The PGA TOUR continues a busy stretch of big tournaments with the fifth Signature Event of the season this week. It’s a brand new Signature Event, as the PGA TOUR returns to Doral, Florida, which is just outside Miami. For over 50 years, the Blue Monster Course at Trump National Doral hosted a PGA TOUR event, but this will be the first time since 2016. The tournament tees off on Thursday, April 30, and will conclude on Sunday, May 3, barring any weather issues.

Let’s start the week with a look at the format, history and course for the Cadillac Championship.

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The Format of the Cadillac Championship

As a Signature Event, the Cadillac Championship has a limited field and no cut. The full field of 72 players will get in all four rounds, barring withdrawal or disqualification.

The event features an elevated $20 million purse with the winner earning $3.6 million and 700 FedExCup Points.

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The history of the tournament

The tournament doesn’t have any history yet, since this is a brand new Signature Event on the PGA TOUR making its debut this year. There has been an event in this same location, though. The Blue Monster Course hosted the Doral Open from 1962 to 2006. When the FedExCup began in 2007, the schedule shakeup resulted in a WGC (World Golf Championships) event at this venue from 2007 through 2016.

The PGA TOUR hasn’t played in Doral in a decade, but the Doral Open was always one of the most popular stops, and it’s an important new event on the schedule, as evidenced by its Signature Event status.

With another Signature Event next week at the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow Club and then the PGA Championship the following week, this event starts a run of three straight tournaments for most of the top golfers in the game. A few of the top players are sitting out this week with those other events looming, including Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick (though his brother Alex Fitzpatrick is thanks to their Zurich win), Xander Schauffele, Robert MacIntyre and Ludvig Aberg.

Even without those stars, though, it’s a strong field led by Scottie Scheffler and should be a great week of golf back at one of the best courses in the United States.

Check out the full field and odds on DraftKings Sportsbook to see all the players teeing it up this year.

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A Closer Look at the Course

The Blue Monster Course earned its name due to all the water in play on the beautiful but challenging layout. It’s a par-72 that starts each nine with a long par-5, which should give players a chance to go low if they can keep their ball out of the splash zones.

Gil Hanse’s 2014 renovation pushed the length of the course to over 7,700 yards, so length off the tee will be important this week since it measures as the second-longest non-major course on the PGA TOUR. In addition to water danger on 10 holes, the course is guarded by thick Bermuda rough and large, sloping green complexes. If the wind is blowing, it can be a very difficult track, and the Hanse renovation bumped up the difficulty relative to par. In the years before the Hanse renovation, the course played at an average of -0.75 per round, but after the renovation, the difficulty jumped to +1.31 per round in the three events from 2014 to 2016.

In 2016, the last year it was a PGA TOUR stop, the course had more penalty strokes off the tee than any other event. The tee shot on No. 18 is especially difficult with water all along the left side of the fairway. It has resulted in a wide variety of closing scores with epic collapses and dramatic finishes on the 72nd hole of the tournament.

Not many of this week’s players have an official course history at this venue since the PGA TOUR hasn’t stopped here in the last 10 years, so it will be a week to lean into current form and course fit based on skill and correlation courses. As you try to pick winners or high finishers for betting or fantasy golf purposes, Strokes Gained: Approach, Driving Distance, Bogey Avoidance and Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (Difficult) are some key metrics to focus on.

Be sure to get your DFS fantasy golf lineups and betting cards filled out with the help of DK Network throughout this week!