The PGA TOUR returns to Trump National Doral for this week’s Cadillac Championship, a new Signature Event on the 2026 schedule.

While new to this year’s calendar, the return to Doral will mark the 56th playing of a TOUR event at the club – rejuvenating one of the longest-standing relationships in professional golf.

Ahead of the return, refamiliarize yourself with everything you need to know about Doral. Here are five things to know.

1. The famed “Blue Monster”

The golf course has undergone many name changes, from the founding Doral Country Club to the current Trump National Doral, with several in between, but ubiquitous through the various nomenclature tweaks is a nickname that’s stuck, and represents the challenge afoot: the Blue Monster Course.

Depending on the source, you’ll hear various origins of the nickname. There’s a theory that it came from the signature blue tees. Others say it’s from the omnipresent water that players must navigate around. The monster tagline has sparked more theories, most often that it dates back even before the course was created, as architect Dick Wilson was tasked with building a stern test amid swampland, or based on comments from a former tournament director who said the course was playing like a “monster.”

Irregardless of the origins, the nickname has stuck, and it’s fitting, particularly of the famous finishing hole: the 473-yard par-4 18th, which bears the resemblance of that nickname.

“It’s one of the toughest par 4s you’ll ever play if it’s into the wind,” Tiger Woods once said.

And it’s the last in a series of difficult, water-lined closing holes – particularly the 15th, 16th and 18th – that make it an enthralling finish for a golf tournament.

That doesn’t necessarily mean it will lead to a much tougher test. In the 10 years that Doral was the site of a World Golf Championship event, the tournament yielded a winning score of 10 under or lower on seven occasions.

2. Championship test

Doral’s history as a professional golf venue is extensive. A mainstay on the PGA TOUR, the course hosted an annual event for more than 50 years. Billy Casper won the first TOUR tournament there in 1962, and the venue remained on the calendar through 2016.

As such, it counts some of the game’s greatest players as champions. Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf, Lee Trevino, Raymond Floyd, Nick Faldo, Ben Crenshaw and Woods are among the winners.

Woods was a prolific force at Doral throughout his career. He won three straight starts from 2005 to 2007 and then again in 2013. In 11 starts in his career, Woods had nine top 10s.

“Certain golf courses just fit your eye and this golf course, ever since I played here in ‘98, it just fit my eye,” Woods said in 2009.

The course is one of nine current venues to appear on the TOUR schedule for more than half a century, joining Waialae Country Club, Torrey Pines Golf Course, Pebble Beach Golf Links, The Riviera Country Club, Augusta National Golf Club, Harbour Town Golf Links, Colonial Country Club and Muirfield Village Golf Club.

3. Club history

Doral Country Club was built in 1962 for $10 million by Alfred Kaskel, a powerful real estate developer in New York City. Kaskel immigrated to the U.S. from Poland in the 1930s and quickly amassed a lengthy portfolio around Manhattan.

In the late 1950s, Alfred and his wife, Doris set their sights on 2,400 acres of swampland in South Florida, which would eventually become Doral Country Club and Doral Hotels and Resorts.

The unincorporated town in western Dade County fed off this property, with the club becoming the hot spot for the community. So it was no surprise that the town eventually took the name of Doral, a combination of Doris and Alfred’s names, Dor-Al.

The club itself quickly rose in acclaim. The Blue Monster Course was designed by famed architect Dick Wilson. Wilson’s solo-design work includes Royal Montreal Golf Club, host of the 2024 Presidents Cup, Cog Hill Golf and Country Club, Wilmington Country Club and BallenIsles Country Club. He also worked as an assistant to William Flynn during the expansion of The Country Club of Brookline and the redesign of Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, site of the 2026 U.S. Open.

With a strong layout at Doral and an influential owner in Kaskel, the club hosted its first PGA TOUR event in just its second year of operation.

The club was eventually sold by Kaskel’s company, Carol Management Corporation, in 1994, and the property was acquired and later sold by various owners as the course experienced a downturn before finally finding stability under its current ownership group, which now bears the course's name.

4. Trump takes over, renovations begin

The Trump organization purchased Doral Resort & Spa out of bankruptcy in 2012. Trump reportedly paid $150 million, renamed it Trump National Doral, and began a $250 million renovation of the resort the following year.

In the next four years, all four of the resort’s golf courses – along with the hotel itself – underwent renovations. The changes to the Blue Monster gained the most notoriety, with the project led by Gil Hanse.

Hanse described it as a “new golf course,” given his team rebuilt every green, shifted and moved every bunker and fundamentally changed the strategy of the majority of holes. Hanse told Golf Digest in 2013: “Twelve of the holes have had significant alteration in either direction or water being brought into play.”

The most noticeable differences came to the par-3 15th, which now asks players to carry their shot over water to a peninsula green. More water was also brought into play on the reachable par-4 16th, creating more suspense to the closing stretch.

Trump holds some sentimental value to the property. The Miami Herald reported in 2013 that Trump used to visit the resort on childhood vacations and later brought his own family there before buying it.

5. Signature status

The only new TOUR event added for the 2026 regular season, the Cadillac Championship immediately gained Signature Event status, adding a Florida event to the calendar outside the traditional Florida Swing.

Sandwiched in a hectic part of the PGA TOUR schedule, 17 of the top 25 in the OWGR will compete in the inaugural Cadillac Championship, headlined by Scottie Scheffler. It’s the fifth of eight Signature Events on the TOUR schedule this season.

Notably, though, the tournament is starting fresh. It will not carry the tournament history of previous PGA TOUR events contested at Doral. Though the sponsor is familiar.

Cadillac has a longstanding history with professional golf and the PGA TOUR, including at Doral. In 2010, the company signed on as umbrella sponsor of the World Golf Championships series and later became title sponsor of the WGC-Cadillac Championship, an elite invitational event contested at Trump National Doral from 2011-2016.

“We are pleased to welcome back Cadillac, a world-class brand whose partnership with the PGA TOUR is synonymous with Trump National Doral, a legacy venue on our schedule,” said PGA TOUR CEO Brian Rolapp. “We appreciate the support of Cadillac as we bring a new era of the PGA TOUR to our fans in Miami.”