The Uncomfortable Truth About Tour Golf’s Signature Venues

After 35 years covering professional golf—and a good stretch of those years as a caddie in Tom Lehman’s bag—I’ve learned that the best stories don’t always happen at the best courses. Sometimes they happen at courses that, frankly, are more obligation than inspiration.

That’s the uncomfortable reality a recent analysis forced me to confront. And while I’m not here to completely tear down some of golf’s most storied venues, I think there’s something genuinely worth examining about why the PGA Tour keeps returning to courses that, on paper, don’t belong in the conversation with the game’s true masterpieces.

When Prestige Becomes a Prisoner

Look, I’ve walked every hole at Pebble Beach during a Masters week. I understand the grip it holds on the game’s consciousness. But that friend quoted in the analysis—the +2 handicapper who called it “underwhelming”—he’s onto something that we in the media don’t always want to admit. The reality is:

“Yes, it finishes with an enormous bang at 17 and 18 but the holes preceding these don’t belong on a course that sits inside the top 20 in the world.”

In my experience, Pebble’s opening stretch and the inward nine have always felt more like a necessary trudge to reach the oceanside crescendo than a complete golfing experience. And the pro-am format that dominates the calendar there? It’s become part of the problem, not the solution. When you’re watching groups taking six hours to play 18 holes because someone’s hitting their first tournament round, the television product suffers. The course suffers. The mystique fades.

What strikes me most is that we’ve allowed certain venues to become fixtures through sheer inertia rather than through continued excellence. Tradition matters in golf—deeply. But tradition without evaluation eventually becomes a rut.

The Formulaic Four

East Lake presents perhaps the most glaring case. The Tour Championship has called it home since 2004—over two decades of the same 18 holes. As the analysis notes:

“Over 20 years of the same holes, which are formulaic enough anyway, and good enough for the fourth best in Georgia.”

Fourth best in Georgia. Let that sink in for a moment. We’re deciding who wins the FedEx Cup on a course that wouldn’t crack the state’s top three. Having covered multiple Tour Championships at East Lake, I can tell you the narrative gets thinner each year. The holes don’t surprise us anymore. The strategy becomes predictable. The finish—that dull 18th—doesn’t deliver the dramatic conclusion a season finale deserves.

Similar issues plague Torrey Pines and Trump National (Doral). Both trade heavily on their settings and history without necessarily offering the hole-by-hole quality that separates great courses from merely famous ones. Torrey Pines doesn’t even crack Golf Digest’s Top 200 courses in America. Trump National ranks as the 35th best course in Florida. Yet both command prime spots on the calendar.

The European Question

The Scottish Open’s revolving home at Renaissance Club is particularly puzzling to me. East Lothian has produced some genuinely spectacular golf courses—some of the best on the planet, as the analysis acknowledges. Yet Renaissance, ranked 24th in Scotland, holds the tournament year after year while better venues get passed over.

“Yes, it looks and is stunning in places but plenty of it is quite ordinary… It would be great to see the Scots’ national Open move around more and to better courses.”

I understand the economics. Tour stops want stability. Television partners want familiarity. Sponsors want their logos attached to consistent venues. But somewhere in that process, we’ve sacrificed variety for convenience.

Bay Hill and Sentiment

Bay Hill deserves special mention because it reveals the emotional complexity of this issue. Arnold Palmer’s legacy absolutely matters. The history there is genuine. But we can’t confuse our affection for a figure with enthusiasm for a golf course. Returning to watch the same par 5 with its massive central lake play out year after year—a hole that by the analysis’s own admission is tedious—doesn’t honor Arnold’s memory. It diminishes it by surrounding it with uninspiring golf.

What This Actually Means

Here’s what I think matters: Professional golf’s television product is only as compelling as the golf courses that host it. The best players in the world can create drama on mediocre terrain, sure. But they deserve better. The fans deserve better. And frankly, the game deserves better.

This isn’t an argument to blow up the calendar. It’s an argument for honest assessment. If a course has been a Tour stop for 20 years and doesn’t crack the top 100 in America, maybe it’s time to ask hard questions. If a venue’s primary appeal is what happened there historically rather than what’s happening there currently, we need to be willing to discuss alternatives.

The good news? The PGA Tour has shown willingness to evolve in recent years. New venues have been added. Old certainties have been questioned. That instinct is right. Because ultimately, golf’s greatest courses demand to be played and watched repeatedly precisely because they’re never quite the same twice. When a course becomes rote, it stops being worthy of its slot.

After 15 Masters and countless tour stops, I can tell you which venues still surprise me—still make me want to come back. They’re not always the most famous. But they’re always worth the trip.