S.H. Kim’s gravity-defying swing at PGA West’s Stadium Course

LA QUINTA, Calif. – Pete Dye courses are defined by their uncanny ability to leave players scratching their heads upon signing their cards. For better or worse.

Sometimes both, as S.H. Kim learned in Friday’s second round at The American Express.

Playing a wedge approach for his third on the par-5 16th at PGA West’s Stadium Course, Kim’s ball bounced off the flagstick and toward the cavernous bunker that Dye once described as “the deepest greenside bunker this side of Mars.” The ball was saved by a rake, but Kim took four shots to reach the green – the ball rolling back into the bunker three times – and one-putted for a triple-bogey 8.

But what Dye taketh, Dye return. Minutes later, on the island-green par-3 17th, Kim’s tee shot sailed over the green and landed on a rock. Rather than bounce forward into the lake, it deflected high and backwards, landing on the green and settling 24 feet from the hole. On cue, he drained the birdie putt for a slight note of redemption.

As Kim’s scene played out Friday morning in the Coachella Valley, the media center at The American Express was buzzing with stories of lore from the Stadium Course’s famed finishing stretch. Local scribes reminisced on the time Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill couldn’t escape the deep greenside bunker on No. 16 – the hole is known as San Andreas, after the large fault that runs through the state – to the point where O’Neill was compelled to throw his ball onto the green after “several unsuccessful attempts to extricate it with a sand wedge,” Dye wrote in his autobiography.

Dye once described the final three holes of the Stadium Course as “maybe the most difficult finishing holes I’ve ever built.” The course debuted as a TOUR venue in 1987, a year after opening, with its course rating of 77.1 the highest ever given by the United States Golf Association at the time. Raymond Floyd called the design “spiteful” and “hateful” in its early years. At the time, the venue was one-and-done at The American Express (long known as the Bob Hope Classic) – TOUR pros signed a petition to have the Stadium Course removed from the event’s course rotation.

The Stadium Course returned to the rotation in 2016 and no longer plays as Dye-abolical, with under-par scoring averages each year.

Player reactions on the finishing stretch indicate a knowledge of Stadium Course heritage. Dylan Wu got up and down from the cavernous bunker at No. 16 on Thursday, then quote tweeted the highlight, noting, “Don’t hit it there guys. Easy up and down,” in jest.

Jason Dufner’s up-and-down from the rocks on No. 17, en route to victory at The American Express in 2016, is discussed around the Stadium Course to this day. Dufner’s ball landed on the green and rolled into the clump of rocks guarding the green, but remarkably settled without trickling into the water.

The even-keeled Dufner was struck by his good fortune but described it in his vintage matter-of-fact style.

“It was probably like one-in-50 million that the ball ends up there,” Dufner said at the time. “Some guy won the Powerball a couple weeks ago; he’ll take it, right?”

Kim’s radical change of fortune might not be one-in-50 million, but it adds to the Stadium Course lore, nonetheless. These things just tend to happen around here.