CHERRY HILLS VILLAGE, Colo. — As far as closing holes go, Cherry Hills Country Club may have one of the best in the world.
The tee shot is terrifying. To the left is Cherry Hills Lake. On the right, a steep hill with thick, luscious rough as well as some trees that lurk. In the middle, the pristine fairway with a steep bank on the right and a flatter portion on the left.
Then there’s the approach shot. The green is uphill from the fairway. A large bunker guides the front right portion with a smaller one on the left. Any shot left short will roll back some 50 yards to the fairway, leaving nearly an impossible chip.
The 487-yard par-4 closing hole at the 2023 U.S. Amateur is a brute, yet come match play, it’s going to provide excellent theater for fans and a strong test for 64 golfers aiming to become the next U.S. Amateur champion.
“It’s a great finisher,” said Piercen Hunt, who shot 6 under in stroke play and is the fifth seed for match play. “I’m sure any match that gets to that hole is going to be pretty exciting.”
In stroke play, it was the most difficult hole at Cherry Hills, with more triples or worse (17) than birdies (11). The average for the field in stroke play was 4.68.
The 18th is part of a strong finishing stretch at Cherry Hills, which hosted the 1990 and 2012 U.S. Amateurs. In 1990, Phil Mickelson hoisted the Havemeyer Trophy. In the latest rendition, history was made, as Steven Fox won as a 63rd seed, the only player to do that at a U.S. Amateur (In 2021, Jensen Castle won as a 63rd seed at the U.S. Women’s Amateur).
The 15th can play as the longest (245 yards) and shortest (115 yards) par 3 on the course. The 466 par-4 16th is home to the highest score in U.S. Open history (19 by Ray Ainsley in 1938) and has a tricky creek meandering the fairway. Then the 17th is iconic because it was the first par 5 in American golf featuring an island green. If that’s not tough enough, fairway bunkers are lurking for wary tee shots.
Meanwhile, the 18th hole is where Cherry Hills shows its teeth.
Take Caleb Surratt for example. He needed a par at the last to finish at 8 under and win medalist honors. He ended up making double.
“It doesn’t really matter how good you’re playing,” Surratt said. “You still have to step up and hit golf shots on that hole. It’s going to be hard to make a birdie on the 18th hole, but it’s pretty easy to make a bogey.”
Although not every match will reach the 18th hole, those that do are going to face a difficult test.
For players leading, it’s going to take a strong effort to stay on top and clinch the hole. For those trailing, two good shots give an opportunity to tie the match.
Any match that’s all square with one hole to play, the 18th hole will make for a memorable finish.
Taichi Kho was in one of the greenside bunkers on Royal Liverpool’s closing par 5 in two shots Thursday during the first round of the 2023 Open Championship.
It took him eight shots (with a penalty stroke in there) to get the ball in the cup. Nearly pin high in two shots, eight more before he was walking of the green.
The 18th at Royal Liverpool is proving to be one of the more difficult closing holes in recent major championship history, and it looks as if it could provide a huge swing down the stretch on Sunday.
Kho wasn’t spared, carding a 10.
The shot sequence on the 18th hole at Royal Liverpool for Taichi Kho during the first round, when he recorded a 10 on the hole. (Photo: The Open)
Then there was Justin Thomas, a two-time major champion, who had a 9 on the hole. No surprise that those two are bringing up the rear on the leaderboard.
The 18th can be a beast of a par 5, but it is ranked the 12th most difficult hole this week. Still there are opportunities for birdies with two good shots.
Jorge Campillo, in the second-to-last group, carded an 8. Phil Mickelson also added an ocho. Then there was Rickie Fowler, who stepped on the tee at 2 under and walked off the green 1 over with an 8. In the final group, Seungsu Han was 2 over for the day stepping on the 18th tee and made a triple-bogey.
How they fared
Seungsu Han, 76
Phil Mickelson, 77
Justin Thomas, 82
Jorge Campillo, 82
Taichi Kho, 83
But why is it so tough?
First, there’s internal out of bounds lining the entire right side of the fairway, from near the tee box and all the way to the green. The out of bounds only a few feet from the fairway, meaning anything right could be in trouble.
🏖️ ➡️ 🏖️ Bunker to Bunker for Justin Thomas. He would go on to make a 9 on the par-5 18th. Shoots a round of 82 (+11). #TheOpenpic.twitter.com/rVN82yaLzm
At the green, there are five greenside bunkers, three on the left and two right. Those on the left proved disastrous Thursday, perhaps a preview of what’s to come down the stretch.
The first-round scoring average was 5.12. While 28 percent of players made birdie or better, 22 percent made bogey or worse. The percentage of time someone in the sand got it up-and-down? 25 percent.
Kho and Thomas were major victims to the difficult 18th on Thursday. Meanwhile, co-leaders Christo Lamprecht and Emiliano Grillo made birdie on the hole. The fellow leader, Tommy Fleetwood, carded a par. Rory McIlroy closed with a tremendous par after needing two shots to escape a greenside bunker.
Good shots are rewarded, but any golfer who is off just a bit could have a sour taste in their mouth the rest of the day.
“If you were to stand on the 18th tee and your only job was to hit it in the fairway, that’s still not an easy thing to do.”
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Every year when the Players Championship arrives, the signature hole, the par-3 17th known as the island green, gets star treatment heading into the PGA Tour’s flagship event that lures nearly all of the game’s headliners.
In promos over the years, the hole’s chilling history of calamity is highlighted with one replay after another of players dunking their fortunes in the water. Yes, classic triumphs including Tiger Woods’ better-than-most putt have been in the spots, but mostly, the misery of the balls that didn’t find land and the terrifying nature of the short hole are featured.
“You see more water than grass,” Tony Finau says in the latest ad promoting the 2022 Players. “It messes with your head.”
That’s Pete Dye’s MO. With his collection of razor-sharp edges, severe angles, troublesome undulations on the greens and an assortment of bunkers and hazards, the respected architect demanded the players’ attention on every shot.
And so it is on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, most notably on the 17th. But the 137-yard hole isn’t the only hole that offers up a tee shot that gets the heart racing, the hands tingling and the head racing. In fact, despite the perpetual klieg-light spotlight shone on the terror of the 17th, another tee shot is just as, if not more, horrifying.
“I would argue 18 is scarier than 17,” said 2019 Players champion Rory McIlroy.
The 18th hole of the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course.
He can make a good argument about the 462-yard, par-4 finisher that is framed by a lake on the entire left side of the hole and a cluster of menacing rough, trees, bunkers, and moguls and bumps and humps down the right side. And the farther you go with your tee shot, the more narrow the fairway gets.
Since 2003, when ShotLink started documenting every shot on the PGA Tour, 815 balls have met an H2O grave on the 18th, the majority from off the tee. The 17th is the only hole that has seen more balls (868) disappear into the aqua.
But the hardest hole on the course is the 18th, which ranks No. 1 in difficulty at a field average of 4.336 strokes per since 2003 while the 17th ranks No. 9 at 3.113.
“You have got to commit,” McIlroy said. “It’s not a bail-out to the right. But I think, if you do hit it down that right side and avoid the water, you can still get it up around the green and try to make a 4, but it’s an intimidating tee shot.
“It’s what Pete Dye does with his golf courses. He makes it very visually intimidating. I’ve always played that hole aggressively because I’d rather have to hit one very difficult shot to make the hole play easier than have to hit two difficult shots. Like guys hit a 2-iron off that tee and they’re still left with a 5-iron into that green. I’d rather hit driver and a wedge, but it just means you have to hit a really good drive.”
And do so right after dealing with the 17th.
“You feel like once you get done with 17 there’s a little bit of relief, and then you get to 18 and it’s just as hard of a tee shot,” Daniel Berger said. “I cut the ball and it’s a dogleg left. You’re re-teeing if you don’t hit the cut that you want to hit.
“I start it over the water. I’ve played it differently in year’s past. I used to hit 3-wood off the tee, then I went to hitting driver, then I hit 3-iron. It really depends on the wind. I remember one year it was so firm and fast, I hit 3-iron, 9-iron into the green. If you hit it into the water, that’s at least a bogey. But if you miss it to the right it’s almost an automatic bogey, as well. You really have to step up there and hit a good tee shot if you’re looking to win the golf tournament coming down the 18th hole. It’s an amazing finishing hole, it really is.”
Rickie Fowler birdied the 17th three times in the final round – twice in a playoff – to win the 2015 Players Championship. When asked what the second scariest tee shot on the course was, he said the 17th because 18 is the most frightening.
“Well, OK, it’s a toss-up,” Fowler said. “The 18th is a harder tee shot. The 17th may be more scary because it’s fairly easy. I mean, as far as when you look at it, the hole is not very far, and you start trying to get a little cute towards the pin and there’s water very close. If you sat there with no pin on the green and your only job was to hit a ball on the green, Tour players are going to do that pretty much every time unless there’s serious conditions.
“If you were to stand on the 18th tee and your only job was to hit it in the fairway, that’s still not an easy thing to do. It’s obviously a great design around this golf course, and to have kind of the two shots that can make or break your round be right there at the end, it’s just a great place.”
Stewart Cink said any hole on the Stadium Course can be scary. But 18 gets the hair on your arms and the back of your neck to stand up a bit more often.
“The length of the hole makes it where you really can’t drop back to a short club just to make sure you get the ball in play unless you’re straight downwind,” Cink said. “So if there’s anything other than straight downwind you pretty much gonna have to suck it up and hit a nice shot there or you’re gonna pay a pretty severe price because right is really no good and left obviously is no good. It’s not the narrowest fairway but if you miss a fairway there, you pay a heavy price.”
Viktor Hovland said the tee shot on 18 is “way harder.”
“It’s just so narrow, and obviously you know how penal the left side is,” said Hovland, adding that you only need a 9-iron at most for the tee shot on 17. “If you pull it, one thing is kind of hitting a decent shot and it rolls in the water, at least you kind of get to drop up there. If you pull it straight off the tee, it’s a re-hit. And obviously the right side is no good either.
“You just kind of have to step up and hit a good shot. The 17th, you have a wedge in, and you can always just aim at the middle of the green. So I’ll take a ball on the fairway on 18 every day.”
Justin Thomas walks on the 18th hole the final round of The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass – Stadium Course. (Photo: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports)
Justin Thomas found the fairway on the 72nd hole to cement his victory in last year’s Players, but it didn’t come without a few anxious moments.
After making a clutch 8-footer for par on the 17th, Thomas took a 1-shot lead to the 18th tee. He selected a 5-wood and unleashed a high-octane swing. And then his heart nearly stopped as his right-to-left shot headed for water.
“I can’t lie. I thought it was 50/50 if it was going to be dry or in the water. The only thing I knew is that I just absolutely smoked it,” Thomas said. “Obviously the farther up you get the better chance you have, and I knew that if you’re able to kind of get that little like downslope that I did or that I kind of hit on, it can kind of get rolling.”
Instead of screaming into the lake, the ball took a favorable bounce straight off the crown of the first cut and bounded down the fairway.
“That’s the kind of stuff that happens when you win tournaments. You get lucky breaks like that,” he said. “But yeah, it was too close for comfort, to say the least.”
Thomas provided proof a few weeks later when he revealed the findings of Whoop, the fitness strap he was wearing that monitors, among other things, heart rate and stress. As Thomas said, his heart rate alarmingly surged immediately after the tee shot. Thomas exhaled when the ball stayed dry and dropped his head onto the shoulder of his caddie in a display of relief.
He gathered himself and went on to make a par, signed for a 68 a day after shooting 64, and won by one.
Since then, Woods, a two-time Players champion and good friend, has given Thomas some grief about the tee shot.
“He told me that I toed my tee shot on 18, which I didn’t,” Thomas said. “I hit it right in the middle (of the face). I just overturned it a little bit, but he’s adamant that I toed it. I made sure to remind him that I didn’t.
The grandstand on No. 18 of Kiawah’s Ocean Course offers prime viewing for fans and a big target for players.
KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – It’s an inviting target.
Heck, you can’t miss it when you’re standing on the 18th tee.
And many players didn’t miss it in the first round, a few more in the second round.
The target in question? The two-story hospitality row that runs some 300 yards down the left side of the fairway on the punishing par-4, 505-yard 18th on The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island.
With the grandstand just 12 yards from the left edge of the first cut on the left-to-right finishing hole, it not only provides optimum views of the ocean and the 18th hole but is being eyed by the players looking to avoid the danger that runs the entire right side of the hole.
To many, it makes sense to err on the side of caution because the grandstand has been deemed a temporary immovable obstruction, which allows players a free drop. Better still, a long portion between the grandstand and the rough left of the fairway on the 18th is flat and features matted-down grass that tees up welcomed lies. Further, the angle to the green is just fine.
So, seriously, who wants to mess with the right side of the fairway that is home to all kinds of nasty vegetation, uneven lies and sand areas?
“It’s definitely comforting that it’s there,” said Keegan Bradley, who shot 69 in the first round to get on the first page of the leaderboard. “The right side of the hole, the bunkers are so dead over there.
“I wasn’t trying to hit it in there by any means, but definitely from that up tee, it’s in play. I feel bad for all those people up there. They’d better have their hard hats on today. They’re going to be firing them in there all day.”
Bradley did hit the grandstand and after taking his drop, just missed the green but two-putted for par. Sebastian Munoz’s tee shot in the first round ended up in a garbage bag smack up against the grandstand. No worries. He took his drop and made par. Brooks Koepka took a drop in the area in the first round and made par, too. Scores of players, including Rory McIlroy, missed the fairway to the left in the first round.
So the very large obstruction is comforting. Is it controversial? Some in golf circles think so and took to social media to express some outrage.
But the grandstand may not prove pivotal at all on the weekend. It will depend on how the PGA of America sets up the course.
Players were peppering the grandstand in the first round when the tee was moved up 31 yards and the hole played at 474 yards. The second round, the hole played from 486 yards, which is one reason far fewer players are reaching it on Friday.
And if the hole does play from 505 yards, into the wind?
“I don’t think from the back tee it’s in play at all,” Bradley said.
