Baltusrol's 'monster,'
17 could actually be
birdie friendly
at PGA
By Chris Baldwin,
Senior Writer
SPRINGFIELD, N.J. (Aug. 10, 2005) - It's a monster.
A joke. A ridiculous overreaction. A freak show not fit
for a major championship.
That is how the PGA Tour's best largely regard the revamped 17th hole at Baltusrol
Golf Club's famed Lower Course. This par 5's been stretched to a 650 yards, making
it the longest hole in PGA Championship history, and the focal point of the quest
to make this week's PGA Championship a worthy challenge for today's unfathomably
long hitters.
The first time
Vijay Singh played the toughened up PGA Championship course earlier this summer,
even the usually stoic Fijian could not help not but poke a fun at the new No.
17.
"I tell you, I hit my best drive there and the
caddie came up to me and says, 'You've only got 375 to the middle of the green,'" Singh deadpanned.
"Uphill, too."
This brought laughs all around from the assembled press. And Singh wasn't done. He brought up the fact that
John Daly reaching Baltusrol's then 623-yard 17th in
two at the 1993 U.S. Open caused golf's ruling bodies to
get into a tizzy.
"Why did you have to lengthen it?" he asked. "One
guy hit it, that's why."
More laughs.
Of course what Vijay Singh practically failed to mention is his
score on
that monster No. 17: a birdie 4, his first birdie of the
round. Which effectively illustrates the truth of the
supposed Beast of Baltusrol. No. 17 may be as much a real monster as the creatures from M. Night Shyamalan's
The Village.
At least for the longer hitters, the stars of the
PGA Tour.
Singh went driver/3-wood on No. 17 and left
himself with a very controllable 70-yard chip to the hole
for his third shot. He knocked that to within eight feet. That's not exactly your high-anxiety birdie. So much for the nightmares.
For
all the grousing sure to be heard this week over a 650-yard par 5, and it's going
to sound like a kindergarten classroom denied recess, Baltusrol's finish is setting
up as a potential scoring bonanza. The course closes with two par 5s -- the much
whined over 650 17th and a 554-yard 18th. This is hardly your typical setup for
a major and it provides the chance for plenty of big swing score changes late
in the round.
Birdie-eagle finishes are very much in play. The way 18 is set up particularly
invites comebacks. The leader finds some trouble on 17, a challenger sticks in
an eagle on 18 and suddenly there is a whole new PGA Championship.
"Eighteen is very playable and very reachable,''
Singh said. "I got up there with a 3-iron. Most of the
guys will be able to get up and it gives you a chance. I
think 18 gives you a chance if you're one or two back to actually recover and catch the leaders.
"It just makes it more exciting. It makes it more exciting for the crowd. It makes it more exciting for TV."
There will be a lot of talk this week about how Baltusrol is a U.S. Open course in a PGA Championship. It might be wise to ignore that jabber. The top players who took early looks at Baltusrol quickly seemed to learn better.
Even Tiger
Woods, who could make a miniature golf course sound
tough in a pre-tournament press conference (that clown mouth is tricky, you've got to watch out for the clown mouth), did not ring alarm bells over the lengthened Baltusrol. In fact after his first play here in early August, a surprise drop-in 36 holes, Tiger seemed almost shocked by how the course lets you go for the pins.
"We don't usually play golf courses this straightforward," Woods told The New York Times. "The rough is thick, but the greens and fairways won't be this wet and dewy when we play it."
In other words, there will be plenty of chances to
go low.
The rough has been grown long and penalizing at Baltusrol. But is not a U.S. Open, immediately-in-your-face rough. There is a shorter, more playable cut bordering the fairways, giving the pros a good chance if the miss is not too severe.
"It's very similar to the U.S. Open, but it's a
little bit more fair,'' Singh said. "You know the rough .
the fairways will be five yards wider and it's not as
severe as the U.S. Open. The bunkers are playable. For
some reason the USGA
comes in and does something to the bunkers where you can't
get any spin out of it. Something like that.
"(In the PGA Championship) the greens come Sunday will play the same way they do on a Thursday or a Friday. They still stop, they still receive balls the same way. That's the big difference. The golf course doesn't change from Thursday to Sunday that much."
One change that was made in Baltusrol came in
putting the creek back into play on No. 13. The slender
creek cutting across the 424-yard par-4 had been a factor
in major championships past. Bobby Jones tried to clear
the creek off the tee at the 1926 U.S. Amateur and instead ended up wet and out of a trophy. But by 1993 the creek had effectively moved out of play.
PGA of America and Baltusrol officials committed to changing that by shifting the creek back closer to the fairway. Singh seemed surprised when he landed in the creek in his first practice-round look at the course.
"Now it's a visually tougher shot for people,'' said John Huneke, chairman of
the PGA Championship. "If you lose the shot to the right, your chances of going
in that creek are pretty good."
A
monster's final verdict
Of course, all anyone wants to know are the
chances of someone pulling off a John Daly
on-the-green-in-two repeat on No. 17 now that it's been
pumped up to 650 yards. Huneke says he is confident 17
will now play like legendary golf architect A.W. Tillinghast intended, as
"one of
the great three-shot par 5s in the world."
"Without that extra yardage, the cross bunkers
were really no longer in play for the professional golfer, unless he hit a really bad shot,'' Huneke said. "That's all we've really done."
Singh, the defending PGA Champion, is not
so sure the changes to 17 are such a simple tweak. Then
again, unlike Huneke, he's not ready to declare it
unreachable in two quite yet either. Six hundred and fifty yards or not.
"If the ground gets firm and it's downwind, you'd probably be able to do it,'' Singh said. "You can fly it 300 low, 350. You have a chance to get up there, but it's very unlikely."
Still not exactly the monster to end all monsters though.
Any opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the management. The information in this story was accurate at the time of publication. All contact information, directions and prices should be confirmed directly with the golf course or resort before making reservations and/or travel plans.
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