Hero World Challenge at Albany Golf Course
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This Friday eve, we’re back with a quick brief where we’re covering what you want to know: the what, the who won lately, what the course demands, and what’s next?
The Hero World Challenge is this week's PGA focus. The tour returns to the Bahamas to set the scene at the Albany Golf Course in New Providence. A champions favorite, this course combines features of desert and link golf on a total of 7,309 yards for a par-72. This invitational event, benefiting Tiger’s TGR Foundation, features 20 of the world’s top-ranked golfers.
Tournament purse is $5,000,000.
Last three editions
2024 | Scottie Scheffler | 263 (−25) | won by 6 | read about it here.
2023 | Scottie Scheffler | 268 (−20) | won by 3 | read about it here.
2022 | Viktor Hovland | 272 (−16) | won by 2 | read about it here.
Viktor Hovland on the 18th green during the final round of the Hero World Challenge December 2022. Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images.
Hero World Challenge history
Founded: A gift of the millennium, the World Challenge was created to support the TGR Foundation in 2000.
Venues: Prior to moving to Albany, the invitational hopped around to Grayhawk Golf Club (Scottsdale, Arizona, 2000), Sherwood Country Club (Thousand Oaks, California, 2000–2013), Isleworth Golf & Country Club (Lake Butler, Florida, 2014), Albany, Bahamas since 2015.
Move to Albany: First played at Albany in 2015, making this year’s event the tenth year at the course.
Records (event all-time):
Tiger Woods holds the most total wins with five: 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2011.
In 2014, Jordan Spieth scored the lowest score, at Isleworth, 262 / −26.
The lowest score at Albany is 263 / −25 by Scottie Scheffler ten years after Spieths' record.
Most On Brand Trophy on Tour: This tour won’t hand the winner a chalice or crystal bowl. The Hero receives a bronze tiger standing on a globe. It has heft, it has attitude, it has hand-placed patina all built by Malcolm DeMille. It’s the kind of hardware you park by the decanter and let your buddies admire all winter. Perfectly on-brand for Tiger’s event and absolutely unmistakable.
Tiger Woods has won his own Hero World Challenge - and received its very distinctive trophy - more than any other golfer. Robert Laberge/Getty Images
About The Host: Albany Golf Course
Origins: Albany opened the doors in 2010. Designed by Ernie Els. Links-inspired profile with man-made dunes and desert touches. Lauded as the course ‘where the pros love to play.’
Current site: A Par-72 stretching out to 7,309 yards. Features unusual 5 par-3s and 5 par-5s with wide sandy waste areas frame targets and heavily influenced angles.
Plays like: Wind and firm surrounds make distance control the separator. Par-5s offer scoring if you flight it low. Par-3s ask for committed carries. Misses bleed into sand or short-grass runoffs.
An Ernie Els Design
Numbers to watch
5 x 5 | Five par-3s. Five par-5s. Drivers of volatility, you must win the par-5s and survive the long threes to have a chance.
263 | Albany best: 263 (−25) by Bubba Watson (2015) and Scottie Scheffler (2024).
7,309 | The yardage on paper but beware of the breeze. It can add clubs and push approaches into runoffs.
On deck
GolfMonthly via Getty Images
Next week, we'll be at Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, Florida with the Grant Thornton Invitational.