PGA Tour stars reveal surprising take on Trump Doral: ‘It’s not complicated’

Trump National Doral Blue monster course hosted his first PGA Tour round in 10 years on Thursday at the 2026 Cadillac Championship. While the course presented a tough challenge for the world’s best players, that was not the case in Round 1.

This was proven by low scores that populated the leaderboardbut also from comments from some of the Tour’s biggest stars in the field, including Cameron Young, Jordan Spieth AND Scottie Scheffler.

Those stars called it “straightforward” and described it as “in your face” and “not super complicated,” all of which suggest some of the “Monster” has been lifted from the Blue Monster course.

Stars descend on Trump Doral: ‘They hide nothing from you’

While many players fell short in the opening round of the Cadillac Championship, none went lower than Young. of Players Champion 2026 shot an eight-under 64 on Thursday to take an early lead.

Despite the 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 “quite in front of you,” that he “doesn’t hide anything,” that “learning the course wasn’t a big deal” and that the greens aren’t “particularly hard.”

“Yeah, I think it’s pretty much in front of you for the most part. I think most tip shots are pretty obvious, which the good courses give you,” Young said of Trump Doral’s blue monster. “I don’t think he’s trying to hide anything. So learning the course wasn’t a big deal… I think you can be pretty aggressive on a lot of greens. They’re not particularly strong.”

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. Amazingly, Scheffler was only able to get 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 didn’t suggest the course was any harder than Young had.

Scheffler called it “straightforward” and said the course doesn’t require “a ton of strategy” or “a ton of decisions off the tee.”

“I think a golf course like this has, this golf course I don’t want to say directly, but a lot of it is in front of you. You can see what you have to do and there’s no such strategy, I don’t know if that’s the right word,” Scheffler said Thursday. “There’s not a lot of decisions at the end. There’s some lines and things and maybe some areas you can play from if you don’t play your best, but other than that it’s like you can definitely learn enough from a few days.”

Spieth admitted he played just 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 pull within a shot of Young.

When asked to explain why he was able to perform so well on a course he had barely seen, Spieth said “it’s not too complicated” and then elaborated.

“It’s not too complicated. During the pro-am you’re still looking for, okay, here’s this corner. Michael’s saying, Hey, check it’s out. This pin is going to be in the middle of the green 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 in this, that just helped some weird stuff.”

He continued: “It’s not complicated, so it was more just going back and figuring out what I need to prioritize on the range, what shots I’m really going to have during the week versus others. And you have a lot of long irons, more long irons than I think a lot of other places have, and so I tried to prioritize the bag and I did a good job of controlling the club today.”

Brian Harmanthe 2023 Open champion shared a different opinion, calling the Blue Monster course “very difficult.”

“I’ve never played here. So it’s my first look at it. It’s very tough especially going in, 17, 18 with the wind blowing a little bit right now. It’s 18 holes as hard as I can think of,” Harman said. “It’s very difficult because if you’re out of position, there’s not a lot of spots where it’s very easy to get up and down. So it’s like you really have to drive it well and then you really have to iron it well and then hit some shots. So if you’re out of position, it’s tough. But I got lucky.”

But despite his opinion of the course’s difficulty, Harman shot a four-under 68 on Day 1. His round was also bogey-free.