“Piece of s— f— setup. Putting contest week,” Jon Rahm said as he walked off one of the greens at the American Express four years ago.
He has been proven right with scores of -29, -27 and -25 winning the last three editions including Rahm himself before he moved to LIV Golf and Seamus Power will be very optimistic that he can threaten those scores in his second PGA Tour start of the season after a very encouraging week on the greens in Hawaii last week.
Looking for that crucial win which would give him a two-year PGA Tour exemption, Power tied for the 31st last week but arrives at La Quinta with a pep in his step after he closed with a 64.
In that final round, the West Waterford man made seven birdies as he ran in 121-feet of putts. He ended the week ranked fourth for footage holed and eighth for his approach play – two stats which will need to be dialled in if he is to keep pace with this likely birdie fest in California and world number one Scottie Scheffler.
The American Express is played across three courses, La Quinta, Stadium Course and the Nicklaus Tournament Course with extremely low scoring expected.
Power is operating with a conditional card after finishing 117th in the FedEx Cup Fall standings last year.
The PGA Tour cut the fully exempt category from the top-125 to the top-100 for this year meaning that Power will have entry into most PGA Tour events but not all and his entry into tournaments will be subject to periodic reshuffles and field sizes.
The West Waterford man had endured an injury plagued two seasons which has resulted in him slipping to 160th in the Official World Golf Rankings from a career high 27th in 2023.
The 38-year-old will hope that his body can remain healthy after an encouraging end to last season as there is still so much to play for with performance based incentives still available for the Signature Events via the AON Swing 5 and Next 10.
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