Add Tiger to the mix:
Providence, R.I., Wednesday September 6, 2006 1:26 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
Major plans in works for TPC course
Work will begin soon on another renovation project at the Norton facility, the second in the four years the club has been open.
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, September 6, 2006
BY PAUL KENYON
Journal Sports Writer
NORTON, Mass. -- When Tiger Woods defends his Deutsche Bank Championship next Labor Day weekend, the TPC of Boston course that will host the event will be very different than the one Woods won on last weekend.
Work will begin soon, tournament and course officials have disclosed, on another major renovation project at the facility, the second in the four years the club has been open.
The course, designed by Arnold Palmer, underwent considerable modification after it was used by the PGA Tour for the first time in 2003. The changes were made based on suggestions by the players.
This new plan is being done in conjunction with the use of the course, beginning next year, as part of the FedEx Cup playoff system that will be put into effect next year, one that will include a $10-million prize to the winner.
"As we've said all along, if we couldn't have a major, we wanted to be the next-best thing," said Seth Waugh, the CEO of Deutsche Bank America. "We feel now like we'll be part of the mini-majors.
"While we've had maybe five of the top 15 in the world here, next year we hopefully will have 100 of the top 100," Waugh said.
Because the event becomes even more prominent next year and into the future, there will be an even stronger demand that it be a premier layout.
"I think the players like it," said Rhode Island's Brad Faxon. "They need to love it."
Faxon, who has a golf course design business, has been asked to help plan and execute the renovations. The prime architect involved will be Gil Hanse, one of the rising stars in the business. He has received much praise for his work at the Boston Golf Club, which opened in Hingham, Mass., last year and for guiding renovation projects at Kittansett and Merion Country Clubs, among others.
"His style is an older world style, more of a classic, traditional feel," said Eric Baldwin, the tournament director. "What we're trying to do is New Englandize it, if that's a word."
Hanse and Faxon are receiving plenty of help with their plans, which already are well under way. None other than Woods himself has volunteered to help.
"Tiger wants to be involved in this," Waugh said.
"I have my own ideas, yes," Woods said Monday after winning this year's event. "I'm going to try and help out with that, give my opinion, and they can utilize it or not. . . . I am getting into the golf course design business here probably pretty soon. So it's something that I'm very excited about, to be creative and design a piece of property that people will want to go play."
"They're just trying to improve the golf course. It's not a bad golf course; they're just trying to improve it," Baldwin said. "Golf courses always evolve. If you aren't doing anything to your golf course, you're probably not keeping up with the times. I think this is one way to add value to the course."
One goal is to give the course more of a New England feel.
"I think it's going to start to evolve from the completely manicured look," Baldwin said. "Right now, the bunkers are all cut to the top. It all looks clean and sharp, like when you get a brand-new haircut. The plan is to make it more natural."
Fescue, the wavy, light grass that is such a big part of so many New England courses, is planned for several areas, including around the bunkers. As Baldwin describes it, "The bunkers complexes are going to get roughed up a little bit."
Members of Hanse's firm were at the course last week getting opinions and ideas from players. A number of plans already have been formulated.
"We're going to make changes on all 18," Faxon said. Some of the biggest, he said, will be at 4 and 16. The par-4 fourth now is a sharp dogleg right.
"It will be a driveable par-4, a straightaway par-4," Faxon said.
The 16th, a 211-yard par-3 with a large pond that guards the front, will be shortened as part of an attempt to bring the pond more into play.
"It will be a shorter par-3, a 6-, 7-, 8-iron," Faxon said. "We'll use the water. It won't be an island green. It will be a peninsula and then we'll bring (No. 17) in and straighten that hole out."
"Who better than to have a local guy who is a traditionalist, who loves this place, be involved," Waugh said of having Faxon play a major hand in the project.
Having Woods volunteer to help, too, obviously is a bonus. Woods said he is serious about getting into course design.
"I've played all around the world. I've seen so many different types of golf courses," Woods said. "I have my own opinion on the styles, on how the game should be played."
The plans, as they now stand, are not quite what one would expect Woods to do if he had a choice.
"It's interesting. The first plan is that it might actually mean shortening the course," Waugh said of the layout that played to 7,415 yards last week. "It may be the first time in the history of golf that they'll shorten the course.
"Distance does mean that much to these guys," he said. "You can make it 9,000 yards. What you need are wind and rain and a feel for a course."
The work, Baldwin said, "is going to begin sooner rather than later. In the past, they've tried to get as much done as they could before winter sets in. We want it to be ready for next year."
pkenyon@projo.com / (401) 277-7340