The American Express PGA Tour Golf Tournament Returns for its 65th Year in La Quinta, California

More than 150 of the world’s top-ranked professional golfers will soon assemble in La Quinta to tee off for the American Express PGA Tour Golf Tournament, the tournament’s 65th year in the desert. The American Express is January 18–21 at La Quinta Country Club and PGA West. Following golf on Friday and Saturday nights are concerts featuring country/pop star Keith Urban and pop/rock band Train.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.theamex.com. General admission tickets are $60 for Thursday, $85 for Friday and Saturday, which include the concerts those two nights, and $75 for Sunday’s final round. American Express card holders receive a 20% discount on tickets.

Among the golfers who have committed to play in the tournament are past American Express champion Scottie Scheffler, who is ranked first in the world, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, ranked third and sixth in the world, respectively, Tony Finau and Tom Kim. The 2024 tournament marks more than six decades of the golf event that began in Rancho Mirage at Thunderbird Country Club in 1960 as the Desert Classic.

From its start, the tournament has been played on some of the Coachella Valley’s best golf courses in Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells, and La Quinta, with La Quinta Country Club, PGA West’s Stadium, and Nicklaus Tournament the only courses used by the event since 2016.

The PGA tournament has been played only on La Quinta courses since about 2010, including SilverRock Golf Course, which was part of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic from 2008 to 2011. The La Quinta Country Club has the longest history in the tournament, with 2024 being its 53rd.

Giving back to the Community

Since American Express signed on as the title sponsor, the tournament has drawn larger crowds of multiple generations, especially on Friday and Saturday nights when some of today’s most popular musicians take the stage—usually a country singer one night and a pop/rock star the other night.

Since 2020, Stevie Nicks, Luke Bryan, Maroon 5, Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker, and Gwen Stefani have performed at The American Express, with concerts included in the general admission price for a day of golf. This year’s performers are each multi-Grammy winners with record sales in the millions.

Keith Urban is a four-time Grammy Award winner and two-time Country Music Association (CMA) Entertainer of the Year recipient who has also won 15 American Country Music Awards (ACM), 13 CMA awards, and three American Music Awards. A 2023 Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, Urban headlined Stagecoach in 2018. Some of his hits include “Blue Ain’t Your Color,” “Somebody Like You,” “Never Coming Down,” and “One Too Many,” a duet with Pink.

Since its formation in 1994, Train has sold more than 10 million albums and 30 million tracks worldwide. The rock/pop band has had 14 songs on Billboard’s Hot 100, 13 albums on the Billboard 200 chart, and has earned multiple gold, platinum, and diamond-certified records, as well as three Grammys, two Billboard Music Awards, and dozens of other honors. The band’s list of hits includes “Hey, Soul Sister,” “Drops of Jupiter,” “Drive By,” “50 Ways to Say Goodbye,” and “Marry Me.”

Throughout its history, the tournament has contributed millions of dollars to local charities. First, through Desert Charities, then the Mikelson Foundation when Phil Mikelson became tournament host in partnership with American Express. When Mikelson dropped out in 2022, the giving continued through The American Express’s charitable foundation, Impact Through Golf.

The tournament has donated more than $65 million to local nonprofits over the past six decades, including the $1 million donated among 16 charitable entities following the 2023 tournament.