The seven events on the PGA Tour’s West Coast Swing are over for 2025, and it’s fair to say the swing was full of news and storylines.
From a tournament moving to the top players in the world ending up on the injury list, the events in Hawaii, California and Arizona set an interesting tone for the remainder of the PGA Tour season. The swing also saw several players who are just making a name for themselves on the tour collect important victories.
Here’s a recap of the stories from the West Coast Swing:
Performance of the Swing
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This would be Thomas Detry at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. The Belgium star earned his first win on the PGA Tour in a big way. Dominating the field at the TPC Scottsdale for most of the week, Detry ended the tournament with a seven-shot victory over Daniel Berger and Michael Kim. It takes a lot to outdo Rory McIlroy’s performance in a two-shot victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am where McIlroy overpowered the golf course, but Detry averaged 65 for four rounds in a powerhouse win.
Injuries
Withdrawals were big news early in the tour year. The world’s No. 1 player, Scottie Scheffler, withdrew from two tournaments because of a hand injury from cooking Christmas dinner, an injury that required minor surgery. The No. 2 player in the world ranking, Xander Schauffele, played just the Sentry in Hawaii before shutting his game down with a rib injury. Those were tough blows for tournaments hoping to have those top players in their fields, including The American Express in La Quinta. The injuries really couldn’t be avoided, but they perhaps added to the next storyline.
Just one American winner
Harris English won the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego, but that was the extent of American-born winners on the West Coast. Yes, Scheffler and Schauffele missed significant time, but the roster of West Coast Swing winners looked a lot like a European Ryder Cup team with McIlroy, Detry, Sepp Straka of Austria (a two-shot win at The American Express) and Ludvig Aberg of Sweden (Genesis Invitational) all winning events along with Hideki Matsuyama winning the Sentry and Nick Taylor of Canada winning the Sony Open in Hawaii. Is this the major trend for 2025?
The Genesis move
When the fires in Pacific Palisades broke out, the last thing on anyone’s mind was whether the Genesis Invitational could be played at fabled Riviera Country Club, where flames came up to the edge of the golf course’s property. Soon, though, it was evident that the tournament needed a new home for 2025. Plenty of options were laid out for the tournament, from Scottsdale to Las Vegas. The Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA West in La Quinta was talked about among PGA Tour officials, with grandstands still in place from The American Express. Eventually, the decision was to take the tournament to Torrey Pines in San Diego, a host of the Farmers Insurance Open and a favorite spot of tournament host Tiger Woods. So San Diego had two PGA Tour events in four weeks.
The LIV talk
No, LIV players weren’t in the fields of any of the West Coast Swing events. But the potential reunification of the PGA Tour and the LIV Tour was certainly on players’ mind. Rory McIlroy said PGA Tour players need to get over the idea of punishing LIV golfers, Golf Channel’s John Wagner took exception to McIlroy’s comments, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan talked about a single tour being something that fans are looking for and Tiger Woods wrapped up the swing by sounding very positive about a deal being successfully negotiated. Even President Donald Trump was involved, talking to Monahan, Woods and Adam Scott about bringing the two tours together. There is no deal, of course, but there was a lot of talk.
