ATLANTA — Defending FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland, who walked away with an $18 million bonus after successful the Tour Championship final yr, is a fan of East Lake Golf Membership.
No less than the best way it used to play.
Hovland and the opposite 29 individuals right here for the Tour Championship, nevertheless, are enjoying a totally totally different East Lake course for the primary time within the FedEx Cup season finale that begins Thursday.
“I solely performed the entrance yesterday, and simply as quickly as I walked on the property, I used to be type of shocked,” Hovland stated Tuesday. “It seems nothing prefer it used to.”
Architect Andrew Inexperienced was tasked with restoring East Lake, and he discovered an aerial photograph from 1949 in a authorities database that served as his blueprint in returning the course to the best way Donald Ross rerouted it greater than a century in the past.
“Oh, there’s completely nervousness, for positive,” Inexperienced stated. “However I feel it simply comes with the territory. You do not know what you’ve till you tee it up. The golf course has matured amazingly since June 15, when the final piece of sod went down. However on the similar time, it’ll must mature to see the total impact.”
The previous East Lake course was identified for its thick tough off the fairways and across the greens and deep flat-bottomed bunkers. There wasn’t a lot selection within the shapes of the greens; they usually sloped from again to entrance.
Inexperienced’s modifications to East Lake are dramatic. The eighth gap is now a brief, drivable par-4. The 14th gap, previously an extended par 4, is now a par 5. Inexperienced eliminated numerous bushes — he would not specify precisely what number of — and expanded the course’s signature lake to carry water into play on No. 18.
The course now performs to par 71 — another than earlier than — and is about 7,455 yards, which is lower than 100 yards longer.
“Looks as if he is mainly modified each single gap on the market,” Hovland stated. “It was simply type of wild how a lot you’ll be able to really change the holes with not likely transferring holes round. It is all type of in the identical place, however but not one of the holes look precisely the identical.
The brand new greens, which promise to be additional agency this week, have distinctive slopes and shapes, and a few have dramatic run-offs. Just a few greens had been moved fully; the inexperienced on the par-3 ninth gap was moved down a hill to carry water into play. The again tees on Nos. 9 and 15 will not be used this week as a result of the greens are too agency, based on Inexperienced.
“As quickly as I noticed the inexperienced areas, that was like, ‘OK, wow,'” Hovland stated. “That is going to be a totally totally different golf course, as a result of now you’ve large undulating greens with huge runoffs. And as an alternative of getting tight Bermuda across the greens, you’ve actually, actually tight zoysia.
“It is simply going to play utterly totally different.”
Inexperienced restored the grass-faced bunkers that Ross made well-known, a few of that are positioned in touchdown areas, leaving gamers to determine whether or not to hit their tee photographs wanting the bunkers or attempt to go over them.
“I may in all probability attempt to describe an individual that is by no means been right here earlier than what it used to seem like, and it is nearly like you’ll be able to’t think about it,” Hovland stated. “It will be fascinating to type of get used to it, that is for positive.”
Inexperienced hopes the restoration, which was accomplished in lower than a yr, gives PGA Tour gamers with a correct check whereas sustaining East Lake’s historical past.
“For me, it is attempting to respect the integrity of a spot and be capable to come right here and expertise it in a one-of-a-kind format,” Inexperienced stated. “This golf course isn’t like another, and it should not be like another. That is what’s essential.”
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