Tough PGA West Stadium Course Returns to the PGA Tour
Serene 17th hole at PGA West TPC Stadium waits for the PGA Tour to return in January. Photo used courtesy Kathlene Bissell.
The PGA West Stadium track was too hard in 1987 but it’s back on the 2015-16 PGA TOUR rotation.
The PGA West Stadium course was booted out of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in 1987 because it was too hard, according to the pros playing at the time.
Certainly PGA West Stadium was signifianly harder than the other courses in the tournament then. In those days the courses participating were Indian Wells, Tamarisk, Eldorado, Bermuda Dunes and La Quinta CC. Tamarisk and Eldorado rotated years, and the tournament was five rounds.
Now in today’s four-round format, PGA West Stadium is back with the CareerBuilder Challenge, formerly the Humana, formerly the Bob Hope. Also in the rotation will be PGA West Nicklaus Resort Course and La Quinta Country Club.
And boy is it going to be fun to watch.
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The one and only time PGA West Stadium was in the tournament, Mac O’Grady quit after nine holes. Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill got into the 19 foot deep bunker on the 16th hole and couldn’t get out. That year, on one of the longest golf courses built in the last golf course construction boom, one of the shortest hitters in golf, Corey Pavin, was the winner.
One reason the course was removed was because of complaints by the pros that they could potentially get the course on a day with wind.
Wind is not usually a problem in the La Quinta area, but when it does happen, it can become a sandstorm. It can snap telephone poles and power line poles. In 1989, it blew 30 MPH during the Bob Hope tournament. Nobody wants to be facing the tee shot at the 17th hole, the island green, Alcatraz, when the wind is blowing.
But wind was not the only reason.
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“I would say 90 percent of the players were upset with PGA West. I heard a couple say it was O.K. I heard one say he liked it,” Roger Maltbie told the The New York Times then. “I don’t like his ( Pete Daay) targets, those specific places you have to play the ball. There are far too many undulations in fairways. I think bunkers on many holes are far too penalizing, certainly for the length of the holes. The sheer walls of bunkers are too steep and water running adjacent to fairways hole after hole is bad. You might as well have out-of-bounds one foot off every one of those fairways.”
The golf course continued to get exposure, though, because of The Skins Game which was held there beginning in 1986 and ending after 1991. And the Skins Game created memories that continue to this day.
The most famous shot hit during the Skins Game has to be Lee Trevino’s hole-in-one at the par 3 17
thhole in 1987.
But Trevino also holed out from the fairway on the 7
thhole in 1986.
In 1990, Curtis Strange hit a shot from the rocks on the left edge of the 10th hole.
Next month, we will get to see a whole new set of miraculous and terrible shots at PGA West Stadium. Holes to watch during television coverage are:
No. 10, where Curtis Strange hit off the rocks.
No. 12, where Arnold Palmer scaled the bunker wall.
No. 16, where Tip O’Neill couldn’t get out of the 20-foot bunker.
No. 17, where Lee Trevino made a hole-in-one
No. 18, where Corey Pavin became the only previous winner of the tournament at PGA West Stadium.
Next: Seven Golfers to Watch This PGA Season
Put it on your calendar: January 21-24, 2016, The CareerBuilder challenge. There’s a rumor circulating that Bill Clinton is limbering up his sticks!