“What it’s done is made the PGA Tour almost two tiers,” Nicklaus said. “All of a sudden the other tournaments become feeders.”

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It was a reasonable reaction. With 11 events sporting $20 million-plus purses (and the Sentry Tournament of Champions offering $15 million to its limited field), the tour’s top players would see those tournaments as “must-plays” — indeed, to be eligible for payouts from the tour’s Player Impact Programme, they can only miss one of those events. Toss in the majors and the FedEx Cup Playoffs, and that amounts to 19 starts on tour for the year, which doesn’t leave a bunch of wiggle room for other events.

Once the new schedule was revealed, there were some tournament directors at the “other” events who wondered the same thing as Nicklaus: How could they attract any top-ranked players in this new landscape?

“Everybody realises the tour is trying to do something to combat LIV Golf, and that’s understandable,” one tournament director, who asked not to be identified, told Golf Digest in October. “We all want to protect the tour and see it continue to grow. But a lot of us can’t believe they did this. Some sponsors are pretty hot.”

It seems too early to tell whether this will become a real problem or not, considering there have always been some tournaments that attracted better fields than others. But so far in this calendar year, the prospects for impressive fields in early tournaments on the West Coast are equal to or better than they’ve been in the most recent years before the COVID-19 pandemic. And that’s with two “elevated” events looming in the next five weeks — the WM Phoenix Open and Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles.

They’re doing a little bit of extra celebrating in the California desert at La Quinta for this week’s American Express after drawing the strongest field they’ve had since maybe Arnold Palmer was a regular competitor. A year after only one of the top-10 players in the World Ranking entered, five of the top seven — Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele and Will Zalatoris — are set to compete for the tournament’s largest-ever purse of $8 million.

At Torrey Pines next week, when the $8.7 million Farmers Insurance Open is played Wednesday-Saturday for the second time, five of the top 10 are entered, with Scheffler and Cantlay not committed (the deadline is Friday), but major winners Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa playing.

Both fields have one of the game’s most popular players in Tony Finau, while the Farmers will get its usual boost of orange-clad devotees to Rickie Fowler, as well as the ardent followers of former Masters champ Hideki Matsuyama. Arguably, the only true stars that either event is missing are World No. 1 Rory McIlroy (who will play at the Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour on the Farmers week) and three-time major winner Jordan Spieth.

Neither the close proximity of events with heftier prizes nor the existence of LIV Golf seems to have affected the big-picture prospects of the AmEx and Farmers.

“LIV Golf didn’t take our best golfers,” said Marty Gorsich, the tournament director of the Farmers Open. “They took the villains and took the guys whose names were bigger than their games.”

Gorsich insisted he was not one of those executives who reacted passionately against the notion of elevated events — the tour has since shifted to calling them “designated” events. He repeated an assertion that he’s no doubt used with his sponsors and corporate patrons. “I was not worried in the least,” he said. “Elevated is not elevating an event, it’s elevating a field. Are a few more guys who are ranked going to change who watches this tournament? I don’t think so.”

Pat McCabe, The American Express tournament director, had a bit more of a practical assessment: “There aren’t any of those elevated events in the month of January, so we fall into a perfect spot. That helps us a lot.”

The post What does it take to attract top players to a regular PGA Tour stop? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

American Express partnered with six athletes playing this week in North Carolina and are using the logo space they’ve purchased to give local small businesses some publicity. Along with Ko, Celine Boutier, Gaby Lopez, Stacy Lewis, Lexi Thompson and Rose Zhang all have logos of local businesses on either their apparel or bags for the week.

The players worked with American Express to find a company that aligned with them, and each company is owned by women. Ko landed on High Octane Coffee because while traveling, her sister and her mother are always searching for the best local coffee.

“They are pretty avid coffee drinkers,” Ko said. “It’s cool to go to different spots and find local gems. I love looking around, finding a good vibe, seeing if they have good little snacks.”

Ko isn’t a coffee fanatic, but her usual coffee-shop order is a matcha latte. High Octane has it on the menu.

 

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A post shared by High octane (@highoctanegirls)

“And the logo is super cool, with the coffee and the triangle, it’s chic and cute.” Ko said.

High Octane is in Aberdeen, North Carolina. The three women who own it, Kelly McAndrew, Tracey Harrison and Nicola Squires, turned a 1930s petrol station into their dream coffee shop.

“For Amex to do an initiative like this is really cool,” Ko said. “Especially for me, to partner with Amex and High Octane, a local business here, it’s truly cool to do that because it feels like there’s a connection: It’s more than us playing golf here, we’re getting familiar with the locals.”

Rooting the tour more solidly into the communities where they play is a trend Ko wants to continue.

“It’d be cool to be able to connect and give back as much love we get when we play there,” Ko said. “It’s something I’d like to see more of.”

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The post Why Lydia Ko has an unexpected logo on her visor at the US Women’s Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The tournament’s PGA West Stadium Course yielded some low scores in perfect conditions on Thursday, but danger lurks at the Palm Springs track, particularly left of the 16th green. Well, left and below the 16th green. Way, way below.

That’s where you’ll find a 20-foot deep bunker dubbed “San Andreas Fault.” And if you find it with your approach shot, good luck getting out. But not only was Chez Reavie able to escape this evil trap, he was able to finish off one of the craziest sand saves you’ll ever see. Check it out as Reavie—whose diminutive stature makes the situation appear even more daunting—blasts out and over the green before holing a bomb from off the putting surface:

Just your average "sandy" for Chez Reavie. ?#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/zD94Gvoz2s

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 16, 2020

Amazing. After, people were calling the par save “Escape from AlcaChez.” Just kidding. No one was calling it that.

The post This is it, this is the craziest sand save in PGA Tour history appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Born without his right arm, Hurtubise is one of the amateurs playing on Troy Merritt’s pro-am team. According to a PGA Tour story, Hurtubise plays in the American Express regularly, using his left-arm only to hit drives that regularly travel 230 yards. On Thursday, Hurtubise pulled off what many golfers around the world dream about: Make a hole-in-one … and he did it during a PGA Tour event.

Watch the shot below from the fourth hole at PGA West’s Stadium Course.

Laurent Hurtubise, who was born with one arm, made an ace on Thursday during the American Express. ?pic.twitter.com/9k3W1uthm8

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) January 17, 2020

Incredible, incredible stuff.

Merritt, himself a three-time PGA Tour winner, said after: “That was the coolest experience I’ve had on the golf course,” Merritt said.

The post Watch this one-armed amateur make a hole-in-one at the American Express appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
The former Bob Hope Classic, a tournament rumoured to be on the PGA Tour’s chopping block for years, secured its future with American Express signing a multi-season sponsorship deal earlier this fall. Now the event has added some pizzazz, and energy, to the proceedings.

On Saturday the tournament, now called “the American Express,” announced that Phil Mickelson will serve as official host starting in 2020.

Mickelson, 49, has acted as an ambassador for the event the past three years, but this new role will take Mickelson from behind-the-scenes work to centre stage. He has won the tournament twice and finished runner-up at last year’s Desert Classic, and owns a house in the Madison Club in La Quinta.

“It’s always been an important part of my life. I would come out here and play junior tournaments here,” Mickelson told the Desert Sun. “I’ve always been passionate about here, and I love the tournament itself. But more than that, this tournament has meant historically a lot to this area, and I want to bring back the vision of Bob Hope.”

The American Express will feature 156 PGA Tour pros and 156 amateurs playing at three courses in La Quinta, and boast a $6.7 million purse, an increase of $800,000 from last year. The tournament has struggled with its depth the past few seasons, which will be one of Mickelson’s top priorities to address in 2020.

“My role has been get the message out on why and how this tournament is the best place to start the year because we have perfect weather, which is why the courses are by the mountain,” Mickelson said to the Desert Sun. “So we don’t have wind, so that we give the players a chance to build a foundation for the upcoming year.

“The second key element is making the tournament and the amateurs here [be] the CEOs that are decision-makers in the game of golf, that support the game of golf. If you don’t have relationships with Corporate America, [the pro-am] it gives you a chance to formulate relationships. If you do, it gives you a chance to strengthen them. Because we will allow players to play with their partners.”

Mickelson will be searching for a personal shot of vitality as well. He missed seven cuts in his final 14 starts in the 2018-’19 season with a lone top-40 finish, and the fall slate wasn’t much better, a T-28 at the limited-field WGC-HSBC Champions his best showing. His remarkable 26-year streak of ranking inside the world top 50 came to an end earlier this month. Mickelson is hoping a new diet and workout regimen will snap his slump as he enters his Age 50 season on tour.

The 2020 American Express begins on Jan. 16. Adam Long is the defending champion.

The post Phil Mickelson signs on to be an official host of PGA Tour event appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.