PGA Championship - Hazeltine - a close look

August 11th, 2009 | Published in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Hole #3 - 633 yards

Welcome to Chaska, Minnasota, and Haseltine National Golf Club - site of the 2009 PGA Championship. If Monday was any indication, the local community is really supporting this tournament - big crowds early on Monday were already on site to watch Tiger Woods teeing it up at 6:45am. Tiger had several thousand followers and that is a rare crowd for an early Monday morning at any golf tournament.

Lets take a closer look at Hazeltine National:

Length: This course is looooooooooooong. Especially now after lots of recent rain, it is playing really long. Here is the tee-box sign from Hole#3 - a 633 yard par 5.

Other Par 5 yardages are: #7 - 572 yards; #11 - 606 yards; #15 - 642 yards. Front nine yardage: 3797 yards and back nine yardage: 3877 yards. Think about that: the back nine yardage is almost 3900 yards. To let you know about these yardages, the listed numbers are from the tee plaques to the green centers. In fact from the back of the tee, I measured the yardage to the back pin placement on hole #3 at slightly over 650 yards. With the total yardage for the course listed at 7674 yards, I wouldn’t be surprised if the course actually played at upwards of 7800 yards if they wanted to stretch it (for example if the fairways get firm and the course was playing fast in hot weather, when balls get really hot and fly extra-far).

The last time they played Hazeltine - in the PGA Championship in 2002 - it played to a listed length of 7355 yards. Previous Majors played at Hazeltine were: 1991 US Open at 7149 yards; 1983 US Sr. Open played at 6625 yards; 1977 US Women’s Open played at 6313 yards; 1970 US Open played at 7151 yards; And the 1966 US Women’s Open played at 6305 yards.

Fairway Widths: Most fairways are fairly roomy (for a major championship). As Eddie and I walked the course, I occasionally checked the width of the fairways and found that they were generally 25 yards wide at the narrow parts, and about 35 yards wide in the roomier areas. This will make a lot of players more comfortable as they try to bomb their tee shots on the long holes, as compared to the 20 to 25 yard widths of a typical US Open setup.

Comfortable fairway widths

Rough: When the players do miss the fairways, they will not find a graduated rough-height setup. Instead, there is a 2″ cut for the first 8 feet off the fairway, then a straight 3″ to 4″ rough - both greenside and for the primary rough down alongside all fairways. It is thick and heavy, but not wrist-injury long (I hope the PGA doesn’t let it grow all week after the rain). This rough length (at 4 inches) will be reasonably playable for the skilled players for greenside shots. From the fairway rough, unless the large trees are an obstacle, you will see players advancing the ball 150 to 200 yards - not hacking out of knee-deep hay. You’ll see lots of shots to the greens - but a lack of backspin will not allow the players to control where their shots will stop. This will make for lots of exciting results up around the greens.

No graduated rough

Greenside rough

Bunkers: There is a characteristic shallow “round-bottomed-saucer” shape to every bunker I saw on Hazeltine. There are very small, if any, level spots in the bottoms of the bunkers. Look at the greenside bunker on hole number 14. This is typical of all of them. Because of this U-shaped bottom - with gently and smooth sloping flashing up towards both the front and back bunker lips, you will see lots of slightly uphill, and slightly downhill bunker lies. Watch for this all tournament long. When a golfer has a slightly uphill bunker lie, chances are they will leave their ball short of the pin because of hitting the shot heavy into the uphill sand, and the increased effective loft of their club. Conversely, when a golfer has a slightly downhill bunker lie, chances are they will send their shots long because of hitting them thinly, and the lower effective loft of their wedges.

Bunker U-Shape

Also, keep an eye out for the very low (if any) bunker lips. In both fairway and greenside bunkers, I didn’t see a single bunker with any lip on it. In fact there are many of the greenside bunkers you could putt out of, if you wanted to. Even from the fairway sand bunkers (you will see many drives into these bunkers, because they define the driving areas of most holes) the lips won’t cause much of a problem to the players this week. Fairway bunkers may even be a better place than the rough on some holes, because they will still be able to advance the ball a long way from them.

Low bunker lips

Greens: Hazeltine greens remind me of Bethpage Black as they are composed of generally gentle slopes, and are fast but soft right now. There are no large mounds or extreme contours on the greens, but several have well defined tiers for pin placement, or constant slopes where it will be best to approach from below the flagstick. These greens have lots of Poa in them, and with hot and humid weather predicted, the afternoon tee times will probably face tougher putting conditions than early tee times.

I don’t know yet what the PGA’s target greenspeed for the tournament is, but they were rolling at about 12-feet on Monday morning, and it looks like they could get them as fast as they want without losing control of them. If they speed up the greens and they stay receptive, there are several gentle “false fronts” that may come into play for front pin positions.

Clubhouse: Lastly, several hole marshalls talked to me about the impending renovations at Haseltine scheduled after the tournament this year. Apparently they plan to close the course for about a year, rebuild all the greens, change some of the hole routings and build a new clubhouse for the Ryder Cup coming here in 2016. This is a picture of the current clubhouse and the big blue water tower.

Hazeltine Clubhouse

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Gene says:

September 3rd, 2009 at 5:34 pm (#)

With rough that high, Dave what will the change in the clubs next year. Will the change in grooves make for higher scores.

Dave Pelz: “Studying the game”