The American Express
Courses: Pete Dye Stadium Course (7,210 yards, par 72) [Host Course], La Quinta Country Club (7,060 yards, par 72), Nicklaus Tournament Course (7,147 yards, par 72)
Purse: $9,200,000
Winner: $1,656,000 and 500 FedExCup Points
Tournament Preview
If you're a fan of red numbers and seeing birdies and eagles flying this is the week for you. This event has had a wide range of names over the years from the Palm Springs Golf Classic to the Bob Hope Desert Classic and now The American Express. This tournament also used to be five rounds for years before switching to a standard 72-hole event in 2012. The American Express is one of two pro-am formats on the PGA Tour with professionals playing with amateurs for the first three rounds on three different courses before a 54-hole cut is made and just the professionals tee it up for the final round at the intimidating Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA West.
This will be the 11th straight year the three-course rotation of Stadium Course, Nicklaus Tournament Course and La Quinta Country Club will be used. The only exception was in 2021 when only the Stadium Course and Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West were used due to the pandemic. Players will be trying to take advantage of the two rounds they don't have to play the Stadium Course. Last year the Nicklaus Tournament Course and La Quinta Country Club played to a stroke average of 68.25 and 68.59, respectively, while the Stadium Course checked in at 71.35.
The American Express will mark the 2026 season debut of world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. The four-time major champion missed last year's event in Palm Springs as he was recovering from a hand injury suffered on Christmas. Scheffler played in The Amex the five years prior and has a best finish of solo third in his tournament debut back in 2020. Scheffler's results have been unreal, as he has not finished outside the top eight in any event since last year's PLAYERS Championship. He also has not finished outside the top 25 since the 2024 BMW Championship and has not missed a cut since the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship.
While Scheffler checks in as the clear favorite, this is one of the best fields The American Express has seen in a very long time. Four other top-10 players join Scheffler in this field and 11 total top-25 ranked players will tee it up in Palm Springs. Players like Ben Griffin, Russell Henley and Sepp Straka will look to build on magical 2025 seasons, while Ludvig Aberg and Patrick Cantlay look to put together a better campaign in 2026, beginning with The American Express.
After a brief one-week stop in Hawaii, The American Express will be the first of five events on the West Coast Swing. Four of the events will be in California, including two Signature Events. This is an important stretch on the PGA Tour calendar, as you don't want to find yourself too far behind in points heading to the Florida Swing. The West Coast Swing features a wide variety of courses that each call for a different type of skillset. There won't be a ton of defense available in Palm Springs and the putter will have to be locked in to take the title.
The winning score has reached at least 20-under-par every year since this event changed to 72-holes back in 2012. Nick Dunlap holds the 72-hole scoring record of 29-under-par (259) back in 2024 when he won as an amateur. The weather looks to be just about perfect for scoring, with daytime highs in the lower-70s and very little wind to affect the players. Expect to see a sub-60 round flirted with at some point on either the Nicklaus Tournament Course or La Quinta Country Club.
Recent Champions
2025 - Sepp Straka (-25)
2024 - Nick Dunlap (-29)
2023 - Jon Rahm (-27)
2022 - Hudson Swafford (-23)
2021 - Si Woo Kim (-23)
2020 - Andrew Landry (-26)
2019 - Adam Long (-26)
2018 - Jon Rahm (-22)
2017 - Hudson Swafford (-20)
2016 - Jason Dufner (-25)
Key Stats to Victory
- SG: Putting/Putts per GIR
- SG: Approach/GIR Percentage
- Par-5 Scoring/Birdie Average
- Proximity 100-125 Yards/Proximity 125-150 Yards
Champion's Profile
Apart from the Stadium Course, there isn't going to be much PGA Tour pros think about playing these venues. There's very little rough out there, the greens don't have a ton of slope and there will be very little wind. Players will just be focused at taking dead aim at these flag sticks, which will be in pretty easy spots the first three rounds to keep pace of play up with the amateurs competing. It is in a lot of ways a putting contest. The guys who are making the most putts are going to be near the top of the leaderboard. I'll also be keeping an eye on approach numbers, specifically 100-150 yards, as a lot of the second shots will be coming from that range on these short courses. The par-5s also need to be taken advantage of. Each course has four of them which are all reachable. Eagles are always a big bonus in DFS.
FanDuel Value Picks
The Chalk
Sam Burns ($11,600)
With how important putting is expected to be this week, why not take the man who led the PGA Tour in SG: Putting last season? Burns closed 2025 strong by making his last 17 cuts and notching 11 top-20s in that stretch. He made big strides with his approach play over the second half of 2025. Burns has a strong history at The American Express with four top-20s in six starts. He has rolled it on these greens extremely well.
Patrick Cantlay ($11,400)
Cantlay usually comes out firing on the West Coast Swing. He has a strong history in Palm Springs with four top-10 finishes, including a T5 last year. Cantlay didn't contend too often last season on Sundays, but it was one of his better years on approach. He ranked 15th in SG: Approach, 27th in GIR percentage and 19th in proximity from 125-150 yards. I expect Cantlay to get back to being an elite putter in 2026. It's been since the BMW Championship in 2022 that Cantlay last won, so he's as hungry as anyone.
Harry Hall ($10,800)
Hall is built for this event because he is a birdie machine. Last season he ranked third in birdie average, racking up 429 over the course of the year. Hall also ranked third in bounce back, fifth in par-3 scoring, fourth in par-4 scoring and 17th in par-5 scoring. His putting was a cheat code at times, as he ranked third in SG: Putting, first in putts per GIR and second in one-putt percentage. Hall will be making his fifth start in Palm Springs, so he's quite familiar with these venues.
The Middle Tier
Si Woo Kim ($10,400)
Kim will be the worst putter that I highlight, but you can't argue with his play of late and his record in this event. Kim comes into the week with eight straight finishes of T21 or better, including a trio of top-5s. Kim is also a former winner in Palm Springs (2021) who has amassed five top-25s in eight starts. The 30-year-old was top-30 last season in par-4 scoring, par-5 scoring, SG: Off-the-Tee, driving accuracy, SG: Approach and SG: Around-the-Green.
Alex Noren ($10,300)
Noren is a player very few are talking about going into 2026. While he is 43 years old, the Swede has been playing some of his best golf over the last nine months. Noren ranks 17th on DataGolf and 13th in the OWGR. He scored a pair of wins on the DP World Tour last fall, including at the BMW PGA Championship. Noren has five top-10s and seven top-20s over his last ten starts. Over that stretch the approach play and putting have been fantastic.
Pierceson Coody ($9,200)
I'm quite high on Coody this season. He earned a PGA Tour card last season via the Korn Ferry Tour despite only playing part-time. The other half of the season he played off conditional PGA Tour status and had a number of good showings. After a T13 finish at Waialae in which he gained strokes across the board, Coody has now made the cut in his last six PGA Tour starts with four top-25 finishes. The 26-year-old is elite both off the tee and with the putter.
The Long Shots
Jacob Bridgeman ($8,800)
Bridgeman had a lot of top finishes last season and that's how he was able to make it all the way to East Lake. He's shown the ability to get white-hot on the greens and surge up the leaderboard. His T4 last week at Waialae was his fifth top-5 finish since the start of 2025. Bridgeman was 11th in SG: Putting in first in putts per GIR at the Sony Open. He had the second highest average feet of putts made on the PGA Tour last season, and was third last year in SG: Putting at this event.
Sami Valimaki ($8,400)
Valimaki comes into 2026 will all types of confidence. He won his final start of last season at The RSM Classic, another event with multiple courses in which you have to go low. That was his sixth top-10 finish of the year and 11th top-20 result. Valimaki does two things really -- hits his irons close and makes putts. Last season he ranked 18th in SG: Approach and 10th in SG: Putting. That's going to lead to a lot of birdies most weeks, but especially on these courses.
Lee Hodges ($7,900)
Hodges is coming off a strong T6 showing at the Sony Open in which he ranked second for the week in SG: Putting. That was his second straight top-six finish if you go back to last fall's RSM Classic where he was T4. The numbers from Hodges last year were actually quite strong across the board. He ranked 38th in driving accuracy, 23rd in SG: Approach, 12th in GIR percentage and 13th in scrambling. If the putter is now following suit that makes Hodges quite dangerous. He finished T3 in Palm Springs back in 2022.
Strategy Tips This Week
Based on a Standard $60K Salary Cap
The first question many will have to ask this week is whether or not to roster Scheffler at a whopping $14,600, which is $3,700 more than the second option in Griffin ($11,900). As hard as it is to pass on Scheffler, I think it's the right play considering what is being asked of him this week. It will be harder for Scheffler to separate with the ball striking on these courses, and one off week with the putter is going to leave him around where he finished last time he played this event, in T17. There's a lot of other really strong options in the $10K and $11K ranges who will give your lineups a lot more roster versatility. I also think this field is much deeper than last week at the Sony Open.
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