The Inconvenient Truth About Our “Must-Play” Tour Venues

Look, I’ve been covering professional golf for 35 years, and I’ve seen things change dramatically on the PGA Tour—some for the better, some decidedly not. But there’s one conversation that’s been bubbling beneath the surface of our coverage that we don’t talk about nearly enough: some of our most iconic, most-played venues are becoming genuinely tedious to watch week after week.

That’s not easy to admit. These are courses with pedigree, history, and names that resonate with golf fans worldwide. Yet I think we’ve reached a point where we need to separate the romance of a place from the reality of what it delivers as annual television content.

The Calendar Trap

What strikes me most about this growing sentiment isn’t that these courses are bad—they’re not. It’s that we’ve locked ourselves into a fixture list where geography, sponsorship, and tradition have trumped what actually makes for compelling championship golf. In my three decades covering the tour, I’ve watched the schedule become increasingly calcified. We return to the same venues year after year, and somewhere around year five or six, the novelty evaporates.

“Again, this does not feature in the best 100 courses though it’s closer than others on this list. If you want history and a clubhouse packed with all the good stuff, then East Lake is remarkable. But it’s another where we’re struggling to piece together different holes – everything still feels like a glut of par 4s that run alongside one another”

East Lake exemplifies this perfectly. The Tour Championship returning there since 2004 means we’ve watched essentially the same stretch of Georgia real estate for over two decades. The architecture might work for a club championship, but as championship golf television? It’s become part of the furniture—and not the good kind.

When Views Aren’t Enough

Here’s what my years as a caddie taught me: a great hole is about feel, not just optics. Pebble Beach has undoubtedly some of the most photographed views in golf. Those ocean-side holes from 6-10? Spectacular. But—and I never thought I’d say this—spectacular views don’t carry a course when you’re forced to spend six hours navigating bland stretches between the marquee moments.

“Once you’ve gotten over the fact that you’re at Pebble Beach and done the customary walk to the 18th green and taken in the amazing views, you are quickly hit by obligations to part with money at every turn!”

That quote from a +2 handicap player really stuck with me. Pebble has become less a golf experience and more a pilgrimage destination—and like many pilgrimage sites, the actual experience can feel secondary to the mythology. The exorbitant green fees certainly don’t help, nor do those pro-am tournaments that seem designed primarily to fund the operation rather than showcase championship golf.

The Architecture Question

What I find genuinely frustrating is when venues start to feel formulaic. Torrey Pines, for instance, ranks 30th best in California. Let that sink in. We’re hosting Signature Events at a course that isn’t even cracking California’s top tier, yet it misses the Golf Digest Top 200 for the entire United States. The bones are there—the setting is undeniably dramatic—but the golf itself doesn’t justify the real estate it occupies on our calendar.

Bay Hill and Trump National (Doral) present similar challenges, though for different reasons. With Bay Hill, we’re essentially watching a legacy venue sustained by affection for Arnold Palmer. That’s not nothing—Palmer’s presence still matters in golf. But nostalgia shouldn’t be the primary justification for hosting competitive events. As for Doral, “unmemorable” might be the damning word I’ve heard in years. How many holes from that course stick with you? Exactly.

The International Blind Spot

This isn’t exclusively an American problem. The Scottish Open returning annually to Renaissance Club, when it ranks only 24th best in Scotland, suggests we’re not always making the wisest choices about tour rotation. Golf has never had better courses to choose from globally, yet we’ve locked into patterns that prioritize convenience and sponsorship over the actual quality of competition and viewing experience.

The good news? There’s genuine movement happening. The tour has shown willingness to shake things up—look at how tournaments have relocated or changed venues in recent years. What we need is for tour operators to be more aggressive about evaluating venues based not on tradition or marketing advantage, but on simple questions: Does this course produce compelling golf? Are fans engaged? Does it deserve to be here?

The Path Forward

I’m not advocating we bulldoze Pebble Beach or ignore golf history. What I’m suggesting is that hosting a tournament at a course and that course being among the world’s best shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. Having caddied for tour players in the ’90s, I remember the buzz when the schedule shifted or a new venue came on board. That electricity mattered.

We have the opportunity to be more intentional about this calendar. That doesn’t mean abandoning tradition, but it does mean occasionally asking the uncomfortable question: Just because we’ve always done something doesn’t mean we should keep doing it.

The game—and the fans—deserve better.