Is there any reason 10 at Riviera wouldn’t be a better hole if the trees left of the green were removed and the fairway were extended through that area and then well to the left around the short left bunker?
The reason nobody lays up is that there’s nowhere good to lay up to, because the ideal angle is from the cart path behind the trees in the left rough. Although most seem to admit that it’s hit and hope to play for the green.
I like this premise a lot and think it would be awesome if Riviera were to explore something like it.
There are some challenges in doing that (where to put the cart path, how to integrate it with the nearby 11th tee, etc.), but I couldn't agree more that they should find a way to make the "correct" angle lay up a viable choice.
In days gone by, they used to maintain this area as relatively well-manicured rough as opposed to the more browned-out, native type of rough that you see in some of the barrancas, etc. This was mostly prior to the reconfiguring of the eleventh member's tee and the addition of some of the mounding long and left of the tenth green. It was not unreasonable at this time (when the rough was down) to eschew the fairway and deliberately play to that area.
Those who did so believed it was easier dealing with the obstacle of the trees (with a LW) from a good angle than it was dealing with the slope from the far inferior angle back in the fairway. With a decent enough lie, you could easily hoist a wedge over the trees and get it back to the back hole locations. Furthermore, from this angle, you were able to play your shot back into the green's right to left contour, rather than across and/or down that slope from the current lay up zone.
I'm not even sure it would be necessary to remove the trees in order to do this...part of me thinks that the trees would make for an interesting complication for those who wish to take the better angle. It would also add value to the current lay up zone as that would be devoid of the obstacle of the trees.
It would take a little creativity to make all of this look good given the 11th hole constraints and the alternate driving range nearby, but I could imagine blending the 10th fairway and the 11th tee complex in a similar fashion to how they've done it with the back of the 5th green and the 6th tee complex.
Of course, an easy counter argument would be that this is widely considered one of the great short four-par holes in the world and it would be a travesty to do anything too dramatic with it. I can certainly understand the risk in over-tinkering here.
Perhaps most of all, I really hope steps are not taken to soften the green or in any way remove the bite of the short-game test it presents. I know that every LA Open there are complaints about how it has gotten too severe, but for professional golfers playing at the highest level there is nothing that appears unfair to me about the challenges the hole currently presents.
I know at times it looks like these pros are making fools of themselves around that green, but most of the time there was a par/bogey option that could have been taken somewhere along the way once the player got out of position. The real big numbers start coming when you get out of position and try to do something daring to save the shot you don't want to drop.