The Course Report
PGA West
About PGA West
Just when we are all excited to get back into the swing of things, the PGA Tour lays down a monster of a challenge…a tormenting challenge. For the pros? Sadly, the answer is for us fans paying top dollar to enjoy some good golf. It is a pro-am!!
The tournament breakdown is simple. A 54-hole cut with players playing three different courses. These courses include The Stadium Course, La Quinta and PGA West Nicklaus Course. Being a pro-am, we will have to watch painful slow golf, along with setups that are incredibly easy. The last time that a winner didn’t score at least 20 under par was back in 2007 when Charley Hoffman fought off John Rollins to win the championship.
It is important to note that each pro will be paired up with an amateur during the first three days of the tournament. There are players who thrive in these scenarious where an amateur is chasing shots and a pro is waiting like Grayson Murray watching Kevin Na putt…they just don’t enjoy it.
The longest hole at the Stadium course is nicknamed “eternity” due to its incredible length, and for tournaments it can be set up for as far as 617 yards. Now that’s a long hole. Yet, the Pro-Am once again takes all the fun away.
Sunday will still be fun as the final three holes do play difficult at the Stadium course. The 16th is named San Andreas due to one of the deepest greenside bunkers on tour. Of course, Dye stole one if not the most iconic hole in golf from his TPC Sawgrass design in having another island par-3 on the 17th. The biggest differences is that “Alcatrez” plays from an elevated teebox, and a much more larger green. In addition, the hole is nearly 30 yards longer. If the touranment has multiple players tied or in striking distance there will be plenty of drama on these final three holes.
I really wish there were more to say about this event, but it is just a back breaker that has been on tour thanks to its days back when it was called the Bob Hope classic. While we do get to watch “competitive” golf this weekend, it is a tough sell that people aren’t going to be looking and preparing for the Famers Insurance Open.
Stadium Course
Architect: Pete Dye
Greens: Dormant Bermuda overseeded with Rye and Poa
Green Size: 6,500 sq. feet – Average Greens
Stimpmeter: 10-11.5 – Slower
Length: 7,113- Par 72
Water Hazards: 7 come into play
Bunkers: 90+ Bunkers
La Quinta CC
Architect: Lawrence Hughes
Greens: Dormant Bermuda overseeded with Rye and Poa
Length: 7,060 – Par 72
Water Hazards: 7 come into play
Bunkers: 85
PGA West
Architect: Jack Nicklaus
Greens: Dormant Bermuda overseeded with Rye and Poa
Length: 7,159 – Par 72
Water Hazards: 5 Come into play
Bunkers: 83
Weather Forecast
Nuggets and Tidbits
- The greens are manicured with Bermuda Grass, but it goes dormant by this time of year. The greens get overseeded with rye grass from tee-to green as well as Poa on the greens. If you’re using splits in your DFS process, you would benefit looking at Bentgrass and Poa statistics rather than Bermuda.
- Pete Dye designs are intended to intimidate you visually. From there, if you make a mistake, he intends on punishing you for doing so. Very few holes allow you to be super aggressive at the Stadium Course.
- The Stadium Course was intended to be the most difficult course every imagined at the time. It delivered. After its first year as host of the Desert Classic in 1987, pros found the course to beo too difficult and refused to return the following year. Tour Pros even signed a petition to remove it as host course and were successful.
- From a Showdown standpoint it would be benficial to avoid players on the Stadium course and focus soley on the other two. If DK pricing is accurate, then it might be diffulct to avoid entirely, but stranger things have happened.
Approach Shot Distribution
Past Winners
This was Swafford’s second win at the AMEX, and it is apparent that the guy loves the course rotation and the concept of teeing it up with average Joe’s.
Swafford won the tounament by two strokes with a score of -23.
Si Woo held off Patrick Cantlay, and eventually ran away with the tournament championship.
Kim birdied two fo the the final three holes to finish an 8-under 64 on Sunday, and it was enough to get past Patrick Cantlay. This was Si Woo’s 3rd win on the PGA Tour.
Landry birdied the final two holes of the Championship to close out a shaky Sunday.
Landry at one point during the 4th round led by as many as 6 shots, but ended up in a tie with Abraham Ancer with just three holes remaining. The two birdies put him two strokes ahead of the runner-up Ancer, and gavie Landry his second win on the PGA Tour.
Only 5 starts into his rookie year, Long caputred the 2019 championship.
Straight out of a movie, Long withstood the charge of Hadwin and Mickelson by sinking a 13-foot birdie on the final hole. Long was a surprise. For three years he had never won on the Korn Ferry Tour, and never even sniffed PGA Tour exemptions.
It took 4 playoff holes, and Jon Rahm was able to outlast Andrew Landry.
Rahm and Landry battled all weekend as each never relinquished top-5 positions in any round, and the two actually swapped first and second after the first two rounds.
It took a 3-man playoff, but Johnson beat Louis Ossthuizen and Marc Leishman by shooting a 15, 1 under in a four hole playoff.
Johnson was a surprise win as just the week before his prep came in Illinois at the John Deere Classic. This was Johnson’s second major win, and his first Claret Jug.
Entering with a six-stroke lead over the field, McIIroy went from dominant to just hanging on. Still, no golfer ever got withing two strokes the entire day, and he held his composure despite struggles off the tee and on the greens.
In winning, McIIroy became the seventh wire-to-wire winner in Open Championship history.
After winning the Scottish Open the week prior, Mickelson birdied four of the last six holes and became the Open Champion.
To this point, Phil had come close to winning, but had often doubted his abilites on links style courses.
Els began Sunday 6 shots back, but still clinched the vicotry after Adam Scott imploded.
Els’ 68 was a comeback of epic proportions when you consider the fact that Scott was still winning by 4 strokes on the 15th tee.