If there has been a knock against The American Express PGA Tour event through its six decades, it isn’t about the weather or the tournament’s course conditions.
Instead, the critics have always wondered about the difficulty of the desert’s courses. Birdies and eagles fly with regularity at The American Express courses more than just about any tournament on the PGA Tour.
Perhaps that will change a bit in 2025, though. With some renovations at the Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA West over the summer, the host course of The American Express might just play a little tougher this year and in years to come.
The Stadium Course is one of three courses played in The American Express. The Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West and La Quinta Country Club have both seen renovations to their greens in recent years. Last summer, it was the Stadium Course’s turn. The idea was simply to return the green complexes at the Stadium Course to the original plans by famed architect Dye in 1986.
To make the changes, PGA West used Tim Liddy, an architect who worked closely with Dye in the 1980s when Dye was shaking up the golf world with stadium-style courses featuring deep and sprawling bunkers, sloping greens and plenty of water. During the renovation, Liddy said the work showed how Dye anticipated in the 1980s what golf would be in the future.
“He was ahead of his time,” Liddy said at the time. “My impression was he saw the golf ball was getting longer and the driver was getting bigger and the players were getting more talented, more athletic. I think he foresaw all of that.”
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The main changes players will notice in The American Express will be the greens returning to their original and larger size, perhaps providing the chance for new pin placements, and flat-bottomed bunkers around those greens rather than the concave shape the bunkers had acquired through four decades.
Even though most of the Stadium Course’s greens saw four or five inches of built-up organic material scraped off, the work crews kept the original slopes and swales of the putting surfaces.
The Stadium Course, once feared by tour pros, has in recent years seen its scoring much closer to the low scores featured on the tournament’s other two courses. The Stadium Course remained the toughest course in the rotation in 2024, with a 69.148 average. The Stadium Course still features demanding holes, like the par-5 16th with its 20-foot-deep greenside bunker and the famed island green on the 168-yard par-3 17th.
In addition to the flat bunkers and large greens, the putting surfaces might be more firm in 2025 on the course, which could make it tougher to get close to some of the pin placements. Again, that might make scoring a bit higher on the course this week.
La Quinta Country Club is the course where scoring can be the lowest, with a 67.903 scoring average last year. Opened in 1959, La Quinta Country Club is a traditional course with tight fairways and trees and bunkers in the fairway rough. But the holes are short by modern PGA Tour standards, giving golfers a chance for plenty of birdies and eagles. That’s particular true on the back-to-back par-5s at the fifth and sixth holes, just 516 and 527 yards, respectively. But scoring is tougher on the back nine. Still, four holes at La Quinta were among the 25 easiest holes on the PGA Tour in 2024.
The Nicklaus Tournament Course is closer to the design philosophy of the Stadium Course, with Nicklaus using deep bunkers, lakes and mounding to create visual intimidation and difficulty. Still, the course played to a 68.084 average in 2024, and the 528-yard 11th hole was the third-easiest hole on the PGA Tour last year.
Some of the tougher holes on the course include the par-5 15th with its own island green, and a double green on the demanding par-4s coming back to the clubhouse, the ninth and the 18th holes.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Pete Dye Stadium Course adds new greens, bunkers for 2025 American Express
