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While it’s the par-3 16th at the Stadium Course at TPC Scottsdale that draws the biggest crowds during the PGA Tour’s Waste Management Phoenix Open each winter, it’s the hole right after it that I most enjoy watching. That’s because No. 17 is a drivable 4-par.
Measuring some 330 yards from the tips, it is easily reachable for today’s tour professional. And they invariably go for the green. Birdies often come in bunches there. But being such an easy hole for the best golfers in the world actually makes it among the hardest on that Jay Morrish-Tom Weiskopf designed course. Especially when the top of the leaderboard is tight on the last day of play. Contestants know that a par at 17 is more like a bogey – and that a birdie 3 is the expectation, not a 4. The hole frays nerves and tightens backswings as a result. It produces more drama than the Globe Theatre. It can make or break a round, or even a tournament.
That a drivable par-4 is found at Scottsdale comes as no surprise, for Weiskopf – the winner of 16 PGA Tour events, including the 1973 Open Championship – was a big fan of that design element. In fact, most of the 70-odd courses he has designed or helped design around the world boast one such hole. And he has said on many occasions that the 17th at TPC Scottsdale represents some of his best work.
The hole frays nerves and tightens backswings as a result. It produces more drama than the Globe Theatre. It can make or break a round, or even a tournament.
I feel the same way, and as I watched this year’s event in the desert I also started thinking of other drivable par-4s the tour professionals get to play.
Like the 10th at Riviera, where the guys will be teeing it up next week. The 12th on the Old Course at St. Andrews, too. First and foremost, they force golfers to make a choice, whether to go for the green or not. Then they compel them to decide on the best club to use in that quest and the proper line to take. No bomb and gouge there. The best of these holes present multiple ways to play them (like the 10th at Riviera) and their fair share of hazards (think of the hard-to-see pot bunkers in the fairway of the 12th on the Old). And they are designed to reward or punish the golfer, depending on his approach.
Drivable par-4s also provide very satisfying payoffs to those who play it smart by playing it safe. Which is what happened to Phil Mickelson on the 10th hole on the East Course at Merion during the last round of the 2013 U.S. Open. Rather than pull out driver on the tee, he laid up in the fairway – then holed out his second shot for eagle.
They really are great fun.
E-MAIL JOHN
John Steinbreder