First Look At TPC Boston's New 18th Green

Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner and Brad Faxon along with TPC Boston superintendent Tom Brodeur will be unveiling their latest change to the host site for the Deutsche Bank Championship. It's a long overdue renovation of the 18th green, a remnant of the mostly-abandoned Arnold Palmer design and modified to match the other greens on the course that have been rebuilt (but there's still a ways to go to do all 18).

Brad Klein describes the changes to the green.

From there, the old green was miles wide, and because Tour-quality players rarely hit short (they just miss it right or left), there was little question they’d get home, Now that more of a question since the new green, 30 percent smaller and perched, brings more trouble into play, including wetlands on the right that had hardly been relevant before.

Tom Layman in the Boston Herald talks about the new green, including the square footage reduction from 6,500 to 4,100 and even talks to a few players about the change.

“It’s interesting, very interesting,” said Jason Day, who has two top-five finishes at the Deutsche Bank the past two seasons and is 88th in the FedEx Cup playoff standings entering the tournament. “I’ve talked to a couple of guys, but there’s obviously mixed thoughts. If I was a new guy and this was my first year on tour and you’ve never played the course before, 18 would just look like a tough second shot hitting into that green.

“Since it’s new, it’s obviously going to play a little harder.”

Of the 918 ranked holes on the PGA Tour last year, only 26 were easier than the 530-yard, par-5 finishing hole at TPC Boston. The scoring average was 4.5 during last year’s tournament, and it has been the lowest-scoring hole on the course ever since the event became part of the FedEx Cup playoffs in 2007.

A New England Sports Network report hosted by Alexandra Grace looks at tournament enhancements, with quite a bit of video footage looking at the new 18th along with an insightful interview of the club GM, Brad Williams.

I had the video embedded, but it automatically played the ad everytime you opened my page. So tacky, especially since the NESN owners don't have to pay Adrian, Carl and Josh's salaries any longer!

For more on the TPC Boston, including before-after shots of other holes and analysis from last year when I was at the event, check out the Topics page for TPC Boston.