Green light or red light?
That’s been the question for golfers on the par-5 18th hole on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at the ANA Inspiration this week. The 18th hole, always a focal point on the course for the LPGA pros, has suddenly become almost the singular talking point for the tournament.
Locked in at 485 yards for all four days of the tournament and with a green as firm as a lane at your neighborhood bowling alley, the hole now poses a difficult question to the best women golfers in the world. Is going for the island green in two to set up a potential eagle worth the risk of skipping through the green, over the island and into the lake behind the island green?
It all dates back to the Big Blue Wall, the tournament’s attempt to recreate the grandstand backstop on the island last year when a grandstand wasn’t needed because no fans were allowed at the event because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Big Blue Wall stopped some balls from going into the water behind the green last September, and that caught a lot of people’s attention. So did the idea that from 531 yards, the hole is unreachable for all put a handful of players, but at 485 yards, more than half of the field might take a run at the island in two.
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So now the hole is 485 yards for each round, putting players’ minds and hearts to the test as much as their games.
The answer to the question go for it in two or lay up depends on the player, as some first-round quotes point out.
“I talked to my caddie, Mercer. We decided not to go for it because the greens are pretty hard,” said Shanshan Feng. “They’re pretty firm. So like even though I can get it there, the thing is it’s not going to stop. So I would just take it as a three-shot.”
“I had the perfect distance today but didn’t like my lie, and before I would’ve just blown it back past the back into the grandstand,” Michelle Wie West said. “But it makes you think. It makes you think, because that water comes up pretty quickly behind the green.”
“I just wanted to hit the green. I don’t care about anything else,” said first-round leader Patty Tavatanakit. “It’s a pretty wide green and (I hit) a 6-iron, so it’s always nice to have a higher ball flight into that green, and I was able to stop it just pin high.”
What started as a naked island on the 18th hole of the Shore Course when the ANA Inspiration was first played in 1972 is, well, now a naked little island. No grandstands, no Big Blue Wall, no structures of any kind on perhaps the most famous island in the desert.
This might be the future of the hole
But in the crazy pandemic world where we are all looking to get back to normal, an unadorned island green at the ANA Inspiration might well be the new normal. With no backstop, a firm putting surface and shaved slopes surrounding the green, the 18th has taken on a new life. Take, for example, the first nine golfers who played the hole Thursday morning.
On a rare desert day without the hint of a breeze, three players went for the green in two shots, six players laid up. Of the three who went for the green, all three held the green. One, Yuka Saso, had a great look for eagle but missed a 10-foot putt. Brooke Henderson missed the green long and left but stayed on the island in the short rough. Henderson eventually made par on the hole.
By Friday morning, with a stiff breeze in the players’ faces, Mother Nature had taken the decision out of the hands of the golfers, making the par-5 a true three-shot hole.
The idea of balls trickling down the slope behind the green and into the water– think about the front of the 15th hole at Augusta National in the Masters — is just the latest evolution of the most famous closing hole in women’s golf.
In the 1970s and even into the 1980s, no players really tried to reach the green in two. With everyone laying up and hitting wedges into the green, there was some debate that rather than moving the tees up to 485 yards, the tees should be moved back to about 570 yards. That would force players to hit 7-irons into the green rather than wedges.
But when the LPGA experimented with the short tees, players started making eagles, fans were excited and the idea of longer tees quietly went away. Now even the 531-yard tees seem obsolete.
One thing seems certain. The firm green, the water and the shorter tees have brought a new level of interest to the hole and the tournament. Whether there is a grandstand built behind the green next year or not, the concept of balls finding the water behind the green is here to stay. The tournament surely still wants a hospitality grandstand behind the green, but maybe the grandstand will be moved a few feet back into the water to open a gap into the water.
For more than 30 years, the question at the ANA Inspiration has been who will jump into the water next to the 18th green. Now maybe the question is changing slightly to who will hit a golf ball into the water.
Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer. He can be reached at (760) 778-4633 or larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @Larry_Bohannan. Support local journalism: Subscribe to the Desert Sun.