There was a bit of griping at the WGC-Cadillac Championship over the weekend. The Blue Monster is now two seasons removed from an entire overhaul by noted golf architect Gil Hanse and some players were calling it unfair.
When Donald Trump purchased The Doral resort he opened up his wallet and set Hanse loose on a total makeover. Now, with the course fully grown in and the PGA Tour paying its second visit to The Donald’s baby we got to see the course in full “championship” mode.
It gave us an exciting ending and certainly tested the world’s best but in some quarters the course and the setup took some hits.
First and foremost was The Donald himself. After J.B. Holmes had slain the monster on Thursday with an insanely low 62 Trump was aghast. How could anyone post a score like that on his “world class, championship” course. 62 is a score you get at The Travelers or the Humana…not at this course, especially after Trump coughed up $250 million for the redo.
Trump wants major championships played on his courses and in his mind the tougher the course the better. In his mind the closer the winner is to par the greater the chances of landing more majors. He immediately took to defending his course and said that the setup was too easy.
He should have realized that the average score for the field was over eleven shots greater than Holmes and came in at a “championship” 73.4.
But that’s Trump, he wants what he wants and in his mind painfully difficult courses means higher scores and that translates into major championships. Fortunately it does not work that way…most of the time.
Another voice heard complaining about Doral was the author of that 62, the lowest round of the tournament and probably the greatest round of the season, Holmes himself.
It seems that during the second round he hit what he called “two perfect shots” at the par five, 606 yard first hole. Holmes had crushed a 360 yard drive in the fairway and had 246 left to the pin. He pured an iron that landed in the front of the green rolled towards the pin but took the slope of the green and headed towards the water. The rough wasn’t thick to hold it and it trickled into the water. He finished with a double bogey six. Click here for a look at his shots.
Holmes complained afterwards: So it’s pretty bad that you can hit two perfect shots and the ball can go in the water because of just a ridiculous green design 
that’s really just terrible. The shape of the green is fine, but it’s not that wide anyways. And why you would put a giant hump in the middle of it to make a ball go in the water is it’s stupid. Golf course is hard enough. You don’t have to do that.
Well, there’s a difference between easy and hitting two perfect shots and the ball going in the water. That’s a joke. I hit one, I hit a 350 yard drive and hit a 6 iron straight up in the air, and it landed three feet off the left edge of the green and five feet on it and it goes in the water on the right side of the green. I mean, that’s not hard. That’s stupid. That’s unfair.
Golf course owners and architects have been battling the long ball for decades. Courses which once were “monsters” have been turned into pitch and putt courses due to such advances with equipment.
Players like Holmes hit 360 yard drives and then approach a par five with a mid-iron. How does one keep a hole or course relevant? Adding length to the course is the tried and true method but even that has failed nowadays. What is next, a 600 yard par fours and 800 yard par fives?
Hanse is at the forefront of the minimalistic school of golf course architecture. He values the subtleties and quirkiness of the classic courses where the lay of the land determined the layout not the bulldozer. A player needs to use his head as much as his clubs on these courses that scream for a strategic plan.
Adding length to courses is expensive, many times impossible and only adds additional frustration to the everyday golfer. Pushing courses over 7,000 yards is common place for that one week a year that the professionals show up. But for 51 weeks a year these tour courses entertain a different breed of golfer.
So Hanse went “old school” at the first hole, and many others at Doral. How can we make a par five a real par five, a three shotter, as they called them in Old Tom Morris’ day? When you are combating a player that hits a six iron 250 yards length isn’t a tool you can use.
So Hanse built some subtle undulations into the greens and the surrounds that would welcome some shots but repel others. The first green is just such a hole.
The right kind of shot will hold the green; the wrong kind will be unwelcomed.
Adam Scott, who grew up playing golf on classic courses in the Australian sandhills, recognized this right off. He knew that the first hole wasn’t a push over and required a bit of strategy.
The green is just incredibly difficult. It is not inviting to hit any kind of long iron in at all with this kind of firmness, and it almost would be foolish too because I can pretty much tell you the outcome of what’s going to happen if you pitch a long iron on the green.
You know, it pretty much forces you to lay up and test your pitching game. I think we often expect to hit a par 5 in two just because we can reach it. I’m not sure that’s necessarily the right thought but you know, Gil is certainly asking the question of you down the first if you want to have a go. Even with a wedge in there, it’s a pretty tough shot.
Point well taken, just because you can reach it doesn’t mean you should.
Strategy is a factor often over looked in today’s game of unimaginable length. Players bomb it 350 yards, find it and can usually wedge it into most greens. That’s today’s professional game.
Maybe Hanse was doing his part to try and teach today’s players that there’s more to this game then long drives and short wedges.
But if we look at the top three finishers at Doral, Dustin Johnson, Holmes and Bubba Watson, all among the longest drivers on tour, it appears that length ruled the day.
Looks like Hanse has more work to do.
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