Faxon had yet to see 10 holes, but eight were enough to convince the PGA Tour veteran of Avenel’s new teeth. At 7,262 yards and at par 70 (with a rating of 74.9 and a slope of 145), the renovated course with a new name — TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm — is longer, tougher, and more traditional than its quirky, stadium-course predecessor, which hosted the star-crossed Kemper/Booz-Allen for two decades.

Davis Love III and Tim Petrovic, were among others who toured Avenel on Monday. Many more players in the field at the AT&T National at nearby Congressional are visiting it this week.

Love famously remarked that the only thing wrong with playing Avenel was driving past Congressional to get there.

“Being in the shadow of Congressional, we’re never going to out-Congressional Congressional,” said David Pillsbury, president of PGA Tour Golf Course Properties. “We want to be a niche — a great, corporate, private, golf club.”

Avenel’s Board of Directors, including Love, met under the copper ceiling in the new boardroom Monday night. They toured the spruced up clubhouse, which now includes an elegant fine dining enclave with wine lockers, a cozy, member’s lounge and the expansive White Oak Grille that overlooks the 18th green.

This week is about creating a buzz for the ambitious $25 million restoration project that has invigorated Avenel. The goal is not just to make the 750 members happy. It’s to attract tournament golf. The Senior Players Championship, currently at Baltimore Country Club, needs a new home in 2011. So does the LPGA Championship, which played for the final time at Bulle Rock last month.

“Our goal was to deliver a golf course that was capable of hosting major competitive golf at some point in the future,” said Pillsbury. “We’re in no rush. We’re gonna be here a long time. This is the PGA Tour’s flag in the nation’s capital.”

The PGA, which owns a network of 29 TPC courses, gathered input from approximately 40 tour players who critiqued Avenel and recommended improvements. What they found from the pros were consistent themes.

“Visually the old Avenel was not stunning and that’s about bunkering and about the greens complexes,” said Pillsbury. “What Steve and Jim did was give it that Merion look.”

Avenel has stepped into the future by going retro. Squared off tee boxes and smaller greens provide a traditional look. A caddie program takes it a step further. Driving onto the property, the vast, manicured practice facility leaves little doubt that Avenel has kicked it up a notch. Like Caves Valley and Four Streams, this is a place for golfers, not a family country club.

On the course, designers Wenzloff and Jim Hardy have altered tees and fairways to improve sight lines. They’ve smoothed the contours to provide a more natural look. They’ve shaped bunkers to improve definition and perspective. Many of the bunkers have taken on Scottish accents, with knee-high fescue grass around the perimeter. They’ve built green complexes, not just for aesthetics, but to better reward good shots and penalize bad ones.

The most radical change to Avenel, however, the one that will determine if the project is ultimately a success, is the restoration of Rock Run. The creek cut an ugly swath through the property, becoming Avenel’s unwanted signature. When it rained on Avenel, it poured. Rock Run could overflow within minutes, leaving fairways and greens submerged.

“It was like the water rising in a bath tub,” said Sullivan.

A gold mining operation at the turn of the 20th century had left Rock Run full of tailings and sediment. Development of the surrounding land over the last 30 years forced the Potomac tributary to carry more water, carving an ever-deepening ditch.

“It was unsightly,” said Pillsbury. “It was a mismatch in a club setting.”

But now instead of a V-shaped ditch with rushing waters, Rock Run is U-shaped and meanders slowly through a wide, grassy wetland, 12 acres of which were added to provide a buffer between the creek and the course. Now when it rains, water fills the surrounding marsh, submerging vegetation.

“This is an attempt to take it back a couple hundred years,” said Wenzloff.

Rock Run was the defining feature of seven holes, all of which have been seriously altered, some completely changed.

“We created a water management system and an environmental oasis that’s visually beautiful,” said Pillsbury. “This looks far more natural than what it was before. The bad news is it narrowed the fairways.”

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