Golfers taking part in No. 18 (pictured on the appropriate facet) will not be allowed to minimize No. 10 (the green on the left).
Golf Channel
ATLANTA, Ga. — When course architect Andrew Inexperienced addressed the media simply earlier than midday on Tuesday of the Tour Championship, he admitted he was excited to see how gamers tackled the golf course’s brand-new challenges.
“Man, I’m actually pleased with all of it,” he mentioned, referring to the reported $30 million overhaul of East Lake Golf Membership he’d orchestrated over the course of the previous 12 months. “I don’t know if there’s something I’m overly pressured about.”
Some 24 hours into the revealing of what the event referred to as a “historic restoration,” opinions have been already piling in. Xander Schauffele had skilled a lot success on the earlier model of East Lake that he admitted he was tempted to leap in entrance of a bulldozer, however he was preserving an open thoughts.
“It’s simply new,” he mentioned. “It’s agency. It’s quick. Must settle in.”
“It’s positively fascinating,” added Scottie Scheffler, neither criticism nor endorsement. “It’s principally a brand new golf course from what it was earlier than.”
“Properly, all people retains saying how completely different it’s, nevertheless it’s clearly only a new golf course for me, so I don’t actually know something completely different, which is nice,” mentioned Shane Lowry, who’s taking part in in his first Tour Championship.
And Viktor Hovland, who mentioned the new-look East Lake felt like “a significant championship golf course,” added that he was impressed with the best way Inexperienced had added technique to tee photographs.
“I wouldn’t say East Lake ever had loads of technique off the tee earlier than,” he mentioned.
In all it looks like Inexperienced’s work will web out as a constructive. He’s tapped into the course’s historical past and tailored it to the fashionable sport; gamers will find yourself with extra multidimensional challenges and followers will get pleasure from extra compelling viewing than the simple take a look at we’ve seen for therefore a few years. However that doesn’t imply it’ll occur and not using a couple hiccups.
Again to Inexperienced, then, who added this to his remarks: “I’m to see how they play 14 and 18. Eighteen is of their head. I can inform already.”
He was proper, in a way. Eighteen was of their head. Each gamers and caddies had already been speaking by means of artistic methods for tackling the ending par-5, which has a sloped fairway, brutal tough, a lake guarding the method shot and minimal margin for error.
“In case you hit it down there, you’re going to finish up with a lie that you just simply have to evaluate. We’ll see. It’s not the identical because it was once, so there’s some variations there,” he mentioned.
Gamers who hit the green could be tasked with hitting an method off an uneven lie. Gamers who missed the green? They’d simply hope to put up safely, avoiding water, bushes and tough within the course of. Inexperienced questioned aloud whether or not gamers would try to string driver down into the slim touchdown space or attempt to chase a 3-wood down the slope.
“However solely taking part in it a handful of instances, we’ll see what the blokes find yourself doing.”
It didn’t take Scheffler, the World No. 1, lengthy to determine an alternate technique. Throughout his apply spherical he and his taking part in companions toyed round with firing drives over the left tree line and onto the green of the adjoining par-4 tenth. Scheffler supplied this in-depth rationalization from a participant’s standpoint:
“The way in which they reshaped the green there, the green crowns like this,” he mentioned, demonstrating the slope along with his fingers. “And it’s a really tough fairway to hit, and in case your ball goes into the appropriate tough and also you don’t get a great lie, you must chip it 10 yards down the green as a result of there’s nowhere actually to put up.
“Earlier than there was once some alternative there, the place now there’s not. I’ll describe it this manner: In case you hit it into the appropriate tough, you’re now hitting it over a pond to a fairway that’s fairly slim. In case you hit it within the left tough you in all probability can’t maintain the inexperienced from there, and should you don’t get it to the green, you’re going to be within the water.
“It looks like a safer play to take all that out of play, hit it down 10. The inexperienced goes to be fairly terribly arduous to carry anyhow with it being a downslope and having a protracted membership in there. It’s extra you’re taking part in for birdies. There’s much less alternative, I feel, for eagle than there was earlier than.”
Scheffler added that with how agency the brand-new greens are it was almost unattainable to hit and maintain it in two.
“I noticed Rory maintain 18 inexperienced right now,” he mentioned, citing the exception that proved the rule. “However he landed within the fringe over the bunker. The perimeter is comfortable; the greens are agency. It’s very difficult to carry the inexperienced in two.
“In case you don’t hit the 18th fairway you’re in a heap of hassle. That’s one thing I’m nonetheless going to toy round with tomorrow, however I feel it’s seemingly you’ll see some guys hitting it down the tenth as a result of it’s a safer play.”
Schauffele, the World No. 2, admitted that he, too, was contemplating the alternate pathway.
“Yeah, I hit two drives up 10, truly,” he mentioned. He reiterated the challenges of hitting the green and, should you missed the green together with your tee shot, the challenges of getting again to the green together with your second.
“I don’t suppose anybody on this property can maintain a inexperienced hitting a lob wedge or sand wedge out of the tough into the inexperienced,” he added.
Their in-depth explanations had an unintended consequence: They let the Tour know one thing was afoot. By Tuesday afternoon guidelines officers have been conferring to debate their choices. It was, one participant admitted, a “lose-lose scenario.”
Depart the opening as it’s? You’d threat the PGA Tour’s largest prize — the winner right here will get $25 million — going to a participant who’d deliberately shipped his tee shot down the unsuitable gap as he performed up No. 18, rejecting the architect’s intention and including a component of ridicule to the proceedings.
The choice wasn’t a lot better: introduce inside out-of-bounds, successfully admitting that the mega-restoration hadn’t observed a blind spot at its highest-stakes juncture. Yikes.
It received worse. Gamers working their manner across the entrance 9 had been mulling one other alternate technique: Moderately than tackle the dogleg-right sixth gap they have been eyeing the seventh fairway off the tee, leaving a greater angle up the hill.
In day-to-day play it’s seemingly that almost all members would respect the intent of the course and its architect. It’s additionally protected to imagine that almost all members can’t carry driver Tour-length distances. However with an eight-figure first prize awaiting the winner (and the runner up) there’s no effectivity these professionals gained’t attempt to exploit.
The sudden flurry of artistic pondering was paying homage to the 2021 U.S. Novice at Oakmont, which got here after a decade of tree elimination — they’d taken out greater than 12,000 — that allowed gamers to ship drives up the unsuitable fairways on as many as six holes, dodging devastating bunkers within the course of. The PGA Tour has seen its share of alternate routes, too, together with Viktor Hovland’s insistence on taking part in down the unsuitable fairway at No. 15 at Riviera.
As gamers continued to mull their choices, a decision arrived Wednesday. First it got here through textual content message to the 30-player subject and later through e mail to event media.
“For the protection of spectators, gamers, caddies and everybody on property at East Lake Golf Membership, the PGA TOUR Guidelines Committee has established two inside boundaries for this week’s TOUR Championship,” the assertion learn. “The green on No. 7 is out of bounds throughout play of No. 6, and the green on No. 10 is out of bounds throughout play of No. 18.”
Golf Channel
The discharge quoted Chief Referee Gary Younger: “This resolution was made primarily out of security issues, particularly to forestall gamers from successfully placing folks in hurt’s manner by taking an alternate route. When it appears like that’s going to be a risk, it necessitates an inside boundary.”
Chris Kirk praised the Tour for its real-time adjustment.
“I feel it’s very vital,” Kirk mentioned, including that he’d suggested officers to take motion. “I instructed them that for us as gamers, we’re going to do no matter we really feel like goes to present us the most effective rating, and it sounded prefer to me that was a no brainer to go down No. 10.
“However I actually like defending the integrity of the design of the golf course, and I feel that it will have been a fairly dangerous look on TV should you’re ending a golf event and all people is hitting it down the unsuitable fairway. It will have distracted for certain from how — the renovation of the golf course is improbable. The inexperienced complexes are so enjoyable, so distinctive, such a terrific selection. I feel that the course is de facto, actually nice, and so that may have actually distracted from that if we have been all taking part in a gap down the unsuitable fairway.
“However like I mentioned, should you do a full-blown renovation like this and there’s just one small little nit-picky factor that folks can discover, which means you probably did a fairly damned good job.”
On Wednesday event officers may be seen inspecting the tough proper of the 18th fairway. Phrase circulated later within the day that they might be taking the tough down barely on that facet of the opening to make the second shot extra playable.
Now, satirically, a drive unintentionally performed down No. 10 will earn gamers a two-stroke penalty. Let’s hope none hit the unsuitable fairway with the event on the road.
Yet another enjoyable truth: Usually in-course O.B. is indicated by white stakes. However on this case the boundary will likely be demarcated by the sting of the green itself. In line with Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis, that is the primary time ever that the PGA Tour has marked out-of-bounds this manner.
The restoration is making historical past already.
