ATLANTA – With $25 million going to this week’s winner on the Tour Championship and the sport’s finest gamers making an attempt to finish their seasons on a excessive notice, it was barely counterintuitive that the thrill on the vary Tuesday on the finale wasn’t about both the ready wealth or the circuit’s embarrassment of riches. As a substitute, Tuesday’s speak was about East Lake’s current restoration.
By many accounts, architect Andrew Inexperienced’s handiwork reworked East Lake from a largely one-dimensional check right into a extra nuanced structure that’s poised to problem the sport’s finest in new and impressed methods.
5 issues you might want to know concerning the new and improved East Lake:
- East Lake took over because the everlasting host of the Tour Championship in 2004 and has produced a variety of winners from Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to Brandt Snedeker and Invoice Haas. However in recent times, the course has been dominated by the trendy bomber — with Rory McIlroy successful two of the final six occasions and Xander Schauffele ending both first or second in 4 of the final seven finales — and has, like many venues, had a troublesome time combatting distance.
Whereas size will proceed to be essential in Atlanta, driving accuracy will turn into rather more vital, significantly with fairways and greens which are exceedingly agency.
“I wouldn’t say East Lake ever had a number of technique off the tee earlier than. It was at all times sort of tree-lined fairways, slender fairways, and also you had an occasional bunker right here and there. However often it’s simply you both hit driver or 3-wood, and it’s a must to hit it straight,” stated Viktor Hovland, final 12 months’s champion at East Lake. “However no less than right here when he’s (Inexperienced) taken away so many bushes, you actually have to emphasise the technique portion of it or else it simply turns into a bombing-fest the place everybody hits driver. I do assume Andrew has finished an important job with positioning sure bunkers.”
- Inexperienced used a 1949 aerial picture of East Lake as a information to returning the course to one thing nearer to what Donald Ross had in thoughts when he designed the unique structure in 1913.
Top-of-the-line examples of that authentic structure was the eighth gap, which was reimagined right into a drivable par 4 (at 390 yards on the cardboard) with the lake looming down the left facet of the outlet.
“If it’s drivable, I believe I undoubtedly plan on hitting driver. Was once a reasonably intimidating tee shot with that wind left to proper. It nonetheless is, however simply because it’s drivable it feels prefer it’s simpler doubtlessly,” Schauffele stated. “You may hit it in that proper bunker and try to rise up and down from there. But when the tee is again, it’s going to be a 4-iron or a hybrid for me sort of up that proper facet, and sort of play from there.”
- Inexperienced and Co. expanded the namesake lake in the course of the restoration bringing the hazard into play extra usually, significantly on the par-5 18th, which is nearly completely bisected by water. In the course of the restoration, Inexperienced additionally eliminated a stand of bushes that separated the 18th and 10th fairways and created a attainable alternate path to play the final gap.
A number of gamers have practiced hitting their tee photographs on No. 18 down the tenth fairway, which takes the water out of play and creates an honest method to the inexperienced. Gamers have additionally practiced taking part in their layups into the tenth fairway in the event that they discover the tough off the tee.
“It looks like a safer play to take all that out of play, hit it down 10. The inexperienced goes to be fairly terribly exhausting to carry in any case with it being a downslope and having an extended membership in there. It’s extra you’re taking part in for birdies. There’s much less alternative, I believe, for eagle than there was earlier than,” stated Scottie Scheffler, who will start the week with a two-shot lead beneath the starting-strokes format.
In accordance with a number of sources, officers thought-about creating an inner out-of-bounds boundary that separated the 18th and 10th holes to maintain gamers from taking the alternate route however felt it might be too penal.
- The consensus amongst gamers is that the restoration will end in a extra demanding check however which may not result in a better scoring common on account of a key setup change.
The 14th gap will play as a 580-yard par 5 for this week’s Tour Championship after beforehand taking part in as a par 4 (520 yards final 12 months) and one of many structure’s most traditionally demanding holes.
No. 14 ranked because the fourth-hardest gap throughout final 12 months’s Tour Championship (4.125 stroke common) and, in line with a number of gamers, will probably play solely barely larger as a par 5 this week.
- The number of East Lake’s par 3s has at all times been the structure’s DNA and Inexperienced didn’t change that id. In actual fact, lots of the adjustments enhanced the par 3s, significantly the ninth gap.
Though the inexperienced was moved nearer to the lake that separated the placing floor from the tee field, the outlet has been prolonged to 260 yards.
The agency greens will probably hold officers from taking part in No. 9 to its full size. The 15th gap, which is listed at 215 yards, may even probably be performed from a shorter tee due to the circumstances.
“I do assume we’ll be taught some stuff. The again tee on 9, the again tee on 15 won’t be used this week,” Inexperienced stated, “and we’ll see subsequent 12 months if it’s a great match. If not, that’s OK.”
