– The PGA Tour and the Blue Monster course at the Trump National Doral reunite this week for the Cadillac Championship, a new tournament and the fifth Signature Event of the season. It has been exactly ten years since they last met, which happened in early March 2016, when a World Golf Championship was played, which curiously also bore the name of the same sponsor: WGC Cadillac Championship.
– It has been ten years of long, much‑missed waiting, because the relationship between the Blue Monster and the PGA Tour has been no ordinary one. In fact, this course on the outskirts of Miami had already hosted 55 tournaments of the US circuit (this week’s will be the 56th).
– That 2016 WGC was played on the new and revamped Blue Monster that was commissioned to Gil Hanse in 2013. But this trip ten years back has more to do with some events that took place that March week and their more or less capricious, surprising and even twisted relationship with the present reality. It’s about being dazzled or moved again by what could have been and wasn’t, by what was going to be and so has been, or by what pointed one way and then went down another path… Let’s begin, because there really are facts and situations that, filtered through a decade, are most interesting.
– That WGC was won by Adam Scott, who is one of the ten players who were there ten years ago and also this week (the other nine: Fowler, English, Rose, Spieth, Day, Berger, Lowry, Matsuyama and Thomas). The Australian had finished second at Riviera (Northern Trust Open) two weeks earlier and had won the Honda Classic the week immediately before this Doral event. This victory on the Blue Monster therefore confirmed him as the in‑form player of the moment and positioned him as a clear contender for the world throne he had held in 2014 for a few weeks and had not regained. Now, it was thought, Scott would reclaim the world Number One, such was the excellence of his game…
Not only did he not regain the Number One, but since that victory in Doral ten years ago, Scott would only win one more PGA Tour event (Genesis Invitational in 2020). Who would have said it. Who would have told us.
– This week Scottie Scheffler arrives at the event as the world Number One, who ten years ago, of course, was still a raw amateur. The player who occupied that position at the time they met in Doral in 2016 was a certain Jordan Spieth. It stays in Texas in this time jump…
And stranger still: three weeks later, at the end of March 2016, the Texan, America’s son‑in‑law, would lose the world Number One and would never regain it, not even with his Open victory in 2017. Who would have thought it. Who would have told us.
– For the nostalgic: let’s review that world top ten on 3 March 2016, the day that WGC in Doral began:
1. Spieth
2. Day
3. McIlroy
4. Bubba
5. Fowler
6. Stenson
7. Rose
8. Dustin Johnson
9. Scott
10. Reed
As you can see, ten years on Rory is still there (which was to be expected) and Rose (which probably wasn’t so)
– Danny Willett came very close to claiming his first PGA Tour victory at Doral 2016. He teed off in the third‑to‑last group on Sunday, five shots off the lead, a certain Rory McIlroy, but by the middle of that final round he had climbed to a multiple tie for the lead alongside Rory himself, Bubba and Mickelson. A bogey at the 18th on the Blue Monster left him almost without a chance and he finished two shots behind the winner, Scott.
Who would have told him and who would have told us that his first and only PGA Tour win on US soil (to date) would come just a few weeks later and in a place called Augusta…
– By the way, Rory, who is not present this week, was ten years ago in the feature Sunday group alongside Dustin Johnson. But the Northern Irishman carded a final 74 and the man from South Carolina a 79 and they were left out of the equation. D.J. would win his first Major two and a half months later at Oakmont.
– That WGC was contested by 66 players and was without a cut. This week we have 72 and there will be no cut either. Some things don’t change much.
– Ten years ago, that week in Doral, Hideki Matsuyama arrived as world Number 13. Today he is Number 15. Exactly: some things don’t change much. Or perhaps they end up returning to their natural place…
– One last shot for the nostalgic. These were the last four groups of the decisive Sunday round ten years ago on the Blue Monster:
– Sergio García and Rafa Cabrera Bello
– Bubba Watson and Danny Willett
– Adam Scott and Phil Mickelson
– Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy
The two Spaniards played together and started seven shots off the lead. They would then post respective 74s to finish eleventh. Who would have told us that ten years later we would have no representative of the Armada… As you can see, you should never take anything for granted.
There were still six years to go before the emergence of LIV Golf, but there you have it: a representative of the Saudi league in each of the last four groups, perfectly and perversely arranged
