LA QUINTA, Calif. — It is as much a truism as anything surrounding the PGA Tour event that began in the Southern California desert some 66 years ago, achieved its greatest fame as the Bob Hope Desert Classic, has cycled through naming rights sponsors for several years and since 2020 has attached itself to American Express.

The trick is to check the wind turbines along the 10 Freeway as you pass the Highway 111 turnoff for Palm Springs. If they’re still, it’s birdie weather. If they’re not, who knows how high scores can go?

Thursday morning, the turbines were hauntingly still. So it shouldn’t have been surprising that J.T. Poston had a 10-under 62 for the first-day lead, with more than two-thirds of the field besting par.

But we’ve all been reminded over the past couple of weeks, for reasons that transcend golf, that wind matters — a lot — and Mother Nature is not to be messed with. The red flag warnings that have blanketed most of Southern California, and helped turn parts of it into kindling, have left the desert alone so far for the most part.

So when the PGA Tour made official Thursday what had been speculated for more than a week, that Riviera Country Club will not be able to host the 2025 Genesis Invitational next month, the potential effects spread to the Coachella Valley.

The tour’s statement in part read:

“In collaboration with Genesis, the Riviera Country Club and TGR Live (the Tiger Woods Charity Event Corporation), and out of respect for the unfolding situation, we have determined that the 2025 Genesis Invitational will be played at an alternate location the week of February 10-16. A venue update and additional tournament information will be provided in the coming days.”

The statement also said that the tour’s “focus continues to be on the safety and well being of those affected by the unprecedented natural disaster in Greater Los Angeles,” and added a link to a website — PGATOUR.COM/SupportLA — that in turn has links to donate to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and Red Cross Disaster Relief.

One potential alternative site would be the PGA West complex here, home to two of the three courses used in The American Express.

To transfer the tournament elsewhere would require the infrastructure capable of hosting a PGA Tour event, and at this point there are three places capable of picking up that slack on short notice: PGA West, Torrey Pines — the next stop on the tour, next week — and TPC Scottsdale, where the Phoenix Open will take place Feb. 6-10, the week before the Genesis is scheduled.

PGA West executive director Ben Dobbs told the Palm Springs Desert Sun’s Larry Bohannan earlier this week that no one from the tour had approached him about possibly hosting the Genesis, but he was scheduled for his routine yearly meeting with tour officials Thursday, the opening day of The American Express. We can assume, given the tour’s announcement, that it was on the table at Thursday’s meeting.

“If we were asked, we would be open to discussing that,” Dobbs told Bohannan.

One reason that some sort of decision seems to be required soon — like, say, in the next few days — would be that necessary infrastructure. Grandstands and spectator areas, sponsors’ accommodations, TV camera towers and the like are already set up here, and will be set up at the other two courses. To take them down and then have to reassemble everything if the call came to add a tournament just wouldn’t make sense.

In the case of the tournament here, of the three courses in use this weekend, the guess would be that the Pete Dye Stadium Course would be the tournament course.

As is the case with most of us, the firestorms that have devastated the L.A. area have affected those on tour with Southern California roots.

William Mouw, a former Ontario Christian High star and four-time All-American at Pepperdine who is in his first season on tour, declined an interview after his 4-under round Thursday, with a tour representative explaining that the subject was just too sensitive right now. That’s perfectly understandable.

Andrew Putnam, a three-time Pepperdine All-American from the Class of 2011, saw the sheet with the PGA’s statement while signing his scorecard and didn’t seem surprised.

“I mean, it seemed like very unlikely they’d have a tournament there with all the fires,” he said. “It’s terrible. It’s hard to believe that that can happen in a major city. … I played in plenty of Santa Ana winds in college and so I understand it can really whip up from the inland and be really dry, hot.

“Actually, my first-ever tournament at Pepperdine (in the fall of 2007) was during the fires. I remember being evacuated on campus to the cafeteria and seeing the fires burn down the hill, coming towards my car, thinking like, this is crazy. But Pepperdine designed their campus in a way (that) they cleared all the brush and they let it burn around.”

Costa Mesa’s Jake Knapp played for UCLA, near where the first and most devastating firestorm landed.

“You know, there’s complete communities and neighborhoods completely gone, so (it) seems like the right thing to do” to move the tournament, he said. “And then, you know, in terms of us as players and the PGA Tour in general, just doing whatever we can to donate and help out as much as we can.”

He noted that he had friends from college who had to evacuate when the blazes began.

“Most of the people I know directly, their houses are OK, but I know friends of friends and things like that (who) lost their homes,” he said. “So, very sad.”

What do you say to them in a situation like that?

“I don’t know,” he said. “Not sure, to be honest.”

He’s not alone.

©2025 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit ocregister.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.