Why roll with Greg Norman when you can roll with Tiger Woods? That may or may not have been what the PGA Tour was thinking with its latest decision, but that’s certainly how things played out as the Tour moved the World Wide Technology Championship from the Norman-designed El Camaleon Golf Club in Mayakoba to the Tiger-designed El Cardonal Golf Course in Cabo San Lucas.
The event will take place this fall with 132 players who will contend for a yet-to-be-determined purse as well as positioning and eligibility for the following PGA Tour season, which begins in January. In other words, the field may not be great, but the golf course could be.
El Cardonal is among Tiger’s growing portfolio of worldwide golf courses, a list that currently includes Payne’s Valley in Missouri, Bluejack National in Texas and The Hay, a par-3 course at Pebble Beach in California. Woods is considered to be an underrated and perhaps even understated golf course designer.
El Cardonal was “inspired by the classic Golden Age courses of the West Coast that Tiger played growing up,” according to his website. “Tiger created a golf course that brings back strategy — there are typically several options for navigating each hole, and proper strategic decision-making is rewarded.”
Whether that style of course is interesting for high-level professionals remains to be seen, and will in fact be tested later this year at the World Wide Technology Championship.
“We are excited to build on our partnership with World Wide Technology as we continue to develop the growth of our sport in Mexico and across Latin America,” said PGA Tour executive, Tyler Dennis in a statement. “The support of World Wide Technology, coupled with a championship golf course, will ensure that the PGA Tour’s fall schedule will continue to deliver moments of drama and consequence.”
This last part is true. Seeing pros who finish outside the top 70 in this year’s FedEx Cup race fighting for spots on next year’s PGA Tour is going to be legitimately interesting.
What’s also interesting is how all of this went down. When the Tour left Mayakoba, LIV Golf swooped in grabbed El Camaleon for one of its events, which Charles Howell III recently won. Norman, of course, is the CEO of LIV Golf, and he and Woods have been publicly adamant about the sides they have chosen in the recent PGA Tour-LIV Golf battle.
Now each tour has a tournament hosted at a course designed by its de facto leader. That might not mean a lot to most people, but the symbolism is undoubtedly striking and meaningful to those on the inside of both organizations.