News
American Express signs as title sponsor for PGA Tour's Palm Springs tournament
Jeff Gross/Getty Images
When the PGA Tour’s stop in Palm Springs, Calif., is played for the 61st time in January 2020, beginning the tour’s West Coast Swing, it will do so with a new name and title sponsor. On Monday, tour officials announced that American Express had signed a multiyear deal with the event, one of just two on the PGA Tour calendar (along with Pebble Beach) that uses a pro-am format during tournament competition.
As part of the agreement, the tournament will be called The American Express.
The deal provides local officials with the long-running tournament some stability after a decade in which the event had gone through multiple sponsors—and years without a sponsor at all. From 1986-2008, Chrysler had been the title sponsor of the tournament known more so by many fans for its long association with celebrity Bob Hope (his name had been on the tournament from 1965-2011). After Chrysler left, the event went without a title sponsor for three years before Humana and CareerBuilder stepped up from 2012-'18. Once again, there was no sponsor in 2019, but PGA Tour officials felt confident enough that one would be found that they kept the tournament on the schedule for 2020.
American Express has previously been a title sponsor on the PGA Tour for a World Golf Championships event from 1999-2006. It also had been a corporate sponsor with the USGA and the U.S. Open for 13 years.
Adam Long, a PGA Tour rookie playing in only his sixth event, was the surprise winner of the tournament in 2019. The 32-year-old journeyman made a 14-foot birdie putt on the last hole to close out a a final-round 65 and beat Phil Mickelson by one shot.