Trump National Doral’s Blue Monster course hosted its first PGA Tour round in 10 years on Thursday at the 2026 Cadillac Championship. While the course used to present a difficult challenge to the best golfers in the world, that was not the case in Round 1.
That was evidenced by the low scores that populated the leaderboard, but also by comments from some of the biggest Tour stars in the field, including Cameron Young, Jordan Spieth and Scottie Scheffler.
Those stars called it “straightforward,” and described it as “right in front of you” and “not super tricky,” all of which suggests some of the “Monster” has been taken out of the Blue Monster course.
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While many players went low in the opening round of the Cadillac Championship, none went lower than Young. The 2026 Players Champion fired an eight-under 64 on Thursday to take the early lead.
Despite windy conditions, Young’s round featured eight birdies and, most notably, zero bogeys.
While Young called the Blue Monster a “good solid golf course” after his round, he also described the challenge it presents as “pretty much right in front of you,” that it “doesn’t hide anything,” that “learning the course wasn’t a huge deal” and that the greens are not “particularly firm.”
“Yeah I think it’s pretty much right in front of you for the most part. I think most of the tee shots are pretty apparent, which is what good courses give you,” Young said of Trump Doral’s Blue Monster. “I think it doesn’t try to hide anything. So learning the course wasn’t a huge deal… I think you can be pretty aggressive into a lot of the greens. They’re not particularly firm.”
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He continued: “I think it’s a good solid golf course. Right in front of you, they don’t hide anything. It’s kind of what you want.”
Scheffler didn’t fare as well as Young on Thursday. Surprisingly, Scheffler was only able to get to one under through his first 18 holes, though that’s a first-round trend he’s experienced this season.
Despite not having the best day, Scheffler did not suggest that the course was any harder than Young had.
Scheffler called it “straightforward” and said that the course does not demand “a ton of strategy” or a “ton of decisions off the tee.”
“I think a golf course like this there’s, this golf course is I don’t want to say straightforward, but most of it is in front of you. You can see what you need to do and there’s not a ton of like strategy, I don’t know if that’s the right word,” Scheffler said on Thursday. “There’s not a ton of decisions off the tee. There’s some lines and stuff and maybe some areas you can play from if you’re not playing your best, but outside of that it’s like you can definitely learn enough from a couple of days.”
Spieth admitted he only played one 9-hole practice round at the Blue Monster to prepare for this week, not counting Wednesday’s pro-am. Despite that, Spieth shot a seven-under 65 on Thursday to get within one shot of Young.
When asked to explain why he was able to perform so well on a course he’d barely seen, Spieth said “it’s not super tricky,” and then elaborated on his opinion.
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“It’s not super tricky. During the pro-am you’re still looking, all right, here’s this corner. Michael is saying, Hey, check this is out. This pin will be in the middle of the greens in the pro-am, and you’re like there were some I wanted to see and write down the grain changes, when you’re hitting a wedge into this one, just nerdy stuff that helped knowing on a few of the pins.”
He continued: “It’s not tricky, so it was more just getting back out and recognizing what do I need to prioritize on the range, what shots am I really going to have throughout the week versus others. And you have quite a few long irons, more long irons than I think you have a lot of other places and so I’ve been trying to prioritize kind of up the bag getting good control of those clubs and I did today.”
Brian Harman, the 2023 Open champion, shared a different opinion, calling the Blue Monster course “very difficult.”
“I never played here. So it’s my first look at it. It’s very difficult especially coming in, 17, 18 with the wind blowing a little bit now. There is, 18’s as hard of a finishing hole as I can think of,” Harman said. “It’s very difficult because if you’re out of position there’s really not a lot of spots that are very easy to get up-and-down from. So it’s like you really need to drive it good and then you really need to iron it good and then make some putts. So if you’re out of position it’s tough. But I got fortunate.”
But despite his opinion on the course’s difficulty, Harman went out a shot a four-under 68 on Day 1. His round was also bogey-free.
