Galleri Classic: Fred Couples happy PGA Tour Champions is back in the desert

Fred Couples says he remembers all of the holes on the Dinah Shore Course at Mission Hills Country Club, even if it’s been a while since he played them.

“I used to live at Mission Hills,” Couples said Thursday, the day before the inaugural Galleri Classic, the return of the PGA Tour Champions to the Coachella Valley. “So I know this course. Thirty-two years ago, John Cook and I, we used to play a lot.”

Those rounds with Cook were the last time Couples played the course in Rancho Mirage that hosted 51 LPGA tournaments but is now the home of the senior tour. It’s a turn of events that makes Couples happy for the tour and the desert.

“It’s a phenomenal tournament. Everyone knows about the Dinah Shore,” said Couples. "I think it is like their Augusta. So for us, I have heard the course is absolutely perfect. I’m so glad we got a sponsor. I think that we, as older, need to be playing here, and I’m glad we are.”

Couples will be one of the headliners in the inaugural Galleri Classic, the PGA Tour Champions tournament being played on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course starting Friday. The 54-hole tournament features a $2.2 million purse and will continue Saturday and Sunday.

More:From the ground up: PGA Tour Champions' Galleri Classic building to its debut week

The first PGA Tour Champions event in the desert since 1997 when the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf at PGA West was held in La Quinta, the Galleri Classic is being played on the same course and just one week earlier than the LPGA major championship that was held in the desert for 51 years. That tournament, the Chevron Challenge, ended last year in Rancho Mirage and has moved to Houston where it will be played next month.

The Galleri Classic features 10 members of the World Golf Hall of Fame and 20 major championship winners. That includes Bernhard Langer, whose 45 career PGA Tour Champions wins is tied for the most in tour history with Hale Irwin.

Other top players in the field include four-time major champion Ernie Else, who won the Hoag Classic in Newport Beach last week, and Hall of Famers like Vijay Singh, Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington, Mark O’Meara and Retief Goosen. Top names like John Daly, Steve Stricker, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Sandy Lyle and 2022 PGA Tour Champions player of the year Steven Alker are also in the 78-player field.

Tee times run from 9:20 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. on both the first and the 10th tees of the Shore Course.

Couples, 63, qualifies both as a major winner (the 1992 Masters) and World Golf Hall of Fame member (2013). While Couples has a history on the course, he didn’t play the layout until Thursday’s pro-am.

“Everyone leading from Naples to Tucson, they all ask about the course, and then Joe (LaCava) my caddie went and walked it,” Couples said. “He goes, man, I don’t even think they have let people play here for two or three weeks. There is not a divot, the greens are perfect, and I keep hearing that from everyone.”

While Couples may not have as much local knowledge on the course as his competitors might believe, he will certainly be one of the more popular players in the event and comes in with a solid game. Couples won his 14th PGA Tour Champions event last year and has played well this year, including contending last week at the Hoag Classic in Newport Beach.

“The front nine, I birdied No. 9, and I had a lot of birdie putts on the other eight holes, and I mean 12-footers, 8-footers, 10-footers, and then I finally made one on nine,” Couples said. “I pulled a drive on 10, and I had the easiest second shot to the green with a 9-iron, and I should have hit a wedge.”

The shot went over the green and Couples made bogey, starting a back nine where he slipped down the leaderboard.

“It wasn’t that I was leading. I just started to panic a little bit and trying to do a few things,” Couples said.

Couples said he needs to keep working on his putting in the coming weeks as he prepares for his annual start at the Masters in two weeks.

“When I am hitting fairway woods into a lot of those holes and I’ve got either off the green a 60-footer, I have to start making 4-, 5-, 6-, 8-foot par putts,” Couples said of his approach to Augusta National.

For now, Couples said he will try to remember the slopes in the greens at the Shore Course, greens he doesn’t remember even if he remembers the holes. And he hopes he can play in the Galleri Classic for another two or three years with the tournament hopefully growing in stature.

"If there is such a thing as this time of year for us, maybe this can become like the women’s The Dinah Shore, like the Masters," Couples said. "For us to have a tournament in this area is pretty cool. And this is a heck of a week to play.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Galleri Classic: Fred Couples sees big future for new PGA Tour Champions event