During October doldrums, desert golf tournaments, personalities for 2023 starting to take shape
The last two weeks of October have to be the dullest weeks for golf in the Coachella Valley.
Most golf courses are still closed because of overseeding. The PGA Tour event in the desert is still months away, and the new desert event on the PGA Tour Champions is further away than that. Even the snowbirds that help give life to golf in the desert may be anywhere from a month to two months away from arriving in the Coachella Valley.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t golf news floating around the desert, or at least things to look forward to as 2022 starts to close and 2023 and the return of professional golf to the desert looms. Things happening today could impact desert golf months from now.
For example:
PGA Tour Champions schedule
The PGA Tour Champions officially released its 2023 schedule this week, and the new Galleri Classic in Rancho Mirage is just where the tour said it would be. That’s March 20-26 at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, the former home of the LPGA for 51 years.
The Galleri Classic will be the sixth event on the senior tour in 2023, just one week after the Hoag Classic in Newport Beach. Having the two Southern California events back to back is one of the key selling points for the Mission Hills event, since the Newport Beach event is a popular one with players and golfers can just drive to the desert from Orange County for the Galleri event.
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The Galleri event is also two weeks before the Masters, and some of the golfers playing at Mission Hills will likely get a start at Augusta National as well, so that will be another interesting selling point for the new desert event. The Galleri also will be two months before the Regions Tradition in Alabama, the first of the five majors on the 50-and-over circuit in 2023.
The PGA Tour Champions has just two events left on its schedule this year, including the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
Kupcho still near leaders
Speaking of the LPGA, the last winner in the desert of what is now the Chevron Championship in Houston was Jennifer Kupcho. The victory was the first of Kupcho’s career, but the first of three wins for her in 2022.
That’s been good enough to keep Kupcho near the top of the races for both the Rolex Player of the Year award and the Race to the CME Globe season-ending championship. Kupcho is sixth in both of those races, but that likely won’t win her the player of the year with just three events remaining this season.
Lydia Ko is the leader in the player of the year race, 55 points ahead of Kupcho. A win in a regular LPGA event is worth 30 points. Ko, the 2016 Chevron Championship winner at Mission Hills, also has a nice lead over rookie Atthaya Thitikul in the Race for the CME Globe.
Official World Rankings
In all the verbal jousting over the Official World Golf Rankings and whether LIV tournaments should be granted ranking points, Rory McIlroy took over the top spot in the ranking for the ninth time in his career with a victory Sunday in the CJ Cup. McIlroy was emotional as he talked about what it means for him to regain the No. 1 spot 10 years after he first earned the No. 1 position.
Rankings don’t have anything to do with how regular PGA Tour events like The American Express in La Quinta fill their fields. Those fields are populated through past victories in majors or regular tournaments or standings in the previous year’s FedEx Cup. But the rankings do mean something for regular events in terms of strength of field and prestige for an event.
At last year’s The American Express, then-world No. 1 Jon Rahm and No. 3 Patrick Cantlay were in the field, and the tournament could market how strong its field was. Both Rahm and Cantlay finished in the top 15, but it was Hudson Swafford who won the event.
The American Express is still three months away, and player commitments won’t be announced until December at the earliest. But if Cantlay (now fourth) and Rahm (now fifth) return to the field along with Tony Finau, ranked 14th and an American Express ambassador, The American Express will have another year where it can crow about its field, even with Swafford, Phil Mickelson and Patrick Reed gone because of their association with the LIV tour.
Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer. He can be reached at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4633. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs area golf: October can be slow, but events like 2023 American Express taking shape
