The PGA Tour bans 'alternative routes' as a sinister conspiracy by the pros at East Lake
Golfers playing No. 18 (pictured right) will not be allowed to play down No. 10 (left fairway).
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ATLANTA, Ga. — When course designer Andrew Green spoke to the media shortly before noon Tuesday at the Tour Championship, he admitted he was excited to see how the players handled the golf course's brand new challenges.
“Man, I'm excited about everything,” he said, referring to the renovations East Lake Golf Club has reportedly planned over the past 12 months. “I don't know if there's anything I'm overstressed about.”
Within 24 hours of the unveiling of what the tournament called a “historic restoration,” reviews were piling up. Xander Schauffele had so much success in the previous version of East Lake that he admitted he was tempted to jump in front of the tractor. , but he was open-minded.
“It's just new,” he said. “It is strong. It's fast. Stability is needed.”
“It's really interesting,” added Scottie Scheffler, neither criticizing nor approving. “It's basically a new golf course from what it was before.”
“Well, everyone keeps saying how different it is, but obviously it's a new golf course for me, so I don't know anything different, which is great,” said Shane Lowry, playing in his first Tour Championship.
And Viktor Hovland, who said the new-look East Lake felt like “a major championship golf course,” added that he was impressed with how Green added strategy to his shots.
“I can't say that East Lake has had many strategies before that,” he said.
By all accounts it seems that Green's career will be successful. He delved into the history of the course and adapted it to the modern game; players will end up with more multidimensional challenges and fans will enjoy more compelling views than the straightforward explorations we've seen for so many years. But that doesn't mean it will happen without a few hiccups.
Then, back to Green, who added this to his words: “I like to see how the 14- and 18-year-olds play. Eighteen are on their heads. I can tell.”
He was right in a sense. Eighteen it was in their head. Both players and caddies were already talking about creative strategies to finish the par-5, which has a sloping fairway, a fairway, a lake guarding the approach and a small margin of error.
“If you hit the ground running, you will end up with a lie that you have to judge. We will see. It's not the same as it used to be, so there is tension there,” he said.
Players hitting the fairway will be tasked with hitting the fairway to eliminate uneven lies. Players who missed the fairway? They may hope to sleep safely, avoiding water, trees and rough terrain. Green wondered aloud if the players would try to put the driver in a tight spot or try to chase the 3-wood down the slope.
“But just playing it a few times, we'll see what the guys end up doing.”
It didn't take long for Scheffler, the World No. 1, to find another strategy. During practice he and his teammates would play swinging drive shots over the tree line in left and into the fairway near the 4th 10th. Scheffler gave this insightful explanation from a player's perspective:
“The way they resurfaced the fairway there, the fairway crowns like this,” he said, gesturing to the slope with his hands. “And it's a very difficult game to hit, and if your ball goes in the fairway and you don't get a good lie, you have to hit it 10 yards down the fairway because there's nowhere you can really lay.
“Before there was an opportunity where there is none now. I'll explain it this way: If you hit it the right way, now you're hitting it over the pond to a narrow fairway. If you hit it in the rough left you probably can't hit the green from there, and if you don't get to the fairway, you'll be in the water.
“It seems like a safe play to take all that out, hit it down 10. The green is going to be a lot harder to hit anyway because it's downslope and having a long club there. It's more like you're playing for birdie. There's less chance, I think, of eagles than before.”
Scheffler added that the way fresh greens are so hard it's almost impossible to hit and hold them twice.
“I saw Rory hit the 18th green today,” he said, pointing out the exception that proves the rule. “But it landed on top of the dormitory. The edge is soft; green is solid. It is very challenging to catch the green in two.
“If you don't hit the 18th fairway, you're in trouble. I'm still going to play with that tomorrow, but I think you might see guys hitting the 10th because it's a safe game.”
Schauffele, World No. 2, he admitted that he, too, was considering another way.
“Yeah, I hit two drives on the top 10, actually,” he said. He also repeated the challenges of hitting the fairway and, if you missed the fairway with your tee shot, the challenges of returning to the fairway with your second.
“I don't think there's anybody in this area that can hit a green that hits a lob wedge or a sand wedge out of the fairway and onto the green,” he added.
Their deep explanations had an unintended effect: They informed the tour that something was happening. On Tuesday afternoon, law enforcement officials spoke to discuss their decisions. Another player admitted, “it's a lose-lose situation.”
Leave the hole as it is? You can risk the main prize of the PGA Tour – the winner here receives $ 25 million – to go to the player who sent his ball with the intention of shooting the wrong hole as he plays number 18, rejecting the intention of the architect and adding the feature. mock trial.
The rest was not very good: presenting the exit of the internal borders, effectively admitting that the mega recovery did not see a blind spot during its high meeting. Yes.
It got worse. Players working their way around the front nine have been devising another strategy: Instead of taking the dogleg-right sixth hole they've been targeting the seventh fairway from the top, leaving a better angle to climb the hill.
In everyday play it is likely that most members will respect the purpose of the lesson and its creator. It is also safe to assume that most members cannot handle the long distances of a driver's trip. But with an eight-figure first prize awaiting the winner (and runner-up) there's no efficiency these pros won't try to exploit.
The sudden flurry of creative thinking was reminiscent of the 2021 US Amateur at Oakmont, which came a decade after tree removal – and they had removed more than 12,000 – allowed players to send drives on the wrong fairways on up to six holes. , avoiding devastating bunkers in the process. The PGA Tour has seen its share of other routes, too, including Viktor Hovland's insistence on playing the wrong fairway on No. 15 on the Riviera.
As players continue to consider their options, the decision came Wednesday. It first came via text message to the 30-player field and later via email to tournament media.
“For the safety of spectators, players, caddies and everyone on the grounds of East Lake Golf Club, the PGA TOUR Rules Committee has established two inside limits for this week's TOUR tournament,” the statement read. “The fairway on No. 7 is out of bounds when playing No. 6, and the fairway on No.
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The release quoted Chief Referee Gary Young: “This decision was made mainly for safety reasons, especially to prevent players from putting people in danger by taking another route. If it sounds like that's going to be a possibility, it needs an internal boundary. “
Chris Kirk praised the Tour for its real-time editing.
“I think it's very necessary,” Kirk said, adding that he has advised officials to take action. “I told them that for us as players we will do whatever we think will give us the best points, to me it felt like it was a difficult game to go down to number 10.
“But I'm very interested in protecting the integrity of the golf course design, and I think it would be a bad look on TV if you finish a golf tournament and everyone is hitting it the wrong way. It would be difficult to know how – the maintenance of the golf course is very good. Green complexes are very tasty, unique, very diverse. I think the course is really good, so that would detract from that if we were all playing the hole down the wrong way.
“But like I said, if you completely redo it like this and there's only one little thing that people can find, that means you've done a great job.”
On Wednesday tournament officials could be seen inspecting the 18th fairway. Word spread later in the day that they were going to lower it a bit on that side of the hole to make the second shot more playable.
Now, strangely, driving unintentionally played down No. 10 will earn players a penalty of two strokes. Let's hope no one hits the wrong thing with the competition on the line.
Another fun fact: Normally in-course OB is indicated by white poles. But this time the boundary will be separated by the edge of the fairway itself. According to Golf Channel's Todd Lewis, this is the first time the PGA Tour has marked an out-of-bounds event in this manner.
The restoration is already making history.
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