Both Zalatoris and Finau are coming off top 11 performances at the Sentry TOC.
After a few weeks in paradise, the PGA Tour heads to the desert of California for the American Express. Lucky for us, most of the top players in the world have made the trip.
Ten of the top 19 in the Official World Golf Ranking will be battling in the event, including No. 2 Scottie Scheffler and No. 4 Jon Rahm. Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele and Will Zalatoris round out the top 10 players in the field. Rahm, who recently won the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Maui, captured the title at this event in 2018.
Players will rotate between three golf courses during the first three rounds before the final round is played at the Pete Dye Stadium Course. There will be a 54-hole cut.
The 16th hole during the first round of The American Express on the Stadium course at PGA West on January 20, 2022, in La Quinta, California. (Photo: Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
PGA West (Stadium Course) | 7,187 yards | Par 72
PGA West (Nicklaus Tournament Course) | 7,147 yards | Par 72
La Quinta Country Club | 7,060 yards | Par 72
Data Golf Information
Course Fit (compares golf courses based on the degree to which different golfer attributes — such as driving distance — to predict who performs well at each course – DataGolf): 1. The Reinassance Club, 2. Caves Valley Golf Club, 3. TPC Lousiana
Trending (the players’ last three starts): 1. Jon Rahm (1, T-8, 1), 2. Tony Finau (1, 7, T-7), 3. Scottie Scheffler (T-9, 2, T-7)
Percent chance to win (based on course history, fit, trending, etc.): 1. Jon Rahm (10.8 percent), 2. Scottie Scheffler (9.7 percent), 3. Patrick Cantlay (6.5 percent)
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Listen to Riley Hamel and Andy Nesbitt on this week’s episode of Twilight 9! The boys discuss Si Woo Kim’s win at the Sony Open, preview the American Express and make a few picks for the week. Plus, Justin Thomas stops by for a quick chat!
As the best players in the world prepare to begin another season, golf fans prepare to live vicariously through their heroes competing at courses around the U.S.
To help turn your TV daydream into a reality, Golfweek has compiled 10 courses from the PGA Tour schedule that anyone can play – if their pockets are deep enough.
All the courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time. Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with the list of top public-access courses in each state among the most popular. Each of the courses below is public-access, although greens fees at several of them go above $500 per player.
The hundreds of members of the Golfweek’s Best ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those averaged overall ratings are presented for each course below.
Handed the responsibility of a restoration project for the Stadium Course at PGA West in La Quinta, architect Pete Dye’s masterpiece of golf mayhem, Tim Liddy is relying on the close professional and personal 28-year relationship he had with Dye to keep the project on track.
“He was like a second father to me,” Liddy said. “So when I’m out there, I can hear him talking to me. I can hear him yelling at me just walking around.”
Liddy is hearing a lot of Dye’s comments these days as PGA West embarks on a two-year renovation of the Stadium Course, the host course of the PGA Tour’s The American Express tournament each January.
Year one of the restoration features landscaping, the removal of trees from the layout and working to restore ground cover and bushes that were part of the course’s look in the mid-1980s. In the summer of 2023, the work will focus on an aging irrigation system as well as taking bunkers and greens back to their original sizes and shapes.
While Liddy has been the head of his own design firm, Liddy and Associates, since 1993, he worked closely with Dye on many projects. Dye, who died in 2020, became famous in the 1980s for his designs like the Stadium Course at PGA West and the TPC Stadium Course at Sawgrass, home of The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
Dye’s designs were radical for the time, with deep bunkering, mounding throughout the course, forced carries over huge lakes, undulating greens and plenty of his trademark railroad ties.
A large bunker between holes 14 and 15 is seen now clear of shrubbery and other obstacles on Stadium Course at PGA West in La Quinta, California, Thursday, July 7, 2022. (Andy Abeyta/The Desert Sun)
The PGA West course became famous for hosting six Skins Games on national television starting in 1986, and for the negative reactions of pros when the course was played in the 1987 American Express, then called the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. The tournament left the Stadium Course after just one year and didn’t return to the rotation of the event until 2016.
Liddy says he only wants to restore the course, not overhaul it.
“We’re not going to change the golf course, obviously,” Liddy said. “That would be sacrilegious. So the golf course being 37 years old, what do we need to do? Well, it’s infrastructure. The greens have shrunk, which is common. The bunkers have lost their shape as they do with age and maintenance and guys hitting sand out of them. So the bunkers need to be put back the way they were. Irrigation is 30 years old, or 37 years old. They are designed to last 20.”
The work this summer is being done in stages, with the back nine of the Stadium Course now finished and the front nine being done now. The course will be open as usual after fall overseeding and will again be used in The American Express for the eighth consecutive year next January before the restoration work continues next summer.
While the work next summer will be just as important to the course as this year’s work, the players in The American Express will see dramatic changes to the course in January because of the trees being removed. Chris May, director of agronomy for PGA West, said that while original plans called for 600 trees to be removed, the actual number will be closer to 200 trees, with around 1,200 remaining on the course.
By removing the trees, the appearance of the course changes from a layout where trees narrowed corridors on holes or provided aiming points for players to a layout with Dye’s original sparse look that was often described as a moonscape in the course’s earliest days. Archival photos also reveal where trees had been added to the course through the years.
Better for turf, tees and greens
In addition to returning to the course’s original design, May said the trees were becoming a problem because many were overgrown and rotting on the inside. More than three decades of growth also meant the trees were causing turf issues that didn’t happen when the course was young and the trees were newly planted.
“We have new ownership and they don’t like to see turf problems or brown spots,” May said. “That was part of the mandate. Part of the brown spots came from trees obstructing sprinklers. We need to have it all green and full. Mostly the tees are affected by that.”
While Liddy said he thinks the trees had become a distraction to Dye’s original vision for the course, he understands some of the negative comments PGA West has already received from homeowners about the tree removal.
“Trees are an emotional issue. They always are,” Liddy said. He added that some of the trees being removed will be replaced by younger and smaller trees
Liddy said he’s been talking to architect Lee Schmidt, who worked for Dye on a daily basis on projects including the Stadium Course, about other issues, including vegetation that was grown between holes but has since been removed from the course. That vegetation was intended to add to the Scottish look of the course.
“Lee said you know Pete’s original concept was to make it look like Scotland, and so we went to the nursery and looked for plants that represented gorse (a thick, thorny bush seen on many Scottish courses) and heather,” Liddy said. “And I said, well, we don’t have that now.”
Next summer, Liddy hopes to flatten the bottoms of bunkers, take sand out of bunker faces and push greens back to their original size. It’s all so he can help maintain the intent of Dye’s original and radical design.
“I’ve built hundreds of greens with Mr. Dye,” Liddy said. “I don’t know what to say other that they will be restored to where I think they were.”
Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer. He can be reached at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4633. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.
“It’s an experience you just can’t get. It would be like you get to be the catcher at a Dodgers game.”
LA QUINTA, Calif. – So, you want to play in the American Express pro-am? This bucket-list experience can be yours if you’ve got $30,000 burning a hole in your pocket.
After a one year absence due to COVID-19, the pro-am is back this week just as it has been every year in the tournament’s 63-year history.
The Amex actually was approved for a pro-am last year, but called it off shortly before the event because organizers weren’t comfortable encouraging non-essential travel when hospitals were full. That lead to pent-up demand to participate this year with many of the amateurs who previously signed up asking for their spot to be reserved. By August, the field was full.
“We’re not taking out ads,” said tournament director Pat McCabe, who noted that the field is made up of returning business, inquiries from word of mouth, and current players bringing clients and friends along. There are various sponsorships and packages available, but the off-the-street buy-in is $30,000. Other than the AT&T Pebble Beach, which tends to be on an invite-only basis, there’s no other opportunity to play alongside a Tour pro during competitive rounds.
“It’s an experience you just can’t get,” McCabe said. “It would be like you get to be the catcher at a Dodgers game.”
Where else in professional sports can you rub elbows with the pros, have a caddie with your name on the back of its bib and flashing on the electronic leaderboard? McCabe describes it as being a PGA Tour player for a week.
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Once an amateur participant gets on the grounds on tournament-week Monday, he is afforded a sampling of what it’s like to live in the land of milk and honey that is the PGA Tour: park in the player lot, access to the player dining facility with a guest, practice-range facility and practice round access to all three courses, a tee prize package, various hospitality such as a BMW Driving Experience this year at Thermal Track and the pro-am draft party held at the 18th green Champions Pavilion on Stadium Course as well as a VIP hospitality lounge during Friday and Saturday’s post-round concerts (Marron 5 and Brad Paisley), and three official tournament rounds with six different Tour pros.
Bob Diamond, the former Barclays CEO, has played in plenty of these affairs and said what sets the Amex pro-am apart from the others is that participants are paired with a different golfer every day. On Friday, he witnessed Will Zalatoris shooting 61.
“I made six net birdies and he canceled them all out,” said Diamond, who will play PGA West’s Stadium Course on Saturday with Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler. “Either I was useless or his inspiration.”
“Funny enough putting is the best part of my game and has been since I was a little kid.”
LA QUINTA, Calif. — There’s a loud buzz around James Hart du Preez, the 26-year-old golfer from South Africa who is making his PGA Tour debut this week at The American Express.
More accurately, there is a thwack followed by oohs and aahs. That’s because du Preez is one of the longest drivers, not just in pro golf but on the planet.
Du Preez, a 6-foot-9, 260-pound wall of muscle, can hit a tee shot 400 yards. In fact, not only can he hit it that far, he dropped jaws by averaging 373.1 yards per drive last year on The Sunshine Tour, a South African pro tour.
To put that in perspective, Bryson DeChambeau led the PGA Tour in 2021 at 323.7 yards per drive.
His combination of clubhead speed and raw power — his fastest clubhead speed is 144 miles per hour and his fastest ball speed is 212 miles per hour — has become the stuff of legend. His exploits are popular on YouTube as videos of him hitting tee shots have hundreds of thousands of views.
But he doesn’t like to be pigeon-holed as just a long-drive specialist.
“When people see me, obviously they don’t see 6-9 golfers come around very often so the first thing they gravitate towards is the long-hitting,” du Preez said. “But funny enough putting is the best part of my game and has been since I was a little kid. I didn’t grow until late in my life until about 16 or 17 so before then I never hit the ball far so I had to learn how to score chipping and putting.”
His career got off to a slower-than-he-wanted start due to a wrist injury and multiple surgeries that followed. He turned pro in 2018, tore a ligament in his left wrist in his third start, and was out of commission for 18 months.
Du Preez is currently ranked No. 1,319 in the Official World Golf Ranking and was given a sponsor’s exemption into this event. He attributes the fact that he’s 26 and just now finding a groove to that late growth spurt he mentioned.
“A lot of people want to be tall, but they don’t understand the things that come with it, because your body accelerates so quickly and the forces you can generate are hard to control,” du Preez said. “My health is really good now. Since I turned about 24 years old, things have come into place, but from 15 to 24 it was pretty brutal. I could never play for more than about five months a year during that time with so many injuries. I was on and off the whole time. I’ve sort of settled into my body now and feeling great.”
James Hart du Preez tees off on the 1st hole (his 18th of the day) during the American Express pro-am tournament at PGA West in La Quinta, Wednesday, January 19, 2022.
For some historical perspective, du Preez will join Englishman Jon Thomson, who had a hole-in-one at the British Open last year, as the tallest player to ever play in a PGA Tour event. The tallest player to ever win a PGA Tour event is Phil Blackmar at 6-foot-7. The tallest player to ever win a major was George Archer, who won the 1969 Masters at 6-foot-5-and-a-half.
Making his PGA Tour debut is a big moment for du Preez. As a competitor, of course his goal is to win, but he understands there are a lot of ways this week will be a positive for him, even if it doesn’t end with him hoisting the trophy.
“For me, the goal is I hope to prove, more to myself than to anyone else, that I can play with these guys,” du Preez said. “It can be a little bit dangerous to only consider titles and winning as a measure of success. You can tick a lot of boxes along the way, and I’m just looking to tick some of those boxes this week.
“Being on the PGA is the goal,” he said. “I think my game is very well-suited to this tour. I hit the ball a long way and I hit it very high, but that’s been my ultimate goal since I was a kid to play against the best players week in and week out.”
So golf fans should get to know the name James Hart du Preez. And to help, let’s have him explain the different parts of his unusual name.
“My first name is James Hart,” he said. “Hart is actually my grandmother on my dad’s side surname. So my dad is James Hart as well and my last name is du Preez (the Z is silent) so I don’t have a middle name and it gets people because it’s not hyphenated.”
He said he understands that the reason people like to watch him play is to see him hit the ball as far as he can. But he says he always tells young golfers that he’d much rather teach them how to hit the ball straight than to hit it far.
That being said. He doesn’t mind being able to hit it far, too.
According to the PGA Tour, these are the stock yardages du Preez hits for each club:
Driver: 345
3-wood: 305
3-iron: 275
4-iron: 253
5-iron: 240
6-iron: 227
7-iron: 206
8-iron: 190
9-iron: 180
Full wedge: 160
50-degree wedge: 145
54-degree wedge: 127
58-degree wedge: 105
Being a tall golfer helps with those gaudy numbers. He said he can generate a lot more force, but uber-tall golfers don’t have a ton of success on the PGA Tour.
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When asked what are the pros and cons of being a tall golfer, du Preez didn’t hesitate.
“The main con is trying to find pants that fit,” he said with a laugh. “Airplanes are tough, hotel beds are always too short, those are the main downsides.”
His personality is almost as large as his frame.
Ron Johnson, who played with du Preez as part of the pro-am event on Wednesday before the tournament tees off Thursday, said watching du Preez in action was a treat.
“He’s just huge off the tee, but even better he’s the nicest guy out here,” Johnson said. “There’s not a nicer guy. He was helping us read the greens and telling us what to do. And his tee shots, I mean they’re just bombs, I don’t know what else to say except they are twice as long as mine.”
Shad Powers is a sports columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.
Jon Rahm highlights a stacked field in the desert. We have a list of players to target in fantasy.
After two weeks in Hawaii, the PGA Tour is back on the U.S. mainland. The boys are headed to the California desert for the American Express, a tournament hosted by the coffee-drinking stallion, Phil Mickelson.
One thing that won’t change this week: the amount of birdies.
After two events in a row that produced 34 and 23 under winners, expect the same again.
Jon Rahm plays a second shot on the fourth hole during the third round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions at the Plantation Course at Kapalua Golf Club on January 8, 2022 in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)
This is a chalk pick, no way around that. But it’s impossible to ignore what this man is doing right now. Every time he tees it up he’s near the top of the leaderboard with a chance to win. He’ll be expensive in lineups, but if you can afford him he’ll be worth it.
Patrick Cantlay (+900)
Another chalk pick, but another guy absolutely golfing his ball. He shot 61 in the final round here last season, nearly stealing the win from Si-Woo Kim. Cantlay is coming off a top-5 finish at the Sentry.
Scottie Scheffler (+2000)
The Texan is still looking for his first PGA Tour win, and this may be a great spot to grab it. Scheffler finished third here in 2020 and is coming off a fantastic fall season. Watch out for the Ryder-Cupper.
Russell Henley (+3000)
After having him for a top 20 and outright win last week, only feels right to come back to him. It hurt the soul to see him once again stumble down the back-nine at the Sony, but it’s easy to see he’s playing great golf.
Abraham Ancer (+3000)
Honest Abe is coming off a couple tough weeks in a row. After nearly coming in last at the Sentry TOC, Ancer missed the cut at the Sony Open. However, he loves it in the desert: in the last three seasons, Ancer owns the lowest cumulative score at the American Express.
Matthew Wolff (+3000)
Mathew Wolff celebrates after hitting a hole-in-one on the par-3 ninth hole during the final round of the Houston Open. (Photo: Thomas Shea-USA TODAY Sports)
Whenever there’s going to be a lot of birdies needed to win, it’s tough not to look Wolff’s way. He’s 11th on Tour in birdie average and first in scoring average.
Will Zalatoris (+5000)
This will be the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year’s first start of 2022. The ball-striking machine should work his way around the three tracks with ease, but it’ll all come down to the flat stick. Can he put the yips away and make some putts?
Seamus Power (+3000)
The Irishman is coming off two solid weeks in Hawaii, T-15 and T-3, and is off to a fantastic start to the new season. In eight starts, Power has six finishes of T-21 or better (that includes five top 15s).
Tony Finau (+2000)
The big man likes himself some desert golf. Finished solo fourth last season and tied for 14th in 2020. In Maui he played decently, eventually tying for 19th.
Si-Woo Kim (+5000)
Tough not to put the defending champion on the list. Kim is coming off two mediocre performances on the islands, but if he’s able to get the putting going, watch out for the South Korean.
StrackaLine provides hole-by-hole maps of the layout that will host one early round plus the final round of the PGA Tour event in La Quinta.
PGA West’s Pete Dye Stadium Course, which opened in 1986 in La Quinta, California, is one of three courses used for this week’s The American Express on the PGA Tour.
Paired with amateurs in a pro-am format, the pros will play one round each Thursday-Saturday on the Dye Stadium Course (7,113 yards, par 72), La Quinta Country Club (7,060 yards, par 72) and PGA West’s Nicklaus Tournament Course (7,159 yards, par 72). Sunday’s final round will be on the Dye Stadium Course.
The Stadium Course ranks No. 11 in California on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access layouts, with the Nicklaus Tournament Course ranked No. 25 on that list.
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.
There are a handful of places in the U.S. where golfers congregate in such numbers that we are the majority. At Pinehurst in North Carolina and Pebble Beach in California, announcing yourself as a proud golfer isn’t just accepted, it’s expected.
It’s the same in Palm Springs, California, and its neighboring communities, located a mere 90 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Here, golf is it. Tennis is popular, too, but the fairways, as far as many residents are concerned, are the essence of desert life.
Back in the day when we let our fingers do the walking and the Yellow Pages was an essential part of life, the local Palm Springs phone book dispersed golf tips on how to grip the club, keep your eye on the ball and follow through on the swing among the volume’s various classified ads. Now that’s a city consumed with golf, one that fills tee sheets with its geriatricgolf-loving residents and visitors at more than 100 courses.
With its idyllic weather consistingof 350 days a year of sunshine, Palm Springs has been a tourist haven and Hollywood getaway since the 1920s. It is a desert oasis cradled between tall, picturesque mountains – the San Jacinto Mountains to the west, the Little San Bernardino Mountains to the east and the Santa Rosa Mountains to the south.
“The Desert” is what locals call Palm Springs, itself shorthand for the 30-mile string of seven communities – including Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta and Indio – that more or less ooze into each other and make up the Coachella Valley.
La Quinta Resort (Courtesy of La Quinta Resort)
Everything about Palm Springs, the best known and farthest west of the Desert communities, is dreamy, from the red bougainvillea draping the Spanish-style buildings to the renovated mid-century modern buildings giving it its charm. Running a close second to the smorgasbord of forgiving fairways in Palm Springs is its culinary treats. It can stand on its own two feet as a bona fide foodie destination. (Unfortunately, my trip was during the pandemic and restaurants were only doing takeout, so circumstances were less than ideal for reviewing the food.)
The palm trees that line streets named after Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Gene Autry and Dinah Shore really do sway in the breeze, and lounging poolside here is a sport, if not an art. Palm Canyon Drive, the main thoroughfare of Palm Springs, is packed with alfresco restaurants with views of the bustling sidewalks and the latest boutique shops.
Yes, in this bastion of Bentleys and bling, worldly pleasures rule. It begs a question of where to enjoy this paradise: to stay close enough to walk to the first tee, or in the heart of Palm Springs at any one of a handful of the decadent spa resorts? The answer is: Choices abound. Palm Springs tends to cater to those seeking a tax shelter, not a night’s shelter. Nonetheless, affordable lodgings are fairly abundant, especially in summer when the mercury rises into triple digits.
La Quinta Resort (Courtesy of La Quinta Resort)
Since the dual purpose of my visit was to watch the PGA Tour pros at The American Express in January, I set up shop in La Quinta, at the other end of the valley about a 45-minute drive to Palm Springs. La Quinta Resort is considered the granddaddy of them all. This posh hideaway introduced the first golf course to the Coachella Valley in 1926 and remains a gem. The 45-acre enclave, with 41 pools on property, 23 tennis courts, both hard and clay surfaces and a top-notch teaching staff, harks back to the golden era of Hollywood when film stars lined up at the door. Guests still gather in the lounge, with its deep sofas, high-vaulted beamed ceiling and wood-burning fireplace that gives off the fragrance of mesquite. In a day of high-rise mania, low-rise La Quinta with its quaint Spanish-Colonial style casitas rates at the very least five stars for service, five hearts for romance.
Adam Schupak took on Pete Dye’s famously difficult Desert layout a day after pros played the American Express and lived to tell about it.
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Patrick Cantlay has nothing on me.
Sure, he shattered the course record at PGA West’s Pete Dye Stadium Course on Sunday, shooting an 11-under 61, and I made my 61st stroke on my approach to 14, but at Alcatraz, the course’s infamous par 3, he hit a safe but unspectacular shot to 34 feet and made par. Yours truly? Well, I thought you’d never ask. Stuck it to four feet and rolled in the birdie putt less than 24 hours later. What Cantlay wouldn’t have given for that shot. One more birdie and he likely would have been in a playoff with American Express champion Si Woo Kim.
I woke up at Zero-Dark-30 on Monday morning for probably the earliest official tee time in my 40 years playing the game – 6:45 a.m. to be exact – and was first off the tee at PGA West. Same course, same hole locations, same slick greens. I’ve been fortunate to play several major championship sites the day after the pros, and there’s nothing more thrilling than playing under virtually the same conditions they faced (minus the pressure of a seven-figure winner’s check) and seeing if you can emulate their great shots just once or twice.
No disrespect to Cantlay or Kim, who shot a bogey-free 64 to clip Cantlay by a stroke, but no way either of them would have gone as low as they did had they been playing on Monday. The temperature was mid-40s, spitting rain and someone turned the fan from off to the high setting. It was as if Dye, who passed away just over a year ago, had whispered into Mother Nature’s ear and said, “Hey, can you do me a solid. I built the hardest course ever designed and these modern-day gladiators in Soft Spikes are playing video game golf on one of my masterpieces.”
Indeed, when Dye built his Stadium Course in the desert and the pros played it for the first time in competition at the 1987, they pitched a fit like never before. Players signed a petition refusing to play there again. The PGA Tour is a “player-run” association, but this was the ultimate player mutiny. Unwilling to risk losing the Tom Watsons of the world from the field, the tournament relented and it took nearly 30 years for the course to return to the course rota at what is now formally known as the American Express.
The snow-capped Santa Rosa mountains loom in the distance at the par-4 ninth hole at PGA West’s Pete Dye Stadium Course (Adam Schupak/Golfweek)
For the masochistic types like myself that want to see if this crazy game can bring us to our knees, being told that Dye’s course was too tough for the pros and had the highest course rating/slope in the country, made it all the more appealing. As golf writer Brian McCallen once wrote of Dye’s Stadium Course, “It’s a bermudagrass Colosseum with 18 hungry lions poised to devour out-of-towners.”
It was born in the 1980s in what today feels like a bygone era where hard equaled “must play.” It also didn’t hurt the course’s reputation that it hosted the Skins Game, including in 1987 when Lee Trevino made an ace at 17 and leaped into caddie Herman Mitchell’s arms in celebration. In other words, I’ve always wanted to play it.
Dye’s diabolical course has been softened over the years – maybe too much for the best players in the world – but it remains a great test for us mere mortals. I needed to sink a 10-foot comebacker at the first hole just to save bogey after underestimating the speed of the greens. At No. 2, I thought I hit a beautiful approach about 10 feet below the hole until the false front sent it rolling backwards off the green. My high-school buddy, Evan, laughed as he informed me that I was away. Fortunately, I made a good two putt or I might have been in need of therapy for the next six months.
These opening holes are just a warm up for the stretch from Nos. 5-7, which are outstanding. The fifth hole is a par 5 with water lining the left side off the tee and the right side on the second shot all the way to the green. Somehow neither of us lost a ball and we both made par. The challenge gets tougher at the par-3 sixth hole, a 244-yard hole from the tips over water with a bit of a bail out left. Named Amen, my prayers went unanswered as my 3-wood into the wind took a swim. That led to my only double bogey of the day.
If you haven’t puckered up yet, the par-4 seventh will send the fear of Dye, especially with the wind playing mind games with us. It is a short hole played over the same man-made lake as the sixth hole. I had 80 yards to the flag but with the hole located just a few steps on to the putting surface and with water guarding the front of the green it didn’t feel like I could attack – I used caution and settled for par.
Hole after hole the flags were tucked just over a bunker, near a watery grave (back left on 13) or no more than four paces from an edge. Dye was a master illusionist and he often points you at a hazard rather than a safe landing area.
Golfweek’s Adam Schupak tried to take bite out of one of PGA’s West most devilish holes and lived to tell about it.
The similarities in strategy and layout to the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, home of the Players Championship, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, are uncanny. On the back nine, the par of each hole is the same at both course. Both have water left on the par-3 13th and end with three of the best holes you’ll ever play. The par-5 16th at PGA West is called San Andreas Fault for its 19-foot deep bunker. As the story goes, when developer Ernie Vossler, a former Tour player, got his first look at the two-story high bunker nearly surrounding the left side of the green, he declared that Dye had gone too far and demanded he make the crater less penal. Dye refused to give in, so they made a bet. If Dye could splash out within 10 feet of the hole in three attempts, the cavernous bunker would remain as is. Dye needed just one attempt, lofting a shot to two feet. I managed to avoid hitting into the bunker but ventured down into the sand for giggles to see if I could match Dye’s efforts to clear the steep slope. After three attempts rolled back to my feet, I conceded as former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill had done years before in the pro-am, eventually throwing his ball out.
Playing to the 15th green at the Nicklaus Tournament Course is the quintessential risk-reward challenge. (Adam Schupak/Golfweek)
And then the hole we’d been waiting for all day. Alcatraz is a desert version of Dye’s famous island green. This one plays downhill to a green surrounded by jagged rocks and water. The pros played it from 146 yards on Sunday – c’mon, let’s see these guys sweat from the back tee at 168 yards on payday – so that’s where I took dead aim and planted my 9-iron four feet from the hole. (Did I mention that yet?) It was my only birdie of the day, but if there’s only going to be one that’s the one you want to do it on.
No. 18 is almost a replica of the finishing hole at TPC Sawgrass. One more rugged challenge before you get to add them up and weep. I made a pretty nifty up and down to post 7-under 79. That’s a good day for this 6 handicap with a fragile game and psyche to match. Plus, I beat Russell Knox’s prediction. After he shot 64 on Saturday, I asked him what a player of my caliber would score on Monday under tournament condition and he said mid-80s.
“It’s not an easy golf course if you don’t hit it where you’re looking,” he said.
It wasn’t even 10:30 a.m., the liquid sunshine had stopped and it was warming up so we took on the Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West, which the pros played during one of the first two rounds. The Jack Nicklaus design felt like the equivalent to the Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass: it’s a really good golf course in its own right, but it’s not the Stadium Course. It’s like being Gal Gadot’s sister. She’s not Wonder Woman.
The Nicklaus Tournament Course typically surrenders lower scores but the putting surfaces were re-done last year and firm greens mitigated some of the difference in scoring this year. It’s a bit more playable, especially off the tee, but there still are some potentially penal forced carries over water at par-3s and a peninsula green at the par-5 15th that makes for a great risk-reward hole. The finishing holes on both sides share a green and a lake that can ruin a good round. I deposited a sleeve at 18, which was good because my bag was going to be over the weight limit. At least that’s what I told myself afterwards.
I’m still not sure how Patrick Cantlay and Si Woo Kim shot their rounds on Sunday, but I sure enjoyed trying to match them.
There was plenty of drama, some goofiness and a ton of birdies. These are the 20 moments I’ll remember most from the 2021 American Express.
The 62nd version of the desert’s PGA event is in the books, and 2021 was an unusual one to be sure.
No fans, no concerts, no amateurs and no La Quinta Country Club made for an entirely different feel.
But some things remained the same. There was plenty of drama, some goofiness and a ton of birdies. These are the 20 moments I’ll remember most from the 2021 American Express:
1. Top spot goes to Si Woo Kim, the 2021 champion. Kim was remarkable in his consistency throughout the week playing the final 36 holes bogey-free and making only two bogeys for the entire tournament. Simply amazing.
2. Patrick Cantlay, a UCLA product, put together one of the greatest rounds in the history of this tournament with an 11-under 61 in the final round. It wound up being one stroke short, but that’s not bad for someone who made the cut on the cutline.
3. Tony Finau was certainly the fan favorite entering the final day, and when he started with two birdies, it felt like he might finally shake his Sunday blues. He did not. He played the next 12 holes even par and was not in contention in the end, despite birdies on 15 and 18. It’s surprising for most golf fans to learn that Finau only has one win, because he has been in contention so often. Another opportunity slips away.
Tony Finau hits a shot on the 3rd hole of the Stadium Course during the American Express at PGA West in La Quinta, January 24, 2021.
4. There’s no doubt that not having fans this year was a bummer and did take away from the atmosphere. Never more so than on the first tee when the announcer would loudly say the player’s name to absolutely zero applause. “Now on the tee, Rickie Fowler!” Dead silence.
5. The best new addition to the tournament in 2021 was definitely the Charity Challenge with Phil Mickelson hosting a two-on-two match between the teams of Finau and soccer legend Landon Donovan and Paul Casey and country singer Jake Owen. It was fun, made-for-TV and dished out $1 million to local charities. Hope to see it again next year.
6. Win your bar bet: Tony Finau’s first name is short for Milton, not Anthony.
7. Shot of the week (actual category): Cantlay’s clutch 37-foot putt on the 18th hole had all the trimmings of a remarkable winner. No one let Kim in on that, apparently. When he sunk the long putt, Cantlay pumped his fist and said to his caddie “That’s as good as I can play.”
8. Shot of the week (fun category): The thing I saw this week that I enjoyed the most was the “pinky putt” by Mark Hubbard. On his final putt before missing the cut, he reached out his right hand, put his pinky in the air and slowly reached down to the bottom of his putter shaft by the head and grabbed it with his pinky. He then hit the awkward-looking putt and … missed it. Oh well.
9. International winner. Kim became the first Asian to win this event and only the sixth international player to win. He joins Jon Rahm (Spain, 2018), Jhonattan Vegas (Venezuela, 2011), Mike Weir (Canada, 2003), Jesper Parnevik (Sweden, 2000) and Bruce Devlin (Australia, 1970).
10. A great under-the-radar effort from 2020 runner-up Abraham Ancer who fired a 66 on Sunday to move up into a tie for fifth. That makes for back-to-back top-five finishes here. Last year’s champion Andrew Landry, on the other hand, finished in a tie for 64th place.
11. Sorry, Charlie: Cantlay’s remarkable round supplanted Palm Desert High grad and local favorite Charlie Reiter, who had the competitive round record on the Pete Dye Course at PGA West with a 9-under 63. He set that mark in 2019.
12. When it catalogs the dreaded “others” meaning double bogey or worse, the PGA doesn’t separate a double bogey from a triple bogey, but I’m willing to bet there were more triple bogeys this year than any one year at this event. Michael Thompson’s on No. 13 on Sunday was probably the most painful.
13. Learning about new players (new to me at least) is one of my favorite parts of this event every year. These are some of the players I’ll be looking forward to follow moving forward: Cameron Davis, Doug Ghim, Brandon Hagy and Russell Knox.
14. Speaking of Hagy, he got into the event as an alternate when Jon Rahm withdrew and made the most of it. He showed his readiness by posting an 8-under 64 to take the Day One lead. He faded, finishing in a tie for 21st, but adding credence to how impressive his effort was is that two other alternates that got into the field had the two worst scores of the entire event and missed the cut.
Brandon Hagy tees off on the 10th hole of the Stadium Course during the American Express at PGA West in La Quinta, January 22, 2021.
15. Despite his amazing play, Cantlay will look back at one stroke on Saturday that may have changed things. In Cantlay’s last 27 holes, he made a remarkable 16 birdies. But on his 17th hole Saturday, he hit his second shot into someone’s patio, which cost him a penalty stroke and produced his only bogey during that stretch. If he doesn’t interrupt that garden party, he may be hoisting the trophy.
16. One of the more entertaining pars came from Andrew Putnam, whose approach shot on 18 on Sunday hit the flag and the flagstick, scored a bunch of water fowl hanging out by the green and rolled into the water. Unlucky and undaunted, Putnam dropped his ball greenside and chipped it in for a par. Nice.
17. Thanks for playing: Brooks Koepka played in the event for the first time in his career. He said it was so he could practice for next week’s event, which he cared more about. He played two rounds and missed the cut. Prediction: Those will be the only two rounds he ever plays here.
18. My No. 18 spot was an easy one. That was reserved for Phil Mickelson’s immaculately average round on Friday: 18 holes, 18 pars. He had never done that before.
19. You can’t arrest people for a bad golf shot, but if you could, Jake Owen, the country singer who played in the Charity Challenge, would be behind bars. He skulled a sand shot over the green and hit a police officer in the thigh. He was apologetic and gave the officer a fist bump. The officer had a good laugh, and was not hurt and told me if he knew Owen was an amateur and not a pro, he would have been on higher alert.
Jake Owen, right, and Paul Casey chat with Mike Scott and Arnold Iniguez with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department after Owen struck Scott with a golf ball that landed during the American Express Charity Challenge at PGA West in La Quinta, January 20, 2021. Scott was unhurt.
20. I usually reserve my last item to thank Mother Nature for another beautiful four days. I’ll give her a solid three-and-a-half this year. I felt a few raindrops during Saturday’s round, which marks her down from a perfect score, but otherwise, beautiful.
Shad Powers is a sports columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.
