The par4 18th at Doral
Here’s an interesting tidbit I came across putting this article together earlier today: both Tour events last week were hosted by resorts owned and managed by The Donald. Yeah, it seems his money and influence has found its way into pro golf, on top of just about everything else.
Although some of his critics might not necessarily see that as a good thing, as it relates to his planned $200 million facelift of the Doral Resort and Spa (the host of the PGA Tour’s second World Golf Championship event each season) – this blogger thinks it’s a blessing. Not because of the planned renovation of the resort accommodations, mind you… although I’m sure it’ll be nothing short of spectacular 5-star luxury for the guests and business people who come there for both business and golfing pleasures, but primarily because the layout of the famed Big Blue Monster has made the televised event incredibly stale and boring to watch over the past decade or so.
As for some of the proposed changes to the layout, Trump is relying on renowned golf course designer and architect Gil Hanse to incorporate some of the needed modifications that both feel will make the layout more interesting and possibly a bit more challenging, but without taking away the original playing design from the original architect, Dick Wilson. As some of us know, Hanse was recently selected to be the primary architect of the new golf course that will be hosting the first-ever Olympic Golf event in the upcoming 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, so he obviously brings a tremendous amount of experience and architectural design knowledge to the table. His biggest challenge will be finding the subtle compromise between maintaining a playable resort design for paying resort guests while at the same time making some subtle changes to several of the holes to create more of a challenge for the Tour players who play one of the bigger events of the season there each spring. Striking that balance is obviously becoming increasingly difficult because of the enormous advancements of modern golf equipment technology, but Hanse believes it’s doable. “The combination of interesting winds with new hole locations and trying to get them into different angles, we’re hopeful it makes them more interesting,” Hanse said last year in THIS article in Miami’s Sun Sentinel. “That’s what we’re after, as opposed to hard or easy.”
According to Hanse in that article, the following changes are being considered:
– six greens will be shifted to new locations
– the layout of the par3 15th will be totally rebuilt and redesigned
– water hazards will be added to increase the challenge on both the 15th and 16th holes, with the addition of a semi-island green on the par3 15th and water also coming into play on the short par4 16th
– several other greens will be rebuilt and enlarged to accommodate more challenging hole locations
– tee boxes will be moved to require different angles to the fairways, and several greens will be shifted to be in closer proximity to the green-side bunkers and water hazards in play
– greens and fairways will be reseeded with more modern Bermuda hybrid grasses
One hole that will not change, however, is the difficult 467-yard par4 18th. Hanse feels that the closing hole is plenty challenging as is, without the need to create more excitement and drama than already exists. Although it remains to be seen what the changes will look like a year from now or how much more challenging the Tour players will find it, Hanse summed up his thoughts on the project that will consume him for the next 6 months. “Ultimately, the main way to challenge these guys is to be able to set the pins in locations that are difficult to access. You have to either shape your shot in there or you have to position yourself well off the tee,” he said. “If we can bring some of that element back to the course, which I think was critical in the original design, that will be a good accomplishment. It will be a much more interesting and, I think, more visually appealing style.”
It’s been a long time coming, in my opinion.
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