TPC Boston's 18th: “I don’t think it’s a bad change or a good change, but it’s a hard change.”

There's an excellent unbylined Golfweek.com story about the new 18th at TPC Boston (I'm presuming a McCabe authored piece) and as you'd expect, the players are not too jumping for joy about change that makes their jobs tougher. Defending champ Webb Simpson:

“I think with the old green, it was a wide target, but the left half of the green was small because it wasn’t that long in depth.”

It was clear for Hanse and even the million amateur architects who are out there that was there was a simple way for the big boys to play the 18th – drive it into a wide fairway and then launch your second shot from anywhere between 190 and 230 yards. If you were wide left or long, no worries; you had a basic wedge shot out of thick rough and getting it up-and-down was hardly needed for creative talents.

No more, not with shaved-down areas left and long and when balls bounced through the green or wide of the green, you will have a number of style options – putt it, try and flop it off a tight lie, or pitch it into the slope and get it on that way.

But if the homework was done during practice rounds, players know that the swales are steep – especially left.

“We can’t bail out left,” Tiger Woods insisted. “That swale is going to be (a challenge). We’ve got to figure out where the spot is to miss it.”

Chances are, many of those in this week’s Deutsche Bank Championship field will figure it out. After all, we can’t sue for false advertisement because indeed, these guys are good. But Hanse knows when a group of tour players gather, they can’t come to a consensus on what day it is, so don’t expect universal agreement on the work done to the 18th green.

We'll find out Friday in round one of the Deutsche Bank Championship.