PGA Tour's West Coast Swing features changes at Pebble Beach, but no Jon Rahm

A new season for the PGA Tour begins with the annual West Coast Swing, the series of seven tournaments from Hawaii to Arizona to California.

But while a new year brings new possibilities to professional golf, this new year brings some of the same baggage. The game is still trapped in a battle between the PGA Tour and the LIV Tour for players, with money seeming to rule the day and fans a forgotten part of the equation. And on the West Coast Swing in particular, one of the game’s top players who dominated the first two months of 2023 won’t be playing in the same events in 2024.

Here's a look at five storylines from the 2024 West Coast Swing:

No defending champion

Of the seven West Coast events played this year, three of them have the same defending champion. That’s Jon Rahm, the winner last year of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, The American Express in La Quinta and the Genesis Invitational. That’s also the Jon Rahm who jumped to the LIV Tour in December and has been suspended by the PGA Tour. So Rahm won’t defend any of his three West Coast titles, though he will be able to defend at the Masters in April. That’s a marketing and depth-of-field blow for those three tournaments as well as The Farmers Insurance and the Waste Management Phoenix Open where Rahm was likely to play.

More: Rickie Fowler, Shane Lowry strengthen field of January's American Express

Changes at Pebble Beach

The AT&T Pebble Beach tournament has always been a week fans look forward to on the West Coast, with its great golf courses, celebrities and pro-am. But this year, the Pebble Beach tournament has been designated a signature event on the PGA Tour, meaning a field of around 80 players rather than the usual 160 or so for the event. It also means just two courses, Pebble Beach and Spyglass, will be played with Monterey Peninsula bowing out. And the celebrities? There won’t be any this year, and only a few amateurs will be in the field. It’s a radical change, and means The American Express is now the only event using three courses for its tournament. What would Bing Crosby thing?

The new calendar

In 2024, the PGA Tour is returning to a schedule based on the calendar, not based on the wrap-around schedule for the past few years. That means everyone on the PGA Tour starts their chase for the FedEx Cup playoffs at zero when the Sentry Tournament of Champions tees off in Hawaii this week. The players not in the Tournament of Champions will be behind the players who do play in Hawaii. Does that mean some of the top players who didn’t make the Sentry field will add an extra tournament or two on the West Coast Swing?

Tiger’s schedule

In December Tiger Woods played two unofficial tournaments, his first competition since the Masters last April and his first play since ankle fusion surgery. Woods said he feels good, so much so that he could see a 2024 schedule that will include one tournament a month, more than he’s been playing the last few years. Assuming that Woods doesn’t play in January, unless he surprises people with a start at Torrey Pines in San Diego, you have to assume he will play in his own tournament at the Genesis Invitational. How he looks at Riviera might determine when he will play again before he shows up at the Masters.

The PIF saga continues

The so-called deadline for a deal between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia came and went with the end of 2023, meaning it was never a deadline at all. Now the PGA Tour and the money behind the LIV Tour have extended the deadline to some time around the Masters in April. That means for the next seven weeks of the West Coast Swing, speculation will continue on what a new tour will look like or who the next PGA Tour player to jump to LIV will be. LIV played two events in 2023 during the West Coast Swing -- once in Mexico and once in Las Vegas, both in February. And the saga drags on.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Jon Rahm, Tiger Woods among PGA Tour's West Coast storylines