Tag: West Coast Swing

Here are 5 things to know as the PGA Tour’s West Coast Swing kicks off 2024

While a new year brings new possibilities, this new year brings some of the same baggage.

A new season for the PGA Tour began on Thursday with the annual West Coast Swing, the series of seven tournaments from Hawaii to Arizona to California.

But while a new year brings new possibilities to professional golf, this new year brings some of the same baggage. The game is still trapped in a battle between the PGA Tour and the LIV Tour for players, with money seeming to rule the day and fans a forgotten part of the equation. And on the West Coast Swing in particular, one of the game’s top players who dominated the first two months of 2023 won’t be playing in the same events in 2024.

Here’s a look at five storylines from the 2024 West Coast Swing:

Golfweek’s Best rankings: The top five courses on the PGA Tour’s West Coast Swing

We bet you can guess the No. 1 course on the PGA Tour’s West Coast Swing, as judged by Golfweek’s Best raters. Can you get the next four?

With the PGA Tour having completed its two annual stops in Hawaii, play is shifting to the five-event West Coast Swing in California and Arizona.

Starting this week, players will tee off in The American Express in La Quinta, California, followed by the Farmers Insurance Open on two courses in San Diego; the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at three courses in Pebble Beach, California; the WM Phoenix Open in Arizona and the Genesis Invitational in Pacific Palisades, California.

That’s 10 courses in all, but which are the best of the West? We can use Golfweek’s Best ratings of thousands of courses in the U.S.  for some insight.

The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final, cumulative rating. Then each course is ranked against other courses.

Below are the top five courses on the West Coast Swing with location, year of opening, designer and other information.