Saturday, March 24, 2001
Island hole drives golfers
crazy, fans wild
By PETE IACOBELLI
AP Sports Writer
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — It's
a menace or a masterpiece, depending if you watch The Players
Championship's famous island hole from the teebox or the gallery.
“Nobody's heart stops beating fast,”
defending champion Hal Sutton said. “You get to 17, you don't
know what you're going to finish until you get through 17.”
That's IF you get through No. 17 —
133 yards of terror that for the past 20 years has thrilled and
awed everyone — except maybe a few pros — at the TPC
at Sawgrass' Stadium Course.
There were 35 balls in the water through
two rounds and the promise of more to come if winds picked up
for Sunday's final round.
“If you sit there any other time, it's
a nine-iron, pitching wedge, no big deal,” said Joe Durant,
a two-time PGA Tour winner this year. “Then you put 20,000
people around there, and the idea you want to hit a good shot
and it's such a pivotal point in the round.
“We've seen guys make aces there and
we've seen guys lose tournaments.”
Like last year, when Sutton outdueled Tiger
Woods in part with a safe par the last time around at No. 17,
a day after hitting in the water for a 6.
Or in 1998 when Len Mattice, only a stroke
off the lead when he stepped up to the 17th Sunday, lost his chance
for major PGA Tour success with balls in the water. He took an
8.
“It's like David Duval says, if you
want to win this tournament,” said David Toms, who made birdie
en route to a 66 Saturday, “you have to learn to hit that
shot.”
That's what architect Pete Dye wanted when
he designed the Stadium Course. The green is the largest on the
course at 6,500-square feet. “But it looks a thousand square
feet from the tee,” NBC Sports commentator Johnny Miller
said.
While holes like the fourth, the 11th and
the 18th often gain more praise from the pros, fans flock to the
17th for the ultimate in target golf.
“We have people come to us the night
before to ask where we're going to set the pin so they can figure
out the best spot to watch,” course superintendent Fred Klauk
said.
Folding seats are two and three deep along
the ropes hours before anyone tees off, Klauk said.
And why not? Each pairing, no matter how
far behind the leaders, is a mini drama among shimmering blue-green
water.
“I guess there's one in the water,”
fan Stanford Jackson said walking to the hole after hearing a
loud “Ohhhhhh.”
Jackson said his routine the past six years
is to watch the first, third and fifth holes, “then it's
back to 17 for the rest of the day.”
The crowd calms down only long enough to
watch tee shots. The buzz lasts until the next group is ready
to hit. On Saturday, the spectators rose up to urge Mark Brooks'
ball as it slowly rolled down the slope to about 8 feet from the
cup, then applauded loudly as Brooks walked up to finish his birdie.
“Pete Dye had a unique idea and the
fans bought into it,” Brooks said. “It's not my favorite
hole, although I did birdie it.”
Even Woods can't fully escape No. 17's horror.
He mishit an 8-iron into the pond Friday for a double-bogey 5.
Woods was asked to compare the 17th to another famous par 3, the
12th at Augusta National.
There among the azaleas, “you have
bunkers, you have green that's not green, you have short grass
to hit the ball long left,” Woods said. “I don't see
a whole lot of that on 17 here.”
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said the
hole fits the strategy of the course. “It comes at a point
where you've been challenged for 16 holes and you have more challenges
ahead,” he said.
Klauk said contracted divers take about
120,000 balls from the lake on a quarterly basis. “They go
in there and just fish them out,” he said.
He said fans are captivated by the world's
best golfers often struggling on what's seen as a simple shot.
Others, notably Nick Price, see it as untraditional
golf. Major mistakes and minor mistakes both meet the same wet
fate. “Call it what you will, but I don't think it fits the
rest of the golf course,” he said.
Jackson, from Jacksonville, who comes here
every year, thinks golf needs a little more fun.
“You just can let the players have
their way,” he said. “You have to have something where
the fans can get involved with either a 'Yea' or an 'Ahhhh.'”
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