The American Express PGA Tour event is over for another year, with a solid if unspectacular winner in Sepp Straka.
Even though The American Express is the dominating event in the Coachella Valley golf scene, it is hardly the end of the golf season in the desert. In fact, The American Express is just the beginning of a 2025 golf season that will stretch all the way to October.
While some of the other events might not hold the same national appeal as the desert’s PGA Tour event, there is certainly local and regional appeal for the remainder of the year.
Here are a few of the events that can captivate golf fans in the desert in the coming weeks and months:
College golf
First will come the Prestige at PGA West on Feb. 17-19, a 25-team tournament entering its 25th year. Host teams UC Davis and Stanford return, as do other strong teams like Pepperdine and North Carolina. The Tar Heels feature David Ford, who is No. 1 in the PGA Tour U rankings who is chasing a full exemption to the PGA Tour for 2025 and 2026.
That will be followed one week later by the University of Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate, with a smaller 15-team field and without as many powerful Division I teams but with more regional teams from Southern California.
Another college event, the Mountain West women’s individual and team championship, will be played at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage from April 15-17, giving the winning team a chance to jump into the famed Poppie’s Pond. One or two other one-day competitions traditionally pop up in the desert in the spring as well.
High school golf
The main question heading into the boys’ golf season in the desert will be can the powerful Palm Desert High School Aztecs finally reach the CIF state tournament after threatening to do so the last three years. Palm Desert will be guided by new head coach Kaitlyn Ellis, who also coaches the Palm Desert girls’ team in the fall. But the Aztecs will be challenged in their own Desert Empire League by teams such as La Quinta and Xavier Prep.
The Galleri Classic
The third edition of the latest addition to the desert golf world will take place March 28-30 at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage. The PGA Tour Champions, formerly known as the Senior PGA Tour, returned to the desert after more than 30 years in 2022. The 50-and-older stars play on the same course that had hosted an LPGA major championship for 51 years. David Toms won the first event, and Retief Goosen outlasted Steve Alker in 2024.
More: Steady Sepp: Sepp Straka wins American Express golf title by two shots
The return of Bernhard Langer, who missed the 2024 event with an Achilles injury, will also be a highlight of the event that should feature top names like Fred Couples and Steve Stricker. The senior players have embraced not only the Coachella Valley but the Shore Course as well, discovering that the course that challenged the LPGA for five decades can challenge the best on the PGA Tour Champions as well. The event is also two weeks away from the Masters, and several of the senior players are in the Augusta National field each year.
More renovations
Last year seemed to be a year of a tremendous number of golf course renovations, from new irrigation systems to new greens almost around every dogleg. The sheer number of renovations won’t be as large in the summer of 2025, but one major renovation could have a long-term impact on the desert. Significant changes will be made to the Players Course at Indian Wells Golf Resort, shutting down the course for much of the summer. The changes are part of the city’s desire to attract an LPGA event back to the desert, with John Fought overseeing the changes to the course that he already had renovated. That renovation will cause one more change in the desert golf scene in 2025.
Epson Tour Championship
The Epson Tour’s season finale came to the desert for the first time in 2024, and the players had to compete in unseasonably hot weather the first week of October on the Players Course at Indian Wells Golf Resort. With that course undergoing major changes this spring and summer, the Epson Tour Championship will switch to the other course at the golf resort — the Clive Clark-designed Celebrity Course on Oct. 2-5.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Galleri Classic, Epson Tour just part of remaining 2025 golf year
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