.
“The scenery out here is pretty insane. I think it’ll look amazing on TV and everything like that. Pretty interested to kind of see what the scores are like and what it plays like in tournament conditions,” Blair said.
Ogden, Utah’s Patrick Fishburn, 85th in the standings, is hoping to improve his position in priority rankings to increase playing ops in the 2025 FedExCup Season. The 32-year-old rookie has had four top 10 finishes this year including a third place showing at the Procore Championship last month.
“It’s been a lot better than where I started. Started off really rough. I was not playing good. Of course, there is no net to flight out here on the PGA Tour,” Fishburn said, adding that his play improved with equipment changes to his driver and putter paying off in tandem with him becoming more comfortable tackling courses with more challenging set ups and firmer and faster greens.
“Lately I’ve been playing pretty consistent and I like playing in the state of Utah. Got a lot of experience playing at altitude. The dry desert air, a lot of factors I just feel comfortable with, bent greens and things like that,” he added.
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Jay Don Blake, born, raised and still residing in St. George, marks his 500th PGA Tour start today at the tournament. The 65-year-old veteran’s career high point came in 1991 when Blake earned six top-10 finishes, including a leaderboard topping performance at the Shearson Lehman Brothers Open. A consistently rock solid player, Blake ranked in the top 125 for an impressive 15-year stretch.
Blake learned he’d received a sponsor exemption to play in this week’s tournament during the filming of documentary short about his life. As he and his wife stepped out of a golf cart following a morning of shooting, they were suddenly swarmed by ten of his grandchildren. Patrick Manning, managing director of Reef Private Equity and Black Desert, then appeared from behind his family and presented him with a framed certificate, officially inviting him to compete in the championship.
“It was a very emotional, very proud moment to be part of what’s going to take place this week, to have my family be part of that and all the support they’ve given me throughout the years,” Blake said, calling the gesture a “big surprise” and likening it to a dream come true.
“Being at 499 tournaments, it’s been, I don’t know, 12, 13, 14 years since I’ve played a PGA Tour event. I never thought I’d make that 500th. I’ve tried to get sponsor exemptions, I’ve tried to qualify a few times and it just hasn’t worked out.”
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A wrongful death lawsuit filed in Utah alleges a counterfeit airbag turned a routine crash into a fatal explosion that killed a teenage driver within minutes.
Alexia De La Rosa graduated from Hunter High School in May of 2025. On July 30, 2025, she was involved in a crash.
The lawsuit alleges that when the vehicle’s driver-side airbag deployed, it detonated and sent metal and plastic shrapnel into the cabin.
MORE | Crashes
A large, jagged piece of metal struck Alexia in the chest, and she died minutes later, according to the complaint.
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The lawsuit, filed by Morgan & Morgan in Utah’s Third Judicial District Court, was brought on behalf of Tessie De La Rosa, as personal representative of the estate of her 17-year-old daughter.
The defendants are AutoSavvy Holdings Inc., AutoSavvy Dealerships LLC, and AutoSavvy Management Company LLC.
Morgan & Morgan alleges that the Hyundai Sonata had previously been declared a total loss after a 2023 crash and issued a salvage title. The suit claims AutoSavvy later purchased the vehicle and had it repaired — during which counterfeit, non-compliant, and defective airbag components were allegedly installed — before reselling it to the De La Rosa family.
The complaint further alleges that AutoSavvy knew or should have known the vehicle contained counterfeit and nonfunctional airbag components when it was sold.
“This is the third wrongful death lawsuit we have filed involving alleged counterfeit airbags that we believe turned survivable crashes into fatal incidents,” Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan said in a statement. “No life should be cut short because a corporation puts profits above safety.”
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Attorney Andrew Parker Felix, who is leading the case, said the firm is committed to uncovering how allegedly illegal airbag inflators enter the stream of commerce and are installed in vehicles sold to consumers.
“To make this perfectly clear, these are not supposed to be in the United States at all,” Felix said. “They are not approved for use in any vehicle that’s being driven in the United States.”
“They don’t have approval from any governmental agency to be installed in vehicles that are driven within the United States and regulated here,” he added.
Morgan & Morgan says it is investigating at least three additional deaths involving other defendants and alleged counterfeit airbags.
KUTV 2News reached out to AutoSavvy multiple times by email and phone. We were told a member of the company’s legal team would be in touch, but as of publication we have not received a response.
Randall will be among several key visitors in attendance for a meeting on March 6
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah President Taylor Randall speaks on campus during an event on Feb. 7.
University of Utah President Taylor Randall is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump this week.
Randall is expected to be among several attendees at a White House roundtable meeting on Friday to discuss solutions for the rapidly evolving landscape of college athletics with the president, a U. spokesperson said.
The meeting could be postponed, however, due to the war in Iran. As of Monday, “the odds of it happening this week are 50-50 at best,” according to Yahoo Sports.
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If the roundtable happens as scheduled, the guest list includes several current and former notable figures in sports, including NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, golf legend Tiger Woods and former Alabama head coach Nick Saban.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed in a social media post on X that he would be in attendance as well.
“Thank you [President Donald Trump] for inviting me to participate, and for your commitment to addressing challenges in college sports,” Cox said on X. “[Taylor Randall] is a great university leader who will work with us on solutions for this critical issue.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah President Taylor Randall speaks on campus on Feb. 7.
Earlier this year, Randall was called on by the federal House Committee on Education and Workforce to schedule a briefing to discuss the school’s planned private-equity partnership with Otro Capital, according to a report from Sportico.
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The Utes announced their proposal in December of last year, which is a first-of-its-kind agreement between a university’s athletic department and a private equity company.
Utah’s deal with Otro has yet to be finalized. In a Feb. 10 interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Randall said the university is “still just working through all of the issues systematically.”
“We want to do this in the right way to set both of us up for future success,” he added.
The move is expected to infuse hundreds of millions of dollars into the U.’s athletic department to help sustain the financial future of the program with rising deficits across the industry.
“I don’t think any of us would prefer to be in this situation right now,” Randall said in a faculty senate meeting in January. “But it just is what we’re facing.”
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SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — The 2025-2026 winter season isn’t quite over, but it’s no secret that it’s been a rough one when it comes to snow. Right now, statewide snowpack numbers are hovering around 60% of the median.
But you don’t have to know those numbers to understand what a strange winter it’s been.
“It’s kind of good,” said Carrie Stewart, who lives in Salt Lake City. “I mean, I like it because I like a milder climate. But I realize this summer is going to be hard.”
MORE | Snowpack
“I’m not sad I’m not shoveling,” said Sally Humphreys of Salt Lake City. “But it’s definitely worrying.”
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State water officials are also worried. The clock is ticking to bulk up those snowpack numbers.
“We’re running out of time to get the snowpack that we need,” said Jordan Clayton, supervisor of the Utah Snow Survey. “We have about 40 or so days until our typical snowpack peak.”
There is still some time to make up lost ground, but the odds aren’t great. Clayton estimates a 10% chance of reaching normal by the end of the season.
“Those are terrible odds,” he said.
In fact, the odds of having a record low snowpack are greater, sitting at 20%. It’s a grim reality that has officials looking toward the summer anxiously.
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“I would expect to see watering restrictions outdoors for a lot of places,” said Laura Haskell, Utah’s drought coordinator.
It’s unknown what the next few weeks will bring, but if Haskell had to guess, she doesn’t see state reservoirs filling up much from where they are now.
“In the spring when that runoff hits, we do get a noticeable peak in our reservoir storage,” Haskell said. “The water just starts coming in. But this year, we don’t anticipate getting that.”
Haskell says we have enough reservoir storage to likely make it through the summer, but there are other implications to worry about.
Our autumn season was pretty wet. That led to decent soil moisture levels, which can then lead to higher vegetation growth.
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“If we then have a snowpack that melts out really early, we’ll have a longer than normal summer, if you will, with forage growth that might dry out, and so that’s kind of a bad recipe for promoting fire hazard,” Clayton said.
Utahns have dealt with low snowpack levels in the past. Many Utahns are familiar with their lawn turning brown because of water restrictions.
“We’ll probably just let it go that nice, sandy, golden color that it gets in the summer in a dry climate,” said Dea Ann Kate, who lives in Cottonwood Heights.
As we wait to see what the next few weeks bring, people like Carrie Stewart are just reflecting on an unusual winter.
“It is worrying,” she said. “We need snow. We’ve only shoveled once this season, and that’s very unusual.”
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Water officials are now hoping for something else unusual: climbing out of the snowpack hole that’s been created.
“But there are no times going back where the snowpack totals for the state were close to where they are right now, and we ended up actually at a normal peak,” Clayton said. “So while it’s possible, it’s very unlikely.”
