East Lake #18

[Bill Shamleffer]

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/stories/2007/09/13/tourflip_0914.html

     Par 3 removes some drama from finish

     By STAN AWTREY
     The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

     Published on: 09/14/07
 
     Imagine it's Sunday at the Tour Championship. Tiger
     Woods comes to the 18th tee and needs a birdie to win
     the tournament, the FedEx Cup, the $10 million pot of
     gold and keys to the World of Coke.

     What are his odds?

     Not real good, even for the best player in the world. The
     18th hole at East Lake, a 235-yard par 3, is a tough
     finishing hole. Birdies are few and far between.

     A year ago only six players made a birdie on the 18th
     hole, one of them during the first round by eventual
     winner Adam Scott. But no player made a deuce on
     Sunday when it mattered most.

     So is it time to consider flipping the nines and ending the
     round on the ninth hole, a risk-reward par 5 that would
     promote a potentially exciting finish?


The link at the top will take you to this complete article.

There have been prior discussions on this site about par 3 finishing holes.  However, my biggest issue with this article is that the writer believes that the layout should be adjusted so as to produce a possible "exciting" finish.

I guess he believes that Augusta National has a poor finish for its 18th since birdie can be quite difficult on this hole, and birdie to win on 18 at Augusta has been very rare.

[Bob_Huntley]

Bill,

Didn't someone make a two here to win the whole shooting match three or four years ago?

Bob

[Mike_Young]

Bill,
The only saving grace for the hole is that it is a difficult par...probably much more so than a good par 4 finishing hole since most any par 4 would today be a second shot of around 170 yards at the most for tour players.  Thus if someone has a one shot lead it is just as exciting to watch them try to hold on as it is to watch a birdie IMHO.  
Mike

[A.G._Crockett]

Bill,

Didn't someone make a two here to win the whole shooting match three or four years ago?

Bob

Hal Sutton, I think?

[A.G._Crockett]

I'm not sure that the premise about #9 is correct anyway.  It is a par 5, but I'm not sure that I would call it a particularly compelling risk/reward hole.

[Gary Daughters]

A.G. beat me to it.

Yes it was Hal Sutton, and it may have been a playoff.  Whatever it was it was the peak of East Lake excitement since the Tour Championship has been there.

The par 3 finish, if not optimal, is at least different.

What's not exciting about having to par a difficult hole to win?  

The one time I played East Lake my shot to 18 was several paces right of the green and even in the absence of a hazard it was utterly dead.

Did/does Congressional have a par 3 finish that was shuffled around for the Open?

[Jeffrey Prest]

We had a similar thing on the European Tour for several years when it came to England's Forest of Arden course: a par 3 18th over a deep valley. Don't recall it spoiling the tournament for me.

http://www.worldgolf.com/images/features/arden-belfry1.jpg

[Tommy Williamsen]

"These guys are good."  I don't know but I saw a bunch of players stuff it on 18 this evening.  I only watched four groups.  But they are unbelievably good.

[JohnV]

A year ago only six players made a birdie on the 18th
    hole, one of them during the first round by eventual
    winner Adam Scott. But no player made a deuce on
    Sunday when it mattered most.

6 out of 120 rounds is 5%.  This year at the PGA Championship among the players who made the cut (the PGA course statistics are only for the guys who made the cut), 13 out of 284 made birdies or 4.5% on the 18th at Southern Hills.

Just because it is a par 3 doesn't make it any harder to make a birdie.   It is hard because it is 223 yards long.  It is hard to get down in 2 from 223 yards on any hole.

[Bill Shamleffer]

John,

I am happy you pointed out the comment about only 6 birdies last year on #18.  It appears the writer of this article did not realize that there are only 30 golfers as opposed to 150 in the Tour Championship.

I just felt the whole point of the article was very disappointing.  It is a shame that one thinks that a golf course needs to be re-routed just for the sake of TV excitement.

[Frank Pasquale]

Did/does Congressional have a par 3 finish that was shuffled around for the Open?

I think this year was the first year that Congressional did not finish with a par 3.  The "old" 17th was the finishing hole for the AT&T this year.

[Brad Klein]

Here's a list I've been compiling. Elsewhere in a separate file I've got with architects, major championships, years, etc. for each course. This should put the lie to the nonsense that a par-3 finish is wimpy.      

-Beachwood GC, North Myrtle Beach, S.C
-Berkshire GC, Ascot, England
-Binghamton CC, Endwell, N.Y.
-Boston GC, Hingham, Mass.     
-Brackenridge Park GC, San Antonio, Tex.
-Congressional CC Blue Course, Bethesda, Md.
-Congressional CC Gold Course, Bethesda, Md.
-Desert Mountain GC Geronimo Course, Scottsdale, Az.
-East Lake GC, Atlanta, Ga.
-Englewood GC, Englewood, N.J. (course no longer exists)
-Garden City GC, Garden City, N.Y.
-Gator Hole GC, North Myrtle Beach, S.C.
-Harbour Trees GC, Noblesville, Ind.
-Hershey CC West Course, Hershey, Pa.
-Homestead Resort-Cascades GC, Hot Springs, Va.
-Homestead Resort-Old Course, Hot Springs, Va.
-Hope Valley CC, Durham, N.C.
-Inn of the Mountain Gods GC, Mescalero, N.M.
-Killarney GC, County Kerry, Ireland
-Lindrick GC, Yorkshire, England
-Maketewah Country Club, Cincinnati, Ohio
-Myopia Hunt Club, Hamilton, Mass.
-Oak Hills CC, San Antonio, Tex.
-Pasatiempo GC, Santa Cruz, Cal.
-Pittsburgh Field Club, Fox Chapel, Pa.
-Pocono Manor-East, Pocono Manor, Pa.
-Preakness Hills GC, Wayne, N.J.
-Royal St David's GC, Harlech, Wales
-Sandpiper Golf Links, Goleta, Cal.
-Shinnecock Hills GC, Southampton, New York(original routing no longer exists)
-Surf Golf and Beach Club, North Myrtle Beach, S.C.
-Tumblebrook CC, Bloomfield, Ct.
-Uniontown CC, Uniontown, Pa.
-Yomiuri CC, Tokyo, Japan
 

[Jeff_Mingay]

Brad,

Ladies Golf Club of Toronto (S. Thompson), Toronto ON CANADA; and, Grosse Ile G&CC (D. Ross), Grosse Ile, MI USA immediately come to mind. Both courses end with a par 3.

So does the old Rogell course - originally The Phoenix Club, by Donald Ross - in Detroit.

[Willie_Dow]

Looking at my old copy of "The Architects of Golf", revised edition of "The Golf Course" 1981, I note that Inverness C, Toledo, OH has italicised Bernard Nicholls as being an architect for the course.  Was that old and now perhaps forgotten par 3 #18 on the original nine, before Ross added the second nine ?

Anyway, it became a great loss when George and Tom added those four holes.  Eight architects are listed, make that nine if you include two Fazio's.

Have their been any other course with that many architects of golf listed ?

[Adam Clayman]

Brad, Haven't you been to Skokie?

[Rick Shefchik]

Brad,

Add Hollydale Golf Course in Plymouth, Minn., to your list. Opened in 1965, designed by William Dezeil, 6160 yards from the tips, concluding with the 166-yard 18th hole, which I aced for my only hole-in-one a few years ago.

Isn't there a case to be made for the potential drama of a player winning a tournament with a hole-in-one on his final swing of the day?

[Jim_Kennedy]

Bill,
I'd say it's the compression, not the quality, of the drama that causes some to think that a par 3, even a long one, isn't the best finish to a Tour event.

[Sébastien Dhaussy]

Arlandastad Golf Club (Sweden), the recent host of the Scandinavian Masters, has a par 3 finishing hole (on the "Gamla" course).

A decisive hole this year : Ilonen, the eventual winner, birdied the 18th while Martin Kaymer (keep an eye on this young golfer   ) make a double bogey to finish 2 shots behind Ilonen.

[BCrosby]

Brad -

Add Roaring Gap (Ross).

[Jim_Kennedy]

The top ten players at the start of today's round have a cumulative score of 87 for 3 rounds, or 2.9 stroke average. No one, including any of the remaining field, has had any worse than a bogey on this hole all week.

[Brad Klein]

Adam,

only 4 times. Are you referring to the 450-yard 18th hole?

[Adam Clayman]

Brad, I coulda sworn we finished on a three, sorry. Maybe it was the ninth?


FWIW- Is this the softest green a supposed major championship has ever been played?

[Brad Klein]

"This" being East Lake? C'mon, have a little consideration, Adam. The greens were baked to death from heat stress a week ago. It's amazing they've recovered this quickly. (Just wrote 600-words on it for tom'w's Golfweek.)

Brad

[Adam Clayman]

Brad, From the television, the looks are hardly compelling. Is East Lake more, architecturally, than just where Jones played?

The whole telecast has me wondering when, if ever, the Tour will show off some of the great naturalistic stuff being made today?

[Brad Klein]

Never. They're not in the business of showcasing architecture; they're in the business of showcasing staged tournaments with lots of intrastructure. They can't even tolerate scruffy bunkers where there's an uneven edge between inside/outside the hazard.