LA QUINTA, Calif. — For most of the last 15 years, the story of the golf courses at The American Express has been pretty much the same. The Stadium Course at PGA West has been the toughest of the courses, while La Quinta Country Club was the easiest of the courses.
Welcome to 2023, where La Quinta Country Club is still easy. But the remarkable players on the PGA Tour are making the other courses just as easy.
La Quinta Country Club, in fact, will finish the week as the toughest of the three American Express courses. La Quinta finished three rounds with a scoring average of 69,583. Surprisingly, that’s higher than the Stadium Course, with an average of 69.2. It was the Nicklaus Tournament Course that turned out to be the easiest course in the rotation for the week at 68,724. There is a serious chance the Nicklaus Course will end up as the easiest course on the PGA Tour in the 2022-23 season as measured against par.
The truth is the scoring average on the Stadium Course has been coming down in recent years. In 2022 the Stadium Course average was 70.5, the Nicklaus Course was 70.25 and La Quinta Country Club was 69.6. So scoring at all three courses was down this year.
Double eagle or albatross?
The American Express has been played nine times at the Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA West, once in 1987 and every year since 2016. But the course saw a first Sunday when Xander Schauffele holed a 226-yard second shot on the par-5 fifth hole for a double eagle, or an albatross.
Schauffele’s round started with par on his first four holes. After a 314-yard drive on the fifth hole, he faced a long second shot over a lake to the green. From 226 yards, Schauffele’s ball barely cleared the water but landed softly and then started tracking towards the hole. It then rolled into the cup for a 2 on the par 5.
The American Express has had 10 double eagles in the 64-year history of the event, but Schauffele’s was the first ever recorded on the Stadium Course. Schauffele added a birdie on the next par-5, the eighth, as well as a birdie on the ninth to make the turn in 5-under 31.
The albatross is the first on the PGA Tour since Stephan Jaeger accomplished the feat in the final round of the 2022 John Deere Classic.
Tough round
On the other side of the scoring Sunday was 2020 American Express winner Andrew Landry. Landry, who also lost the tournament in a playoff in 2018 to Jon Rahm, struggled with two double bogeys and a triple bogey, all on par-3s on the Stadium Course. But Landry managed to make a 20-foot birdie putt on the ninth hole, his 18th of the day, to avoid being the only round of 80 or over in the tournament this year. Landry shot 79.
Gross and net amateurs play
Six amateur golfers were in the field of The American Express on Sunday as a result of their play in the pro-am portion of the first 54 holes of the event. The low three net amateurs and the low three gross amateurs teed off in the first three groups on the first and the 10th tees beside professional players. The amateurs were Chester Rycroft, Bob Diamond, Bob McGrath, Thom Moulton, Tim Kaintz and Frank Marzano. Marzano is the head of the board of directors of the Impact Through Golf foundation, which is the new charitable arm of The American Express tournament.
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