PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. -- Zac Blair finds himself in contention entering the weekend rounds at the Genesis Open, which makes some sense. After all, host venue Riviera Country Club reminds the Utah native of his home course, called The Buck Club.
"George Thomas is unbelievable from a strategic standpoint," Blair said of the man who designed Riviera back in 1926. "I love his green complexes. The opening par-5, he used it at [many] of his courses, and that's one thing that I've taken at The Buck Club."
Maybe that explains his comfort level on a course where he has opened with scores of 70-68 to stand only three strokes off the lead at this weather-delayed event.
There's just one teeny, tiny detail that shouldn't be overlooked.
Blair has never actually played The Buck Club. Because it doesn't exist.
Not yet, anyway.
The club is less fiction than proposition. Blair has land picked out, blueprints for holes and plans for membership. He speaks of the club not in terms of if it might get built, but when it will be built.
"It touches on the golden age principles of course architecture, just a pure golf club that's all about golf and having fun," he said. "We've got everything ready to roll, we just need a little bit of funding and we'll build the course."
Those who have already heard of the club might not realize it hasn't been built -- and they wouldn't be alone in that thought.
"When I first heard of it a couple of years ago, I honestly thought it was a real thing," fellow Utah native Daniel Summerhays admitted. "He has a name; he has a logo. But it's just his dream, which is cool."
The 26-year-old Blair isn't just some guy with an outsized goal and unrealistic expectations, though. Among those he has enlisted to help build the club are his father, Jimmy, a long-time pro who has experience in course design, plus shapers who have helped build and renovate U.S. Open tracks.
If you couldn't tell already, Blair is an architecture wonk of the highest degree. But it's not just the Buck Club that gets him talking.
In the past year, the list of courses he has played -- non-PGA Tour venues -- reads like the top of any nationwide "Best Of" ranking. So far on the West Coast Swing alone, he has teed it up at Cypress Point, Scottsdale National and Los Angeles Country Club.
It all fuels the notion that he very well might play more rounds of golf than any other PGA Tour pro.
"I don't know," he said with a laugh. "People ask me that a lot. I don't know if too many people do. I just love golf. I love everything about it, so I play all the time."
He also loves The Buck Club, even before ground has been broken. He's not the only one, either.
Thanks to a strong social media following, Blair already has hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of fellow course architecture fans eager to play his course someday. He'll often crowdsource his followers for opinions on everything from favorite holes to preferred green complexes.
This fervor for The Buck Club is so passionate that Blair has already started selling hats, belts and other merchandise with the club's logo -- must-have items for those already excited for what the course could become.
He insists he wasn't trying to market the club before it existed. It just worked out that way.
"It kind of just happened," he said. "We were just messing around with it and people seemed to like it, so we just kept doing it. It's got a pretty good little following. People know about it, which is pretty cool for a place that doesn't exist yet. It's been fun. Something to do in the time off. ... We just try and give the people what they want -- everyone likes the hats and belts. So I think we'll keep doing it as long as people want it."
In the meantime, Blair will keep playing some of the world's greatest courses, gaining a little inspiration each time he tees it up. That could mean even more this weekend, as he attempts to remain in contention at this event.
"Any great golden age course is obviously a great place to play," he said after his second round.
Blair was talking about Riviera. But he hopes someday those same words will be said about The Buck Club, too.
