Lorne Rubenstein | |
There is more to the TPC than just the 17th hole
May 8, 2007
 Photo: © Stan Badz/Wire Images |
The 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass is one of the most famous holes in golf. |
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There's probably not a more notorious hole in golf than the 17th at the Tournament Players Cup, with its island green and endless talk about the 1000s of golf balls hit into the water every year. There's no bail-out and there's plenty of anxiety, and the golfers in this week's Players, the tournament's one-word name, will feel it.
So, to state the obvious, The TPC is all about the 17th, right? It's all about penal golf.
Or is it?
The fact is that the drama that the 17th generates takes away from what the Stadium course is all about. It's all about strategy, that is. The 17th is as penal as a hole can get, and it draws all the attention. But there's far more to the course than the 17th, which actually detracts from the course's more important risk-reward theme.
Photo: © Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images | | Pete Dye |
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Just ask the architect Pete Dye. His mantra is that golf should be all about variety. Now, he's just devilish enough that he loves the attention the 17th gets, and the way it drives players crazy. Dye attended a dinner with some writers in the early days of the tournament, and he was licking his lips in anticipation of the way the 17th would bring players to their knees. That's Dye the showman, Dye the shaman.
But Dye is much more. He's a devotee of strategic design. He likes to confuse players by making them think, by forcing them to think. The 17th forces them to try to breathe because breathing doesn't come naturally on the tee. But the rest of the course forces them to consider options.
Think about it. The strategic values inherent in the course are evident early on, at the par-five, 532-yard second hole. The golfer who challenges the right side, where there's a lateral hazard, will have a much better angle into the green on his second shot. Yet even from there, as 2004 Players winner Adam Scott says, it's dangerous to go for the green because of the slopes that kick a ball all over the place.
Photo: © Andy Lyons/Getty Images | | Adam Scott knows how tricky some shots to the green can be. |
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But how can a player who has driven the ball into the proper place not go for the green with, usually, an iron in his hand? But he'll be thinking about the consequences of even a slightly missed shot.
And make no mistake. A slightly missed shot this year will lead to a much bigger kick away from the green because of the revised course. That's what happens when you add 16 football fields of sand to a course. It gets firmer and faster, just as Dye wanted it to play when the course opened 25 years ago.
All too often, the TPC has been mushy. This year it will be running so fast-barring rain-that players at the Players will get bug-eyed watching their small mistakes turn into very difficult shots around the greens.
Vijay Singh said last year that the course is "very tricky."
It will be interesting to see what he says this year. Meanwhile, what if there's some wind? The risks for going after rewards will become even more apparent.
Photo: © Dick Durrance II/WireImage | | The 7th green at TPC Sawgrass |
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The 442-yard seventh hole might just demonstrate this rather well. Now, who talks about the seventh? Very few analysts on television do, that's for sure. They'd rather emphasize the 17th. But the golfers know that the seventh is a strong strategic hole. Why, Hal Sutton, the 2000 Players champion, went so far as to call the hole-wait for it-a real "risk-reward" hole.
The seventh? How's that?
Simple, sort of. Sutton advises that the best line from the tee is down the left side of the fairway. But there lies an elongated waste bunker, with water to the left of that bunker. The sand in the waste bunker is so firm that a ball hit there might even run through it into the water.
Pick your line and take your best shot. Miss the chosen path to the right, however, and, Sutton says, "You've got to go across some trees, across the water, and across another waste bunker to a green that is angled away from you."
 Photo: © Stan Badz/Wire Images |
The 11th hole at TPC Sawgrass is one of the true risk/reward holes. |
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But it's an option, isn't it? The golfer who is leery of challenging the left side can play safely, or at least away from the really bad stuff, and leave himself a more onerous shot into the green. Options, options.
The 11th is also a splendid risk-reward hole. It's so complex that the golfer needs an advanced degree in geometry to figure out the angles. It's only 535 yards, and there are multiple choices off the tee and multiple choices for lay-ups. Drive into the right-centre for the most favorable angle into the green. Lay up short and left of the green if you're not in that area of the fairway. Fine. Now you have an awkward shot into a twisty green that falls off sharply on all sides.
The same ideas apply to the 16th hole, which at first glance seems penal more than strategic. But the 507-yard par-five can produce havoc and wreckage out of all proportion to its length. The player who finds the fairway, wherever his ball finishes, will likely go for the green. But miss right or long and there's water. Miss left and the lay of the land will make getting up and down for birdie a chore. The golfer who does elect to lay up, by the way, might find a tree on the left intrudes on his plans if his ball veering that way.
Stephen Ames pushed a five-iron into the green last year, got a fortunate kick toward the hole rather than to the right, and made his eagle putt. Ames won the tournament, but admitted he caught a break with the bounce when his ball hit the green. Fair enough. Golf should be about good and bad breaks, shouldn't it? That makes the game even more of a mental challenge. Obstacles and possibilities on the ground lead to burdens on the brain.
 Photo: © Stan Badz/Wire Images |
The 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass with the lake all the way down the left hand side. |
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Then there's the 447-yard closing hole. Sure, there's a lake all up the left side, but it's in the interest of options. The golfer on the tee can take on the water and try to drive up the left side of the fairway. A successful shot will lead to a much easier angle into the green, but failure could quickly ruin a round. The safe tee shot to the right make the second across the width rather than the length of the green a possible problem.
This is all the stuff of a mind that knows the most interesting golf is links golf. Dye has long been a fan of the rugged, adventurous golf that links such as the Old Course and Royal Dornoch demand. He even wanted to incorporate Dornoch into the name of his company after first visiting the course in the far north of the Scottish Highlands. Mention Dornoch to Dye and his wife Alice-an accomplished architect herself who came up with the idea for the 17th at the TPC-and their eyes mist over. They do.
Of Dornoch, Dye said the following in his book Bury Me in a Pot Bunker (which some players over the years wanted to do after running up big numbers at the TPC): "More distinctive at Royal Dornoch, where the pint-size greens on the par-three holes. We saw how effective this design could be in demanding a precision shot, and in making recovery ones difficult from the severe slopes just off the collar of the green."
The TPC's greens are relatively small, while the slopes at their edges and around make them even smaller. Dye says that he and Alice knew after first visiting Dornoch, the Old Course, Carnoustie, Turnberry and Prestwick, "We needed to establish a link between our future courses and those of the past."
The result is that the observer who looks beyond the avalanche of comment that the 17th hole produces will find this link that the Dyes coveted. The thoroughly modern TPC's Stadium course is a throwback, and a mind-bending head-turner of options, choices, risks, rewards and strategies.
Just watch. You'll see.
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