Here's an email I recently sent to a journalist about the changes Pete has recently made to The Ocean Course (although I don't know how to insert pictures that aren't already on the web so I can't put the EA Sport aerials on here...):
Yes, Pete Dye has been doing a lot of "tinkering" to The Ocean Course.
For the last year or so, he has had us grassing in bunker faces all around the course. He did this for two reasons; 1) to return a lot of the course to its original look (as the constant shifting sands altered the course greatly in the 20 years since it opened) and, 2) to limit balls from plugging in the sand faces. He's also been "reshaping" some of the bunkering due to the blowing sand.
He has added and shifted tee boxes on a number of holes to give better angles of play, give the course more set-up options and to aid in gallery flow. For example, he shifted the 18th tee back and toward the ocean to prevent the players from cutting the dogleg. In past event, players would blast their drives over the bunkers on the inside of the dogleg, hitting the downslope leaving them with a short iron into the green. With the new tee, drives will end up at the top of the hill, leaving them with a 200+ yard shot into the green. Moving the tee closer to the ocean also provided more room around the pond on No. 17 allowing for more viewing areas.
The biggest changes, however, Pete made to the green complexes of the Par-3 fifth hole and the Par 5 eleventh hole. On No. 5, he lengthend the bunker on the left side of the green making the back left pin placement more challenging. On No. 11, the left side of the green used to be up about 3-4 feet above the surface of the green. It's now about 6 feet below the surface in a collection area. This give the player a greater incentive to go for the green in two. Attached are two aerial images of the holes that EA Sport took for its updating of the 2012 Tiger Woods PGA Tour video game.
Let me know if you need more information. Also, you might want to let your readers know that they'll be able to get a chance to play the course in the PGA Championship setup this year. We're going to set the course up the first week of August in 2011 at the 7,527 length with the roughs set up exactly as they will be for 2012. We're working on some sort of handicapped promotion that our guests can participate in if they'd like to give it a shot. Details have yet to be announced but should be available soon (as soon as I get them from the Golf Administration people)...