The Honda Classic kicks off the Florida Swing with water, water everywhere at PGA National.
PGA National’s Champion Course in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida – site of this week’s Honda Classic on the PGA Tour – originally was designed by the team of Tom Fazio and George Fazio and was renovated by Jack Nicklaus in 2014.
The Champion opened in 1981 and was home to the 1983 Ryder Cup, in which the U.S. beat Europe 14.5-13.5. It also hosted the 1987 PGA Championship, in which Larry Nelson beat Lanny Wadkins in a playoff. This week’s Honda Classic is the first stop on the Tour’s annual Florida Swing.
Nicklaus’ redesign includes a three-hole stretch dubbed the Bear Trap on Nos. 15, 16 and 17. Two watery par 3s with the wet stuff short and right, plus a par 4 over and around more water, typically demand bravado and supreme ballstriking as the tournament is decided.
PGA National Resort is home to 99 holes of golf in all and has recently undergone a $100 million renovation that includes the new Match Course by Andy Staples, which features holes that can be played from a multitude of lengths with no set par, and the new nine-hole, par-3 Staple Course.
The Champion Course will play to 7,125 yards with a par of 70 for the Honda Classic.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.
The club plans to build a replica of the iconic clubhouse that burned.
Oakland Hills Country Club president Rick Palmer was at home just minutes from the iconic clubhouse near Detroit on Thursday when he learned the 100-year-old structure was on fire.
“I got the call from (general manager) Christine Pooler about right when it happened,” said Palmer, who retired last year after owning a trucking company and who has been a member of the club in Bloomfield Hills for 26 years. “She at that point says, ‘We’ve got a real issue here and it could be severe.’
“From a personal note, I walked out the door and my wife said, ‘What’s the issue?’ And I said, ‘Well, I think Oakland Hills is on fire.’ And she said, ‘What do you mean?’ because we always have issues. And I said, ‘No, literally.’ ”
The fire grabbed national attention, torching one of the most historic private clubhouses in the United States. The club has been host to numerous championships since its inception in 1916, including six U.S. Opens, two U.S. Senior Opens, a U.S. Women’s Amateur, two U.S. Men’s Amateurs and three PGA Championships.
The clubhouse at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, burns on Thursday, February 17, 2022. (Eric Seals/USA TODAY NETWORK)
The cause of the fire in which nobody was injured has yet to be determined, and the Detroit Free Press reported that an exact cause of the conflagration may never be determined. The club had a fire-suppression system, but the flames could have spread inside wooden walls and under floors. The point of ignition may have been destroyed, leaving few clues as investigators pick through charred remains.
Palmer said Monday the club is working with its insurance providers to determine what might be salvageable and what next steps the club will take in rebuilding. It’s too soon to have answers, he said, although the club has initiated conversations with several architectural firms. It likely will take years to rebuild the structure.
One thing is certain after hearing Palmer speak: The golf and many other activities will carry on, even in the short term as the spring season begins. The fire didn’t damage the club’s two courses, the South and the North.
“Keep in mind, besides other than the clubhouse fire, our tennis building, our golf operations building and out maintenance facility were all untouched,” Palmer said. “… Our membership is fully behind us. We will be as strong as ever.
“I can report that at our board meeting this past Saturday morning that the board easily made a unanimous decision and determined that the restored, rebuilt clubhouse will be a replica of what the iconic clubhouse was before the fire. Our membership and the national golf community really made that an easy decision for us to make, because of the outpouring of how special it is – even our (recent) golf course architect, Gil Hanse, who wants our clubhouse to match his beautiful restoration work.”
The recently restored South Course at Oakland Hills Country Club (Courtesy of Oakland Hills)
Hanse and his design partner Jim Wagner in 2021 completed a restoration of the club’s South Course, originally designed by Donald Ross and opened in 1918, and that track is slated to host the U.S. Women’s Open in 2031 and 2042. The South Course ties for No. 23 on Golfweek’s Best ranking of classic courses built before 1960 in the U.S. The club’s North Course ties for No. 196 on that list.
The U.S. Golf Association has voiced its support to Palmer that there should be no issue with the planned Women’s Opens, and the club is still in talks in with the USGA about hosting other possible championships.
“Our partners at the USGA have been incredibly supportive in their calls,” Palmer said.
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That extends all the way to how the club might operate in coming months and years as the clubhouse is rebuilt, everything from what functions might be possible to where will members grab lunch after a round of golf. The USGA has offered its expertise in building temporary structures to help Oakland Hills while the clubhouse is rebuilt, and a local company has provided space for displaced club employees to continue working.
“We want to move quickly, but we want to move slow in order to move fast because we’re really making not just a 2022 decision, but a 2023 and potentially 2024 decision, depending on the process,” Palmer said.
Firefighters from multiple departments remain on the scene the day after the fire, cleaning up equipment and putting out hot spots at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township. (Kelly Jordan/Detroit Free Press)
He said it was a terribly emotional experience watching the clubhouse burn, but he expressed his gratitude that none of the approximately 25 employees who were present were harmed. He said in peak season the clubhouse sometimes has as many as 300 employees present. He also expressed gratitude that the club only “lost things” and not people.
The extent to which things were lost is still being determined. The club is operating as if the building is a total loss, Palmer said, while official word from the insurance company is pending.
The clubhouse also was packed with memorabilia from decades of championships, some of which was salvaged even as the building burned.
Walter Hagen was the first club professional at Oakland Hills and this portrait of him is likely to be among the irreplaceable artefacts lost in this appalling fire – pic.twitter.com/nAZdduUY8o
“We had the fire crews come in and announce to us that they had a window, and asked where was the memorabilia, where was it at?” Palmer said. “And they kept going in and out of the facility and actually passing that (memorabilia) out to our employees, who formed kind of a breadline and loaded that into a van. There are a lot … of our valuable items that got recovered, and we’re just assessing whether they are fully OK.”
It will take time to catalogue what items were lost and what was rescued and its condition, Palmer said. The club is working with its insurance company to assess all those concerns.
“Watching the great work by the firefighters who, between the weather and the wind and where it was going,” Palmer said, “they were fighting an heroic uphill battle right from the start.”
Firefighters are battling the blaze at the historic golf club, home to numerous major championships.
The clubhouse at Oakland Hill Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, a suburb of Detroit — and site of numerous major championships — caught fire Thursday morning.
At about 10 a.m., flames licked the clubhouse roof as black smoke billowed.
Several departments responded after the fire broke out in the clubhouse attic. The clubhouse, which was completed in 1922, was adorned with irreplaceable golf tournament memorabilia and art going back a century.
Much of it likely will be lost in the fire or badly damaged. Early reports indicate the fire will destroy the central part of the building.
Oakland Hills Country Club was founded in 1916 by Joseph Mack and Norval Hawkins, two Ford executives, at a meeting of 47 friends and associates at the Detroit Athletic Club.
They decided there would be 140 charter memberships at a cost of $250 apiece.
Walter Hagen, an 11-time major winner, was the club’s first head professional.
Sometime between late October, 1916 and late January, 1917 Donald Ross first visits the Oakland Hills property. He tells Joe Mack, “The Lord intended this for a golf course.” In his commentaries on golf architecture, Golf Has Never Failed Me, Ross comments: “I rarely find a piece of property so well-suited for a golf course.” He designs the South Course around the 10th and 11th holes – holes he will later call the finest consecutive par 4s he has ever designed.
Since then, the club has hosted to 14 golf majors or USGA championships, including six U.S. Opens, two U.S. Senior Opens, a U.S. Women’s Amateur, two U.S. Men’s Amateurs and three PGA Championships — including the 90th PGA Championship in 2008. The club has also hosted the 1922 Western Open, the 1964 Carling World Open, and the 35th Ryder Cup, in 2004.
Oakland Hills is home to two highly rated golf courses. The South Course, designed by Donald Ross and opened in 1918, ties for No. 23 on Golfweek’s Best ranking of classic courses built before 1960 in the U.S. The club’s North Course ties for No. 196 on that list.
The clubhouse was designed by C. Howard Crane and opened in 1922. It has undergone several renovations.
No. 10 at Riviera steals much of the architectural spotlight each year during the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational, offering players a glimpse of a drivable par-4 green that most of them fail to reach from the tee.
But it is in no way the only bit of interesting design at Riviera, the California classic gem that has hosted three major championships and became synonymous with Ben Hogan decades ago, earning the moniker “Hogan’s Alley.” Riviera ranks No. 4 in California onGolfweek’s Best list of private courses, and it is No. 18 on Golfweek’s Best list of all classic courses built in the U.S. before 1960.
Another favored hole is No. 6, a 199-yard par 3 with a bunker sunk in the putting surface. Not to the side, not front or back, but almost in the middle of the putting surface.
Riviera isn’t the only course to present such a feature, but it is rare. And while it’s possible to putt around it if your tee shot lands on the putting surface but on the opposite side of the sand from the flag stick, there are plenty of pros who have not been amused over the years.
The StrackaLine yardage book for Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, site of the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational, shows the bunker embedded in the green of No. 6. (Courtesy of StrackaLine)
Billy Casper, for example, was a supreme strategist with one of the best short games on the PGA Tour in the 1950s and ’60s. A shorter hitter than other stars of that era such as Jack Nicklaus, Casper pitched and putted his way to 57 Tour wins and three major titles.
But even Casper was flummoxed by the bunker in the middle of the green on the sixth hole at Riviera Country Club. One year in the Los Angeles Open – now the Genesis Invitational – Casper was on that green after his tee shot but on the wrong side of the pit, with no great options to putt around the trap.
Irritated, the normally reserved Casper is said to have taken three practice swings, each removing a chunk of grass from the green. He then cleanly pitched his ball from off the surface of the green to within a few inches of the hole to save par. He had made his point with the practice swings.
The StrackaLine yardage book for Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, site of the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational (Courtesy of StrackaLine)
Most of the time, players who end up on the wrong side of the bunker can use the serious slopes to guide the ball relatively close to the hole, or at least to the proper side of the bunker. At least that’s the plan, but it’s no easy task. Three-putts are plentiful, and there have been dozens of four-putts on that green since 2003. In 2011, Brian Davis four-putted the hole in consecutive rounds.
A view from behind No. 6 at Riviera for the Genesis Invitational, with its infamous bunker toward the left of the frame (Todd Kelly/Golfweek)
The key is to hit the approach to the proper side, but even Tour pros miss sometimes. And among those who do, there are still some players willing to swipe a wedge off the putting surface to loft the ball over the sand, regardless of the divot such a play might leave on the green. And yes, it’s completely within the rules. Players can use any of their 14 clubs at any time, and no rule says a player must use a putter on a green.
It’s all part of Riviera’s charm, so long as you aren’t the player who managed to hit the green in regulation and still find yourself short-sided.
Nos. 11 and 15 at Augusta National are lengthened in preparation for the 2022 Masters.
Amen Corner is longer.
The 11th hole, which inaugurates the iconic three-hole stretch at Augusta National Golf Club named by Herbert Warren Wind in 1958, has been lengthened by 15 yards. With the released of the annual media guide this week, the club announced the alteration to the 11th – nicknamed White Dogwood – as one of two “significant changes” to the course ahead of the 86th Masters on April 7-10.
The downhill, par-4 11th – which features a pond to the left and a deep bunker to the right guarding the green – will now play 520 yards. Historically, the hole is the second toughest on the course, trailing ever so slightly the 495-yard, par-4 10th.
“Masters tees moved back 15 yards and to the golfer’s left. Fairway recontoured and several trees removed on right side,” the media guide revealed about the 11th.
Tiger Woods walks to the 15th green during the first round of the 2018 Masters at Augusta National Golf Club. (Rob Schumacher/USA TODAY Sports)
The other significant change to the course comes at the par-5 15th, which has been lengthened to 550 yards. Named Firethorn, the hole that features a shallow green protected by a pond in the front has played as the second-easiest hole during the Masters, trailing only the 510-yard, par-5 13th.
“Tees moved back 20 yards and fairway recontoured,” the media guide says.
The significant changes are the first since 2019, when the par-4 fifth was lengthened 40 yards.
Without calling it a significant change, the media guide also said of the par-4 18th named Holly: “Thirteen yards added to the back of the Masters tees without necessitating a change in length to the hole.”
No official changes were announced to the par-5 13th or to the heart of Amen Corner, the 155-yard, par-3 12th named Golden Bell.
For the 2022 Masters, the course will play to 7,510 yards with a par of 72.
Short 10th at Riviera is long on challenge in the Genesis Invitational.
The par-4 10th at Riviera Country Club is easily within range of all the players on the PGA Tour, with the green downhill and the hole checking in at just 315 yards on the scorecard. Each year during the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational, No. 10 appears to be the epitome of a short, drivable hole – ripe for the taking.
Except it isn’t.
The PGA Tour reports that during the 2021 Genesis, there were 373 total tee shots on No. 10, with 297 of those taking aim at the green or its surrounds. Of those, only five came to rest on the putting surface. That’s a 1.7-percent success rate, and Tour pros never really take on tee shots that offer those kinds of odds. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be on Tour long.
And that’s the genius of the 10th, designed by George C. Thomas and William P. Bell on the track that opened in 1927 in Pacific Palisades on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The whole place is genius, come to think of it: Riviera ranks No. 4 in California on Golfweek’s Best list of private courses, and it is No. 18 on Golfweek’s Best list of all classic courses built in the U.S. before 1960.
The StrackaLine yardage book for Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, site of the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational (Courtesy of StrackaLine)
Even the pros sometimes struggle to decide how best to hit that tee shot and commit fully to it. It’s a quandary incited by the heavily sloping green, the cross bunkers, even a handful of palm trees. It’s a green that’s easy to miss from 100 yards, from 20 yards, from the front bunker, from the back bunker – it’s as much a Ping Pong table as a putting surface, and it’s not uncommon to see players go back and forth over the green on successive shots. Nowhere is precision more greatly demanded than on the likely pitch into No. 10, especially when the flag is in the back-right portion of the green. Trajectory, spin and distance control are all musts.
An array of cross-bunkers complicate matters off the tee for anyone attempting to play conservatively, but Tour pros can basically ignore those hazards should they choose to smack driver or even 3-wood off the tee. Two other bunkers flank the landing area some 40-50 yards short of the green, and another bunker waits just short of the green on the direct path to the hole.
The putting surface runs diagonally from front-left to back-right between three greenside bunkers, and the surface itself is tilted dramatically to the back and left. The best angle of approach is from left of the green, allowing the player the most surface with which to work while threading the bunkers. Many players hedge to the left off the tee in attempt to set up that angle, but that means the tee ball must avoid the left fairway bunker, several palm trees and an assortment of shrubbery.
The StrackaLine yardage book for Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, site of the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational (Courtesy of StrackaLine)
Even if a pro navigates all that safely with a solid tee shot that finds safety left of the green, it’s not uncommon to see players miss the green or hit shots woefully short of the flag, especially when it’s in the back-right. The sloping green challenges every kind of pitch or chip, constantly steering balls back and to the left.
Actually reaching the front-left portion of the green off the tee doesn’t necessarily set up a short eagle putt or a breezy two-putt birdie. The Tour reported that of those five tee balls that found the putting surface in 2021, only one of them ended up within 60 feet of the hole – Harold Varner III struck his tee ball to 18 feet 4 inches from the cup in the fourth round and made birdie. The other four players still had plenty of work left.
The 10th hole at Riviera Country Club, site of the Genesis Invitational. (Photo: Todd Kelly/Golfweek)
Worth noting: Only one player made eagle on No. 10 in 2021, and it came in a most unlikely fashion. In the first round, Sergio Garcia hit his tee shot into one of the worst spots, the right fairway bunker. From there, he blasted his ball from the sand 44 yards into the cup. Nobody would ever suggest deliberately taking such a route.
It all seems so simple, but clearly it’s not. The 10th played to a 3.88 scoring average in 2021, and in 2018 it played to a scoring average over par at 4.06, according to ShotLink data provided by the Tour. It ranks as the second-toughest par 4 of less than 350 yards on Tour since 2013 with a 3.92 scoring average in that span, trailing only No. 2 at Spyglass Hill (4.01).
Despite its challenges, the pros have figured out it’s better to take your chances with a blast toward the green or just left of it. Since the ShotLink era began in 2003, there have been 8,002 tee shots on No. 10 in the Genesis. Almost 59 percent of players have gone for the green off the tee in that span, and they are a combined 846 under par. The 41 percent of players who laid up are a combined 131 over par in that span.
Jordan Spieth hits from a greenside bunker on the 10th hole during the final round of the 2019 Genesis at Riviera Country Club. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
Some more breakdowns from the Tour: Of the players who hit the green off the tee since 2003, 72 percent of them made birdie or better – that means more than a quarter of them three-putted or worse.
Of those in the left portion of the fairway off the tee, 33 percent made birdie. From the left rough, that birdie-or-better percentage drops to 24 percent. From the right side of the fairway, 27 percent of players made birdie or better, and from the right rough only 14 percent made birdie or eagle. Remember, these are Tour pros with wedges in their hands.
Also in that span, 62 percent of players managed to hit the green from the left rough – and that’s just a pitch shot. The odds are better from the left fairway, but still only 75 percent of the shots struck from Tour pros find the green on that pitch or chip. From the right side of the fairway, just 61 percent of players hit the green, and only 31 percent of balls found the green from the right rough.
In an age when so much emphasis is placed on swing speed and distance, it’s a blast to watch the Tour pros struggle with such a tricky hole. The green is almost over the top – and some pros certainly would make that assertion. But it’s fun, for one week, to see the pros struggle with such a short but dramatic challenge.
StrackaLine’s heat maps for Riviera’s greens are intense.
Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California – site of this week’s Genesis Invitational on the PGA Tour – was designed by George C. Thomas and William P. Bell and opened in 1927.
This week will be the 59th time the club has hosted what has become the Genesis Invitational, and it also has hosted three major championships. Ben Hogan won the 1948 U.S. Open at Riviera, with Hal Sutton (1983) and Steve Elkington (1995) having won PGA Championships there. It is slated as the host site for the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open and the 2028 Olympics golf competition.
It will play at 7,322 yards with a par of 71 for the Genesis.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.
How long is No. 16 at TPC Scottsdale’s Stadium Course, and for that matter, every other hole at the Wm Phoenix Open?
TPC Scottsdale’s Stadium Course in Arizona, home to the PGA Tour’s WM Phoenix Open this week, was designed by the team of Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish. It opened in 1986 and was renovated in 2014, and the desert layout has been the site of the Tour event since 1987.
Most famous for its par-3 16th hole, site of a massive party and ringed by coliseum-like grandstands during the Tour event, the Stadium Course ranks No. 5 in Arizona on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access layouts. It will play at 7,261 yards with a par of 71.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.
The course is a national treasure, but it perhaps could stand to use some tweaking, at least according to one leading architect.
Pebble Beach Golf Links provides magnificent backdrops for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am each year, the famous course taking center stage on the final day of the event.
Jay Blasi is a golf architect who has worked on courses such as Chambers Bay, The Patriot and Santa Ana Country Club. He also serves as a Golfweek’s Best rater ambassador and contributes frequently to Golfweek.
In 2019, Blasi tweeted that he felt the experience at Pebble could be even better. We caught up with Blasi at a Golfweek Raters event in Las Vegas this week, to ask his thoughts.
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“If you take a hard look at it, there would be an opportunity to create a figure 8 out at the end of the property away from the clubhouse,” Blasi said.
Blasi’s point is valid — although the dynamic stretch of holes through the last five holes of the front and first after the turn offers breathtaking ocean views, the cliff consistently plays along the right side, making it more dangerous with those who play a fade.
But a re-routing could bring a figure 8 into play that offers more variety and a better all-around experience.
Proposed New 9th Hole. 622 yds – Par 5. Playing backwards through the corridors of current 13 and 12. This hole would fit the land with a pinchpoint over a ravine and through some trees on the 2nd shot. This also adds a par 5 playing East adding more variety in Par 5 orientation pic.twitter.com/7wRQ4Vpycl
According to Blasi, the changes would bring a little added distance while creating a wider variety of shots needed.
Proposed New 13th Hole. 270 / 200 yds – Par 3. Playing from near current 14 tees out to the headland between 6 and 8. This could be an infinity greensite with Stillwater Cove / 17&18 in the background. Much better par 3 than current 12. Gives Pebble a long par 3 if they want it pic.twitter.com/NaDN7LCQNy
To end his tweet stream in 2019, Blasi summed up his thoughts.
“All told, the refinements would add 66 yds to championship length. Add variety to par 5 orientation. Add variety to par 3 distances. Add a cliffside green. Add variety to coastline. Use compression and release to build drama. Fit the natural terrain. YOUR THOUGHTS????”
The acclaimed coastal layout was designed by amateur architects. Take a look at all the challenges they created, courtesy of StrackaLine.
The famed Pebble Beach Golf Links, one of three courses used in this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on the PGA Tour, was designed by amateur architects Douglas Grant and Jack Neville. The layout on cliffs above the Pacific Ocean opened in 1919.
The first three rounds of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am – Thursday through Saturday – also will be played on nearby Spyglass Hill and Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course. Sunday’s final round after the cut will be played only on Pebble Beach Golf Links.
Pebble Beach has been home to six U.S. Opens and slated to host the event again in 2027. It also hosted the 1977 PGA Championship and has been home to the pro-am since 1947.
This week Pebble Beach Golf Links will play to 6,972 yards with a par of 72.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.
