Ranking the tournaments of the PGA Tour's Florida Swing

The next best thing to playing golf is watching it.

Over the course of four weeks, I had the chance to rediscover this fact while spending a day at three of the four PGA Tour events that comprise the "Florida Swing" portion of the schedule: The Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Valspar Championship.

Having gotten a good taste of each - different days of the week, on three spectacularly sunny days - it's clear to me which one I'd be most eager to return to.

Until less than a month ago, I had only ever been to the Travelers Championship in Connecticut, several times, going back to the days when it was known as the Greater Hartford Open. I'd attended during every stage of the event; watching Bubba Watson notch his maiden PGA Tour victory there in 2010 was thrilling.

Years of attending one of the tour's best-run events - it always ranks highly among both players and spectators - set a high standard in my mind. It has always brought the most important elements of the spectating experience - at least to me - together.

Travelers host TPC River Highlands is an underrated golf course among the PGA Tour standbys, even though the renovation of its bunkering in 2016 made the course less appealing, easier for pros and harder for the rest of us. The 15th is one of golf's great short par 4s, and on-site fans and TV viewers who tune in early enough know that the drive-and-pitch par-4 2nd hole is also awesome. It doesn't favor any single type of player, which means you can see a nice variety of shots used to attack each hole.

River Highlands provides great viewing opportunities throughout. The compact parkland-golf routing of the front nine lets fans move around easily because the crowds are seldom very deep on that side of the course. The back nine is where the big drama happens, and practically every hole has stadium-style mounding in at least a couple of spots. The amphitheater in which the 18th green sits is electric on a Sunday afternoon, and the corporate boxes thankfully leave plenty of room for us non-fancy golf lovers. There is a bit of a bottleneck around the 15th, but it's my favorite place to watch live golf because I can camp out on the hillside above the green all day and be treated to the full range of scores, from the occasional eagle to double-bogeys and every shot inside 50 yards you can imagine. There is no better way to observe just how great the pros are.

The Travelers' June date right after the US Open usually creates the feeling that summer is truly underway. You also sense the growing desperation among players who've had a mediocre year that it's time to get in gear, and the top players are in big-tournament mode with The Open on the horizon. Others are rebuilding after getting beaten up by a brutal setup the prior week. The tournament really only competes with Major League baseball, which means it gets some good TV attention and local fans turn out in droves; only the WM Phoenix Open welcomes more spectators in an average year among non-majors. Maybe I'm biased, but New England sports fans are one-of-a-kind in their passion, and that extends especially to Connecticut, starved as it is of pro sports.

Those factors all helped provide years of spectating enjoyment, and they likely kept me from feeling overly compelled to see any of the Florida Swing tournaments in person since I moved here in 2014.

After trying out these three other PGA Tour events, I have come away pleasantly surprised, but one of them towers over the other two. Here's how I would rank them.

The golf course: B-
Bay Hill's status as a long-standing PGA Tour venue means that anyone who attends the tournament has seen their fair share of consequential shots over the years both on TV and in person. The amount of water that comes into play means there's plenty of potential for thrills and spills. But there are some pedestrian holes, too; the middle two par 3s (7, 14) are pretty one-dimensional, and the par-4 15th is just a bad golf hole. The finish is strong, though.

The logistics: B-
Logistics can be a function of design, as Bay Hill's own land plan suggests. Its two nines are separated by neighborhoods, so it's very difficult to bop back and forth between them if you want. The presence of homes also means a lot more bottlenecks near certain tees and greens, which means extra waiting while marshals usher people back and forth. It's also a bit finicky to try to follow a group. I followed Rory McIlroy for several holes and it was tough to see many of his shots because the contours outside the ropes don't reflect the stadium-style design approach. If you want to look down on the proceedings at all, you need to be in a grandstand of some kind, and they're not all General Admission-accessible. The API's Signature Event status for 2024 meant a smaller field, which compressed the crowd further and made me feel more like part of a cattle-call than I would prefer.

The vibes: B
No matter what, Bay Hill still carries cachet, and it is cool to hang out at Arnie's place for a while, with or without your clubs. The statue of The King is available as a selfie-spot, and the omnipresence of the umbrella logo - one of golf's best - lends a sense that you are in a historic place. The Signature Event model is clearly in its early stages with regard to the overall feel of a tournament. I certainly didn't feel like the API was "bigger" than other events because there was more money in the purse or more FedEx Cup points involved, and I'm probably a more obsessive golf fan than most. I can pretty much guarantee the other spectators didn't feel a difference, either. We did all enter through the merch tent, though.

The golf course: C+
Over more than 15 years of hosting the PGA Tour, the Champion Course at PGA National Resort has developed a reputation for being a bit of a menace, with water in play on nearly every hole and the infamous Bear Trap claiming dozens of victims every year. I was excited to see some carnage, and a little bummed when both the setup and the weather conspired to minimize it. The 10th hole was lengthened and changed from a tough par 4 to a cupcake par 5, and the rough seemed tepid at best. Watching the pros dominate a course that has dominated me every time I've played it was fun, if a little demoralizing.

The logistics: B+
This is where The Cognizant impressed me most. Even knowing the 17th and 18th holes have aggressively adopted the stadium concept with huge grandstands, it was easy to duck in and out of each hole and move about the rest of the course easily, toggling back and forth between the front and back nine at several junctures. The elevated public viewing platform with vistas on the 12th green, 13th tee, 15th green and 16th tee was excellent. I didn't feel the need to venture back to the 15th tee for the obligatory photo with the bear statue. I was too interested in seeing shots. Good first outing, Cognizant!

The Vibes: B
Wednesday's pro-am is less a golf-viewing experience than a walk around a golf course in peak condition. The practice facility is the place to be, to watch players grinding ahead of the first round. A switch flips on Thursday as things get serious. The Palm Beaches are an interesting mix at this time of year. There's quite a contrast between the throngs of younger bros and retirees, each taking in the tournament in their own way. Everyone mixes at the beer stands, though.

The golf course: A-
Larry Packard's Copperhead Course is as meat-and-potatoes as championship golf gets: skinny fairways, intrusive fairway and greenside bunkering, a bit of water and tough rough, with fast, moderately sloped greens. The pros love that style of golf. It's a fairly full examination of their considerable skills. There are a few little things I think might make the course a bit more dynamic, but it's plenty good as-is.

The logistics: A
You would be hard-pressed to route a golf course more perfectly for wandering around a golf tournament than the Copperhead. There are multiple spots where two and three sets of greens and tees converge, meaning you can monitor several groups at once. Perhaps a couple of more private grandstands than would be ideal, but there are plenty of places for regular fans to observe the action. The unusually high - by Florida standards - degree of land movement makes for some great views up and down entire holes. The forested landscape means there's plenty of shade to retreat to.

The vibes: A
The Valspar bills itself as "The Most Colorful PGA Tour Event," with giant swatches showing off dozens of shades of its paint colors throughout the property. It's a clever and appealing presentation of their products that actually adds ambiance, rather than schlock. Rows of pastel-colored Adirondack chairs in one area were very popular. The tournament also has all sorts of family activities, including a specific Kids Zone that was sponsored by Florida Blue. Food options were a bit more reasonably priced than at the other two Florida Swing events, too. Hundreds of kids of all ages zoomed around with their parents, making an already fun scene even better. I'd love to bring my wife and daughter to the Valspar next year.

Both the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Cognizant Classic are certainly worthwhile PGA Tour events from a fan perspective, but the Valspar is on another level. A two-pronged focus on the fan experience and the family experience for players over the years has turned it into a thoroughly enjoyable professional golf tournament - one well worth planning a trip around if you like watching the best golfers duke it out.