Check the yardage book: Bay Hill for the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational on the PGA Tour

StrackaLine offers a hole-by-hole course guide to Bay Hill and the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard.

Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando, site of the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational Presented by Mastercard on the PGA Tour, opened in 1961 with a design by Dick Wilson. Arnold Palmer took over the property on lease in 1970, bought it in 1975 and made adjustments to the course multiple times over the following decades.

Bay Hill, which has been the site of the Tour event since 1979, ranks No. 5 in Florida on Golfweek’s Best list of public-access layouts in each state. It also ties for No. 191 on Golfweek’s Best list of all modern courses in the U.S., and it ties for No. 58 on the list of all resort courses in the U.S.

Bay Hill will play to 7,466 yards with a par of 72. The layout is one of the toughest on the PGA Tour each year.

Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week at Bay Hill.

Check the yardage book: Riviera for the 2024 Genesis Invitational on the PGA Tour

These putting green heat maps are among the hottest on Tour. Check out the slopes.

Riviera Country Club – one of the highest-ranked courses on the PGA Tour schedule each season – was designed by George C. Thomas and William P. Bell and opened in 1927 in Pacific Palisades, California. It hosts the 2024 Genesis Invitational this week.

Riviera will play to 7,322 yards with a par of 71 for the Genesis Invitational.

The layout ranks No. 4 in California on Golfweek’s Best list of private courses in each state, and it’s No. 18 among all classic courses built before 1960 in the U.S.

Besides hosting the Tour each year, Riviera will be the site of the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open and the 2032 U.S. Open, as well as hosting the 2028 Olympic Golf competition.

Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week at Riviera.

Check the yardage book: TPC Scottsdale’s Stadium Course for the 2024 WM Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour

No. 16 is famous, but how does the rest of TPC Scottsdale’s Stadium Course shape up?

There’s a lot more to the Stadium Course at TPC Scottsdale than the famed 16th, the par 3 lined by grandstands and site of this week’s party at the WM Phoenix Open. Here’s your chance to see how the rest of the course sets up for the 2024 version of the PGA Tour event.

The Stadium Course opened in 1986 with a design by the team of Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish. It was renovated in 2014. The site of a Tour event since 1987, the layout will play to 7,261 yards with a par of 71 this week.

The layout ranks No. 4 in Arizona on Golfweek’s Best list of top public-access layouts in each state. It also ties for No. 83 on Golfweek’s Best list of top resort courses in the U.S.

Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week at TPC Scottsdale’s Stadium Course.

If Anthony Kim really is coming back to pro golf, here are some things to remember

Kim found ways to be exciting, thrilling, confounding and brilliant on the course.

Here are a few things you might want to know about Anthony Kim as rumors of a golf comeback for AK, on some tour at some time soon, swirl about.

First, he’s the best junior golfer to ever come out of the Coachella Valley in Southern California. Kim won his CIF-Southern Section Individual title in 2001 when he was a sophomore at La Quinta High School. He was done with high school golf after that year, instead focusing on his future career in golf.

Kim was brilliant at every level of golf he ever played. He was the newcomer of the year for the Big 12 during his freshman season at the University of Oklahoma. He was the team’s No. 1 player as a junior, the year he left to play professionally. In the next few weeks, he finished second in the 2006 Valero Texas Open.

He was known as a stickler for the rules of the game, not one to give a two-footer in even a recreational round.

He had confidence in his game to burn. But he was never one to embrace the Tour lifestyle, telling me once in an interview at the old Bob Hope Classic that he almost quit the game after his rookie year because he disliked Tour life so much.

He hasn’t played professional golf in 12 years. The last of his three Tour wins came 13 years ago. He beat Sergio Garcia in singles in the Ryder Cup 15 years ago. People forget Kim was so intensely focused during that match that after he had closed Garcia out, Kim started to walk to the next hole to keep playing. Garcia had to call him back.

Kim found ways to be exciting, thrilling, confounding and brilliant on the course. In the 2009 Masters, he made 11 birdies in the second round, still a single-round record for that event. He shot 65. He was touted as the next Tiger Woods in the very era of Tiger.

Yet by 26, it was over, a result of wrist and ankle injuries and a nice, plum insurance policy. Like Bo Jackson in football and baseball, golf fans were left to wonder what could have been.

Anthony Kim raises the trophy after winning the Wachovia Championship golf tournament in Charlotte, N.C., Sunday, May 4, 2008.

Long-awaited return?

Maybe now we will find out. All due respect to other golfers on Tour, but the return of Anthony Kim, now 38, would be one of the two or three biggest stories of the year, and perhaps the biggest story if he resembles the old AK (remember that massive belt buckle?)

In any other time, fans could be excited by the prospect of Kim’s return. Is he missing the game that he didn’t seem to miss all that much when he left 12 years ago? Is his game up to the standard of representing AK?

But as with everything in golf today, the potential return of Anthony Kim includes the prospect of a PGA Tour return vs. a LIV Golf debut. The PGA Tour offers stability and a road back through a past champion’s status and sponsor exemptions that any tournament would be foolish not to offer. LIV offers money up front, but perhaps not the kind of money a 26-year-old Kim could have demanded.

Kim has to make several decisions if he is to come back, and some of those decisions might have already been made. Is his game good enough to put on display for the public? Does he long for the traditions of the history of the PGA Tour and its four-day, 72-hole events, most with 36-hole cuts? Or does LIV’s different format of 54 holes and no cuts and team play hold an appeal, even if critics don’t believe it’s real golf?

Maybe, just maybe, Kim decides not to come back at all. Kim was always a different kind of golfer, so remaining a non-golfer wouldn’t be a surprise.

But if he does come back, at least for a while, Kim would be a red-hot story for the game.

Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com.

Check the yardage book: PGA West’s Pete Dye Stadium Course for the PGA Tour’s 2024 American Express

StrackaLine offers a hole-by-hole guide for the Pete Dye Stadium Course for the American Express.

PGA West’s Pete Dye Stadium Course – one of three courses used for the PGA Tour’s 2024 The American Express in La Quinta, California – opened in 1986 with a design by the legendary architect whose name appears in the layout’s title.

The 7,187-yard, par-72 Stadium Course is the main track for this week’s event, hosting each player for one of the first three rounds as well as Sunday’s final round. The other two courses used in the first three rounds are La Quinta Country Club (7,060 yards, par 72) and PGA West’s Nicklaus Tournament Course (7,147 yards, par 72). All the players have one round on each course before the cut is made for Sunday’s final round.

The Stadium Course ranks No. 11 in California on Golfweek’s Best list of top public-access courses, and the Nicklaus Tournament Course ties for No. 21 in the state on that list.

Worth noting, La Quinta Country Club has undergone a two-year renovation in which all the greens have been replaced. Also, the Pete Dye Stadium course will wrap up a multi-year restoration later in 2024.

Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week on the Stadium Course. Check out the maps of each hole below.

Check the yardage book: Waialae for the 2024 Sony Open on the PGA Tour

StrackaLine offers a hole-by-hole course guide for the Sony Open in Hawaii and Waialae Country Club.

Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, site of the 2024 Sony Open in Hawaii, originally was designed by famed golden-era architect Seth Raynor and opened in 1927 alongside Kāhala Beach.

The private course has undergone multiple reconstructions, mostly in the 1960s as a hotel was added to the property. Architects Robert Trent Jones Sr., Desmond Muirhead and Rick Smith made changes to the course over the decades, and most recently Tom Doak has worked to restore some of Raynor’s original design concepts.

The layout, which first hosted the PGA Tour in 1965, will play to 7,044 yards with a par of 70 this year. Of note: The standard routing is altered for the Sony Open, with the nines reversed to better take advantage of the scenic sunsets. The nines are presented below in the order in which they are played during the Tour event.

Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.

What’s next: Breaking down the impact of extending PGA Tour, Saudi PIF and investor negotiations

The PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund missed their agreement deadline. So … now what?

After a year of uncertainty, 2024 was meant to usher in a new era of professional golf following the shocking announcement last June that the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – the financial backer of the rival LIV Golf – had agreed to merge their commercial assets to create a new, for-profit golf entity.

Golf fans have come to realize over the last six months that the framework agreement was nothing more than a good way to end litigation and a bad way to announce plans to form a new venture, known as PGA Tour Enterprises, to reunite the professional game.

A Dec. 31 deadline was set to reach an agreement, but on Sunday night, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan sent a memo to players that stated “active and productive” negotiations would continue into 2024 with the PIF based on the progress made to date. Monahan also claimed the Tour has “made meaningful progress” with the Strategic Sports Group (SSG), an outside investment group headlined by Fenway Sports Group.

So … now what? As the PGA Tour returns to action this week, golf fans are still left to wonder what the future of the sport will look like. The New Year’s Eve update provided little information and left fans with numerous unanswered questions that need to be addressed, sooner rather than later. Until then, let’s put on our speculation hats and look at the impact extending the deadline may have on the pro game.

Check the yardage book: Kapalua’s Plantation Course for the 2024 The Sentry on the PGA Tour

Kapalua’s Plantation Course is steep, but exactly how steep? A hint: No. 18 tumbles down more than 50 feet.

Kapalua’s Plantation Course in Hawaii – site of this week’s season-opening The Sentry on the PGA Tour – was the first course built by the now-legendary design duo of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. The mountainside layout opened in 1991 and was restored in 2019.

The Plantation Course ranks No. 2 in Hawaii on Golfweek’s Best list of top public-access layouts in each state. It is No. 17 on Golfweek’s Best ranking of all resort courses in the U.S., and it’s No. 20 on the list of top public-access courses in the U.S.

The Plantation maxes out at 7,596 yards with a par of 73, and it has only one par 3 on the back nine. With several downhill tee shots and the possibility of several drives rolling out past 400 yards, the course usually plays significantly shorter than the yardage might indicate.

Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.

Staff picks: Who will win their first major championship in 2024?

Don’t be surprised if a handful of rising stars command the spotlight in 2024.

Four of the five major champions on the women’s side in 2023 were first-time winners. As for the men? Two of four.

As the golf world moves on from 2023 and looks ahead to 2024, we got to thinking, who is most likely to add a major championship to their resume for the first time in the new year? Several writers on Golfweek‘s staff have made their picks, some surprising, some not so much.

Men’s 2024 major venues: Augusta National Golf Club (Masters), Valhalla Golf Club (PGA Championship), Pinehurst No. 2 (U.S. Open) and Royal Troon (Open Championship).

Women’s 2024 major venues: The Club at Carlton Woods (Chevron Championship), Lancaster Country Club (U.S. Women’s Open), Sahalee Country Club (KPMG Women’s PGA Championship), Evian Resort Golf Club (Amundi Evian Championship), The Old Course at St. Andrews (AIG Women’s Open).

Christmas comes early for the kids at PNC Championship who call it the best week of the year

The PNC Championship is the highlight of golf’s silly season and the annual hit-and-giggle delivered again in 2023.

ORLANDO — With Paddy Harrington in the midst of college exams back home in Ireland, Ciaran Harrington took his older brother’s place at the 2023 PNC Championship. Six weeks removed from breaking his left leg playing high school rugby, 15-year-old Ciaran joined his father Padraig – in his first competitive round – at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in front of thousands of fans on live television. Ciaran found that he hit his best shots in front of packed grandstands, when he could feel his stomach in his throat.

“You know, it was always going to be a bit of a push to get him ready for this,” said Padraig, “and then when he broke his leg, it was like he’s had 10 days of a crash course in how to play golf. And he’s done brilliant.”

Padraig Harrington pictured with his son Ciaran at the PNC Championship at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Club on December 14, 2023 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)

This year’s PNC field featured 11 former world No. 1s, nine World Golf Hall of Fame members and eight Ryder Cup captains. The field of 20 teams – one of the most sought-after invitations in golf – combined for 62 major championship titles.

Lee Trevino, 84, has teed it up in all 26 editions of the event, while 12-year-old Will McGee, the youngest in the field, made his second appearance with mom Annika Sorenstam. McGee cried down most of the 18th hole just thinking about the fact that he’d have to wait a whole year to do this again.

There’s so much to enjoy about the PNC. Pros smile more this week inside the ropes than they do all year. It’s a chance to talk about something other than the weekly grind. In fact, it’s often a pro’s favorite subject: family.

There were seven teenagers in this year’s field, plus 12-year-old Will. Tiger Woods’ son Charlie, of course, generated the most buzz for a fourth consecutive year, but there were plenty of worthy storylines in rain-soaked central Florida.

Cameron Kuchar, 16, has been holding a golf club since he was in diapers and one day dreams of winning the Masters. He plays on the South Florida PGA Junior Medalist Tour with Charlie and Justin Leonard’s son, Luke, who was also in the field.

Steve Stricker, 56, was invited to the PNC for the first time after a rule change was made to allow PGA Tour Champions major winners. He partnered with youngest daughter Izzi, 17, who will follow in the footsteps of her mother Nicki and sister Bobbi on the golf team at Wisconsin beginning in the fall of 2024. Izzi is a two-time state champion and the 2023 Golf Coaches Association of Wisconsin State Co-Player of the Year.

Last May, Izzi was inside the ropes with her father when she debuted as his caddie at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, where Steve beat Padraig Harrington in a playoff.

The PNC offered a new twist in that the Strickers strategized together over shots that she’d hit as well.

The Strickers played alongside world No. 1 Nelly Korda on Saturday and Team Woods on Sunday, and Izzi called it the coolest week of her life. When asked if she chatted much with Charlie on Sunday, Izzi said briefly.

“We were both really dialed,” she said. “Not much came out of our mouths.”

The Stricker clan is close and highly competitive. When questioned if his daughters had ever bested him on the golf course, Steve said maybe in a three-hole stretch.

“But if it’s 18 holes,” he continued, “I can honestly say I don’t think either one of them – because I start to grind if it gets close. Then I start talking to them and getting in their ear and trying to throw them off a little bit if that’s going to happen.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0-cfV8rJZz/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D&img_index=1

Like Ciaran, golf isn’t even Tanner Furyk’s main sport. The 19-year-old son of Jim Furyk plays lacrosse at The University of the South, where he’s majoring in economics.

To be invited to the PNC, a member of each team must have won at least one major (PGA Tour, LPGA or PGA Tour Champions) or the Players Championship, while the partner must not hold any playing status on a professional tour.

Brady Duval watches his tee shot on the first hole with his father David Duval during the first round of the PNC Championship at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Club on December 16, 2023 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)

David Duval and his son, Brady, finished runner-up to the Langers this year. It marked a record-tying fifth time that Berhard Langer has won the PNC with one of his sons. Brady calls the PNC by far the best week of the year.

David teaches Brady, a freshman on the golf team at Coastal Carolina, to swing the same way he has all his life.

“It’s all our teacher (Shan LeBaron) now teaches him now, too, and there’s a reason for it,” said David. “Because it makes it easier. You don’t have to pound balls all the time. You don’t have to work on timing. Somebody told him last year – slow down a little bit. The way I tell him to swing a club, if you’re doing it right, speed up. It’s only going to go straighter and further.”

Early in the week at PNC, David asked longtime friend Peter Jacobsen to come over and explain a move he’d been trying to get across to Brady. In less than 10 minutes, Brady understood.

“Because we’re saying the same thing,” said David, “but you sometimes have to say it in six or seven ways until the person, the individual, understands it.”

Ciaran doesn’t consider himself a golfer, but he left Orlando certainly hungry to get better. With Paddy still in college next December, Ciaran will likely get the nod again from dad and wants to be ready.

For years, Will McGee asked his mother if he could play with her in the PNC. But Sorenstam and her husband, Mike, wanted to be sure that Will was ready for this kind of spotlight. They wanted to make sure that the emphasis was on fun.

Will is undeniably addicted to golf, but certainly not because he was pushed into it. If anything, Sorenstam has worried that Will might get burned out because he rarely shows an interest in much else.

That’s certainly the recipe Padraig Harrington prescribes for those interested in getting their children involved in the game.

“Just let the kids just have a bit of fun and just no pressure, no stress,” said Harrington. “They’ve loads of time, you know, you don’t need to be good at this game at six years of age, or eight years of age or even 12 years of age. It could be even a burden to be good at that age. So, you know, let them enjoy.”

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