Tiger, Rory, and going back to Cali: A guide to the PGA Tour’s West Coast swing

The PGA Tour schedule is a never-ending, week-to-week march that covers 11 months of the year. There is certainly no real offseason and there are rarely any breaks. Sometimes there are even multiple events in the same week. It starts from the very top, the first weekend in January, and runs all the way up to Thanksgiving, and even after that, there’s a set of “unofficial” events in December that many players patronize.

The PGA Tour does an admirable job of creating some consistency and predictability about what comes when and how it should all be ordered most efficiently. But it can become a dizzying mess with sponsors and a new era of big-money, cash-grab events holding influence and continuing to shape the schedule.

There are a few stretches on the schedule that are distinct and can be clearly delineated from the rest based on more than just the time they’re held. Stretches that fit nicely into a theme or section and give you the throwback, intended sense of the word “tour.” One of those is the West Coast swing, the season-opening stretch that runs through California and Phoenix. The tournaments have some of the longest histories on the stateside Tour, are played at some of its best venues, and reliably slot in during the first two months of every year.

There may not be a major or WGC and it may not be the high point of the season, but combined, it’s the best stretch of the entire yearlong schedule (my colleague will take issue with that below!).

The 2018 West Coast swing begins this week. We’ll hit the usual fantastic venues. Tiger Woods will return. European stars, like Rory McIlroy, will make their 2018 U.S. debut. Jim Nantz will grace us with his presence, dropping Tony Romo for Nick Faldo (OK, that may be a step down). It’s all good and we can’t wait. Here’s a mini preview pack of some discussion points and topics to get you hyped for going back to Cali.

The 5 stops of the West Coast Swing

The West Coast swing covers five tournaments, beginning on Thursday, Jan. 18 in Palm Springs and finishing in Hollywood on Febr. 18. It ranges from the California desert to a rowdy Phoenix party to seaside venues in both SoCal and NorCal. The gallery above runs through all five stops in succession, but here are your nuts and bolts in list form.

One weak point about this part of the schedule is that three of the five events are held on multiple courses. The stop in Palm Springs uses three courses in the area. Torrey uses both its South and North course. And the Pebble Pro-Am uses three courses from the embarrassment of riches on the Monterey Peninsula. Multiple courses are a good (maybe necessary) thing to have this time of year with limited daylight and large, full fields. But it makes stats harder to gather, TV coverage less comprehensive, and fantasy picks tougher to make.

The Coverage

Get ready for angry tweets! Because while the West Coast swing yields maybe the season’s best venues, it also provides one of its more ... wanting stretches of TV coverage. CBS does not have the Super Bowl this year, which means they’ll return to the game at Torrey Pines. The CareerBuilder Challenge will stay exclusively on Golf Channel, but after that, it’s the start of the usual Golf Channel and CBS split on the weekends.

For the last several years, the CBS production has taken a beating on Twitter. A handful of reasons, some justified and others baseless social media furor, have made CBS the whipping boy. It’s a tradition, especially on the West Coast at the start of their PGA Tour coverage year. Saturday at the Pebble Beach Pro Am has been dubbed the worst broadcast of the entire season, as we sit through analysis of the swings of Kenny G, Ray Romano, Gary Mule Deer, et al.

With a little perspective and the right mindset, it’s actually entertaining to have Jim Nantz and the CBS crew back. I’ll be watching to see if he goes back to the same sweater at Pebble Beach (where he has a home ICYMI) for a third time.

And CBS might be a welcome sight if Golf Channel cannot come to terms with their unionized employees that walked out on Sunday’s coverage in a strike. Here’s a quick TV guide for the next month on the West Coast:

OK, we’re through clerical stuff on the schedule and coverage. Now on to the takes ...

The best course/event for 2018

Kyle: No one’s ever gonna accuse me of being a golf purist. Any opportunity the sport has to be less stodgy, less buttoned up, and more open and available to anyone that wants to partake is awesome. That’s why Scottsdale is the Tour’s best single normal event — maybe by a long shot. It’s dared to be different in how it attracts a crowd, bringing in younger audiences with things like concerts, superfluous amounts of booze, and, of course, the spectacle of the 16th.

It is the sport’s wildest stage, and it has provided some pretty legendary moments. Every golf hole should be played inside a 30,000-seat stadium. Pump it directly into my veins.

Brendan: I’ve already stated my love for the West Coast swing in the intro, so I just want to say I think each and every event makes a solid contribution to the PGA Tour schedule. But Riviera is clearly the crown jewel in the group, and perhaps in the entire season.

The Phoenix Open is so special because there’s nothing else like it on the entire schedule. I’d argue there’s also nothing like Riviera on the schedule. You get a classic course, one of the best in the world and situated right in the heart of major American market, to open its gates annually to a field that’s become absolutely loaded in recent years. The new generation of stars have all added Riviera to their schedule.

The Tiger Woods foundation taking the reins of the Genesis Open has now thrown the Tiger circus into an already stacked field. We’ll get Tiger in his second start of the year, and likely Rory, Spieth, DJ, Phil, Sergio, JT, and Rickie, among others. For a non-WGC event, you just don’t get every single guy to show up like that.

Sure, Riviera could be even better and there’s some frustration with how current ownership has set up and maintained a golden age George Thomas design. But it’s still far more interesting than the monotonous TPC layout we get so much on Tour. It’s Los Angeles. It’s a classic layout with a bunch of interesting holes. It’s a loaded field. It’s Tiger. Annnnd it will also be NBA All-Star weekend in L.A., too. The entire week is going to be a fantastic circus.

Will Tiger’s glutes activate?

Brendan: The glutes will be firing. As Kyle notes below, I’m not crazy about him starting with the Farmers Insurance Open, despite his legendary success at Torrey. The recent memories — deactivated glutes, chip yips, missed cuts, last year’s driving debacle — are not kind. It can be a rough setup and the weather can actually be a problem for someone trying to stay loose and “activated.” That said, I think he stays healthy, looks fine, rips a few bombs off the tee, and misses the cut by a shot or two.

We don’t really know what to expect in his second start at Riviera. It’s technically his home event but he’s not historically done well there — a primary reason why it was cut from his schedule the past decade until his foundation partnered with the event last year. I think another missed cut is more likely than not, which is fine. We just want to see him healthy, getting reps, and looking moderately competitive. I think we’ll get that and it will be the start of an actual comeback season, unlike that depressing slog last year.

Kyle: I’m gonna admit some mild concern about Tiger making his real return at Torrey, even though it’s a place where he’s played so well over the years. The North Course is a tougher test than it once was after modifications, and the South is as brutal as ever with the Tour content to let the roughs grow. If he’s going to play the weekend in San Diego, he’ll need to be keeping the ball in front of him off the tee. This early in the season, that’s a ton to ask for a guy that hasn’t played competitively in a year. If you’re optimistic, wait for Riviera. Put me down for MC, and then maybe a top-25 finish in L.A.

Player we’re most excited to see (non-Tiger division)

Kyle: There’s a few obvious ones here, but let’s go a bit deeper down the roster. I’m all in on #CantlaySZN for this spring. After everything the guy has gone through in the past few years between injury and tragedy, it feels like we’re finally here. The win in Las Vegas felt like we finally broke down the wall. He’s from Long Beach, he went to UCLA, and Pebble Beach is where he made his comeback debut last season. Give me Patrick Cantlay to win at Riv, which would be one hell of a story.

Brendan: That’s a great one. I’m going with a much more obvious and mainstream choice: Rory McIlroy. I’m sorry, I can’t quit the man. It seems like every year now we start with a “This is gonna be the Year of Rory” hype train. Last year it fizzled rapidly and we’re now three-plus years since his last major. That’s not a long time for most humans and I still think the expectations are a little off and unrealistic, but maybe that’s due to all the hype he gets (I am a part of that!).

So here we go again: I am excited to see Rory back, healthy, playing again, and taking violent cuts with his driver. I think he’s going to have a big year. No one in the game is more exhilarating to watch than Rory when he’s cooking. It starts in the Middle East, where he may bag a win before he transitions to the stateside tour to make a rare start at Pebble and then at Riv.

Photo by Chris Condon/PGA TOUR

Some quick (maybe crazy) predictions

Kyle: Brian Harman, Rickie Fowler, and Hideki Matsuyama all take home wins over the next five weeks. Yes, all of them. Go take that parlay and thank me later.

Brendan: Easier prediction: Tiger Woods will be courtside for the NBA All-Star game in some questionable jeans. Bolder prediction: DJ will win at both Pebble and Riviera, making him a vintage Tiger-esque 3-for-3 to start his PGA Tour season.

Miscellaneous takes

Kyle: Brendan loves the West Coast Swing, which is fine. It’s golf, and it’s on my TV while I’m sitting in my freezing Midwestern apartment. There are worse things. I’m also here to tell you that Brendan is wrong, and the West Coast Swing is, in fact, not good!

I’m being mildly hyperbolic, but this set of five events doesn’t do much for me. Palm Springs is the John Deere Classic, But Near Coachella [Editor’s note: sounds amazing!]. Torrey’s length and penal rough creates for boring golf. The Pebble TV broadcast is a five-hour-long ASMR video where Jim Nantz whispers the names of celebrities you forgot about in 2006 over gentle ocean waves. Riv and Scottsdale are both great events, but they don’t do enough to compensate for three others that are decidedly meh for me. The West Coast Swing is bad.

Brendan: Kyle thinks blade collars are good.