The seven-tournament West Coast swing on the PGA Tour came to its conclusion Sunday as Bubba Watson captured the Los Angeles Open for the third time in his career. Now the game’s top players head to the southeast for three tournaments in Florida, two World Golf Championships in Mexico and Texas, another event in Texas, and then the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. During those times when the World Golf Championships are taking place with their limited fields, the tour is holding secondary events in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
The West Coast Swing is one of the lasting remnants of the tour’s olden days when transportation from tournament to tournament was based solely upon automobiles. You simply couldn’t hold a tournament one week in Los Angeles and then tee it up four days later in West Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. In fact, the original impetus behind the Bing Crosby Pro-Am was to give the professionals a day or two of fun golf with celebrities prior to the long trek across the southern United States. Usually the final event on the West Coast Swing would be followed up by the first tournament in Florida some three weeks later.
This type of lifestyle went on well into the 1970s. When I caddied for Bob Lunn in the 1970 Western Open, he showed up for the tourney on Wednesday morning to play in the pro-am. He had had a top-five finish in Charlotte on Sunday, went to 36-hole U.S. Open qualifying on Monday in North Carolina, and drove from the southeast to Chicago late Monday and all day Tuesday. On top of that, he did it while traveling with his wife and two young daughters.
Nowadays airplane travel is the way to go and a number of the big-name professionals have deals with chartered jet services so that they don’t have to fly commercial. Of course, the money is so much bigger than it has been at any time in the history of the tour. Last year Justin Thomas won more than $9 million on tour and received a $10 million bonus from Fed Ex. Golfers just inside the top 100 had more than $1 million in earnings. All seven events on this year’s West Coast Swing had first-place prizes north of $1 million.
The other thing about the PGA Tour’s West Coast Swing is the outstanding caliber of courses where the events are contested. The TOC is played at Kapalua with its multitude of holes featuring Pacific Ocean vistas. The following week the Hawaiian Open is contested at Waialae Country Club, a longtime established country club in Maui. From there the pros head to the California desert for the Palm Springs tournament that was originally called the Bob Hope Desert Classic. It is held at three different courses with the host site being the Stadium Course at PGA West. After that it’s down the coast to San Diego and the beautiful 36-hole complex at Torrey Pines. Torrey also will host the U.S. Open in June of 2021.
The tour then traveled over the California border to tee it up at the Phoenix Open. Phoenix features the world’s loudest galleries with well over 100,000 spectators on site each day. It is contested at TPC Scottsdale, a most colorful Tournament Players course. From there the tour returned to Northern California for the old Bing Crosby Clambake, currently known as the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The Pebble Beach tournament features American coastal golf at its best with sites including the iconic Pebble Beach, the site of the 2019 U.S. Open, Spyglass Hill, and Monterey Peninsula. Last weekend’s tournament in Pacific Palisades concluded the West Coast Swing and was contested at another old-style course, namely Riviera Country Club. Riviera has previously served as the site for both the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship.
The seven winners of the West Coast Swing tourneys showed the depth of the current PGA Tour. World No. 1 Dustin Johnson won the TOC. Former PGA champ Jason Day took an extra day to beat Chez Reavie at Torrey Pines. Two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson prevailed in Los Angeles. The hottest young golfer on tour, Jon Rahm, captured the Palm Desert event. Patton Kizzire won his second tournament of the 2017-18 wrap-around season by beating Alameda’s James Hahn in overtime. Big bomber Gary Woodland took his power game to Phoenix and won there while Ted Potter Jr. resurrected his career and had a breakthrough victory at Pebble Beach.
Yet regardless of the quality of courses, the usually beautiful weather and the big purses, the West Coast Swing wasn’t always that big a deal. Some 20 years ago such top performers such as Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson would show up at Torrey Pines but miss most of the other tourneys. International golfers such as Greg Norman, Ernie Els and Nick Faldo would completely ignore the West Coast. Norman would compete in Australia, Els would return to the South African Tour, and Faldo and the other Europeans would go to the Mideast and play Dubai
Even American golfers such as Freddie Couples would pick and choose their West Coast spots. Couples and others would play a full Silly Season schedule prior to Christmas, competing in events such as the Skins Game and the Shark Shoot-Out and then take most of January and February off. However, for the past decade or so, the West Coast Swing has regained its status and is the place to be for the game’s top performers.
The Fed Ex Cup playoffs are the principal reason why the status of the West Coast events are must-see television. With the tour playoffs ending in late September, the tour’s big boys now take extended vacations in October and November. The money is so good on tour that events such as the Skins Game have fallen by the wayside. January and February in the Pacific Time Zone is now the time for the best players to start honing their games. As we stated earlier, the money is top notch, the courses are among the best in the world, and you just can’t afford to begin your season nowadays in late February and think that you’ll be ready for the Masters six weeks hence.
The seven-tournament series that entails the West Coast Swing on the PGA Tour has concluded for the 2018 season. Once again the fields were top notch, three former major winners won tournaments, two future stars found victory lane, and even a journeyman or two prevailed and found his way into the winner’s circle. All in all, the past seven weeks on tour not only showed the depth of the PGA Tour, but also provided us with highly entertaining golf.
