George:
They are a little bit similar, if only because the pros attempt to use the slope in the middle of the green to feed the ball to left-hand hole locations, instead of actually going straight at the hole.
However, I spent at least an hour with Pete Dye at the first tournament in 1982 watching players at that particular hole, and he never mentioned it if he had thought about 16 at Augusta when creating the hole.
Did he happen to mention how much, if any, of the water hazard he created? The element of feeding the ball was a big part of what made me think of the similarities, apart from the obvious similarities of length and water hazard. The other thing was how the hole locations seemed similar.
If anyone can point me to a history of the creation of TPC Sawgrass, it would be much appreciated. I don't remember much if any discussion of it in Pete's book, but I read it so long ago I can't remember much.
Mark B -
I asked myself that same question shortly after I posted this thread. I wondered if there were other analogs out there. Not so much similar in a template sense, more in the sense of "You think that's a great short par 3? What do you think of
this?!?"