LA QUINTA, Cali. — The drumbeats started Friday night and grew louder and louder.
Eighteen under after 36 holes? One under for every two holes? That’s not professional golf. That’s not a challenge for the best golfers in the world. It’s not what the PGA Tour is supposed to be.
These kinds of comments seem typical of the criticisms about the desert’s PGA Tour tournament over the last, oh, 40 years or so. The courses are too easy and the best players are not rewarded because anyone can make a birdie in the desert.
The best answer to that criticism is, well, to each his own.
If you are the kind of golf fan who enjoys watching the best players in the world struggle for bogeys, the U.S. Open will be here soon enough. For now, for this week, it’s birdies and eagles and smooth greens and perfect conditions and great players using great equipment.
Yes, the tournament scoring record for 54 holes was within reach when Saturday’s play started. That’s 27 under by Patrick Reed in 2014, when he opened with three consecutive 63s. He won that year, but with a 71 in the final round.
Scoring has not always been ridiculous in the desert. Arnold Palmer won the first tournament in 1960 at 22 under for five rounds, but that record stood for 17 years until Rik Massengale reached 23 under in a wire-to-wire win in 1977. Slowly, scoring continued to move lower at the tournament until Tom Kite went crazy to reach 35 under for five rounds in 1993.
Players were more fit, golf balls flew farther and scoring everywhere was down. Players like Phil Mickelson (twice), John Cook, Pat Perez and Joe Durant were reaching 30 under or lower and winning. Players like David Berganio, Mark Calcavecchia, Skip Kendell, Steve Stricker and David Merrick were reaching 30 under and losing.
Fewer rounds, still low scores
Since the tournament moved to 72 holes in 2012, Reed’s 28-under in 2014 is the standard for scoring in the American Express. But that record is in serious danger this week as golfers have shot low rounds at all three golf courses. Is 30 under for four rounds out of the question? Not when a player like Jon Rahm is talking about still going low even at the toughest of the three courses, the Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA West.
“At this point where we’re at on the PGA Tour with so many great players going on, you need to show up on the weekend and shoot low,” said Rahm, who shot a 7-under 65 on Saturday at the Stadium Course that left him tied for the lead with Davis Thompson at 23 under entering Sunday’s final round. “If anything is proof of it, it’s the fact that two weeks ago I shot 16 under on the weekend (at the Sentry Tournament of Champions) and ended up winning the tournament. So you have to keep the foot on the gas and keep making birdies.”
Rahm, by the way, is one of the players who has won at both the American Express and that pillar of high scores, the U.S. Open. In fact, the roster of players who have trophies from both the low-scoring American Express and the high-scoring U.S. Open is pretty intriguing. There’s Palmer, of course, but also Jack Nicklaus, Billy Casper, Johnny Miller, Corey Pavin, Kite and even Steve Jones.
The lesson there is that good players can win anywhere under any conditions. They can grind for pars, but they can make birdies and eagles in bunches when they need to. That’s what makes them elite players.
It’s like baseball. Some fans savor a 1-0 pitchers’ duel, with strikeouts and weak fly balls and a premium on pushing across a run late in the game. Other fans want to see grand slams from each side and triples up the ally and 11-10 as a final score.
It’s all still baseball, and the American Express is golf just like the U.S. Open. The conditions and the course setups might be different, but it is still hit the ball, find it and hit it again. You just find it a little closer to the hole at the American Express than at the U.S. Open.
The number of birdies and eagles at the American Express will finish around 2,000 this week. Perhaps the slogan for the tournament in the future should be, “Go low, and then go lower.”
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.