From an amateur win to rain, desert's golf season was wild and unexpected

The snowbirds are heading home for the summer, the temperatures have been approaching 100 degrees and a number of Coachella Valley golf courses are preparing to close all or parts of their layouts for the summer for some major capital improvements.

That must mean the golf season in the desert is just about over for another cycle. There still might be some fireworks at the high school level, but for the most part, the desert golf season is closing.

And what a season it was, from totally unexpected winners to totally unexpected weather.

Here’s a look at the 2023-24 golf season in the desert:

Nick Dunlap wins

Until Scottie Scheffler decided to go crazy and win four of his last five tournaments including the Masters and The Players Championship, Dunlap was the feel-good story of the PGA Tour for 2024. An amateur playing on a sponsor’s exemption at The American Express in January, Dunlap, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, started well in La Quinta looking for his first made cut in his fourth pro tournament. But a third-round 60 at La Quinta Country Club put him in contention, and a final-round 70 at the Stadium Course at PGA West gave him a one-shot victory, making him the first amateur to win on tour since Phil Mickelson in 1991. Christiaan Bezuidenhout won the first-prize money, but Dunlap won the title. He decided to turn pro a few days later and has struggled since, but he has his full tour exemption.

PGA Tour/LIV battles continue

Dunlap’s win masked a week where the ongoing battle between the PGA Tour and LIV golf was still center stage. The American Express was without its defending champion, Jon Rahm, who had made the jump to LIV just one month earlier. Rahm was the second defending champion in La Quinta in a row who missed the next year’s event because of LIV ties, joining Hudson Swafford. In addition, players like Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, believed to be big players in the ongoing PGA Tour evolution to a for-profit entity, talked about how the game could change and heal during the desert tournament.

More: Unlikely finish! Retief Goosen survives chaos of final holes to win soggy Galleri Classic

Rain at the Galleri

The Galleri Classic brought the PGA Tour Champions back to Rancho Mirage for the second consecutive year, and the tournament was again a success, bringing out fans and spreading the message of the cancer detection test Galleri. But something strange happened during the tournament, which was won in remarkable fashion by Retief Goosen. Rain, cold and wind hit the tournament in both the second and third rounds, something that rarely happens in the desert. Play was never stopped for the weather, and a final hour of play that included bogeys from most of the contenders led to a one-shot win for Goosen, who played the final round bogey free. Steven Alker bogeyed the final two holes, including a head-scratching bogey on the par-5 18th.

Opening of Ladera

Most people in the Coachella Valley will never get a chance to play Ladera, the stunning 18-hole course in Thermal on what once was a 306-acre lemon farm. But the course, owned by music mogul Irving Azoff and Apple executive Eddy Cue, is the first regulation course to open in the golf-rich desert since 2008. It is also the first design in the desert by noted architect Gil Hanse. Golf Digest called Ladera the best new private course in the country for 2023, but perhaps Ladera showed that a few more golf courses might be coming to the desert in coming years.

Epson Tour coming to the desert

It’s been a while since this happened, but the city of Indian Wells decided it needed a showcase for its Player Course at the Indian Wells Golf Resort, and what better way to do that than bring professional golf to the resort. The result is the Epson Tour Championship, the finale of the season for the LPGA’s developmental tour, will be played on the course in October. Is this the first step toward the city and the LPGA finding a way to bring the LPGA back to the Coachella Valley after the tour left following the 2022 Chevron Championship? The city hopes so, and perhaps enough desert fans will like that idea enough to come out to the Epson Tour and root on women who hope next year they will be on the big tour.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Nick Dunlap's American Express win highlight of desert's 2023-24 golf season