Course Preview and Fits: Cadillac Championship

The PGA Tour rolls into Miami this week for the inaugural Cadillac Championship at Trump National Doral, the fifth of eight signature events on the 2026 schedule. Of course, “inaugural” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, as Doral hosted a PGA Tour event every year from 1962 through 2016, including the WGC-Cadillac Championship from 2007 to 2016. After a 10-year hiatus during which the Blue Monster hosted LIV Golf events from 2022 through 2025, the Tour returns with a 72-player, no-cut field for a $20 million purse. The field is strong, but not as deep as a typical signature event would be. Rory McIlroy is sitting out for the second consecutive signature event, and Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick, Ludvig Aberg, and Robert MacIntyre are also opting to skip. Even with those names absent, seven of the top 10 in the world are in the field.

The Course:

Trump National Doral, or The Blue Monster, originally designed by Dick Wilson in 1962 and renovated by Gil Hanse in 2013, is set to play as a 7,739-yard par 72 with four par 3s, four par 5s, and 10 par 4s. The greens and fairways are both Bermuda, with a Bermuda rough that has historically played as moderately penal rather than ultra-thick.

The Blue Monster earned its nickname for a reason. Water is visible or in play on essentially every hole, and the course finishes with what is widely considered one of the most demanding closing holes on Tour: a 473-yard par 4 with water down the entire left side that has consistently ranked among the most difficult holes the Tour plays in any given year. While we don’t have much recent data, the penalty rate at Trump National Doral post-Hanse renovations in 2015-16 is the highest recorded on Tour in that time period. Players averaged nearly one penalty stroke per round in those two years, with 0.15 reloads off the tee. Big misses are absolutely not going unpunished this week.