Muirfield Village's New 16th To Debut

According to the GCSAA's preview, the hole is opening this week so I don't know if that means it actually has not seen any play yet, adding to the intrigue. In the photos I've seen it looks like a knock off of Augusta's 16th hole, but with more than one decent hole location.

Here's a YouTube video showing the destruction of the old hole, no great loss for golf architecture.



In this second video is it me or does it look like they added a back left bunker at the last minute?



Update on 2011-05-31 17:13 by Geoff

**Jack on the new hole during today's press gathering at Muirfield Village:

Obviously we have one change, major change, on the golf course, which is the 16th hole, and the 16th hole which used to play to about 214, plays about 200, 201, whatever they put down for the yardage on it. It's a little bit shorter. We took drainage that was coming through in the green that was piped, took that out and put a lake in that area. They ended up at the base at the top of the hill there, those of you that know the area there, the left of 16 was an area we had a little sort of drainage that went down into the creek that goes along 15.

And we used that area to -- we took where the drainage came from and we took the drainage and took it the other direction. In other words, instead of having it come down through the golf course, we stopped it there and took it back towards -- to the street out on Muirfield Drive.

And then they built a lake in that area, put a green alongside it. It's a kind of hole that I think will probably play easier with a good shot under the prevailing wind. The prevailing wind is a westerly wind, southwesterly wind, that usually when we hit the ball before the green was sitting sort of this way, and I think a lot of shots hit in there went through the green very easily or into the back bunker, and I never really cared for the way the ball went into that green.

So what I did is I took the green and put it more this way, which sort of lines up with the prevailing wind. And with the prevailing wind you have the ability to feed the ball back into the green so you don't have to worry about having to stop the ball as easily if you play a smart shot.

And if the wind turns the other way, if there's no wind, then stopping the ball on the green is not an issue.

I think that works out very well. The water is all along the left side of it. I think there's going to be a lot more 2s, there's going to be a lot more excitement. There's more gallery area. There's some hospitality tents there -- I don't know if you call them tents, what do we call them, skyboxes type things -- they're not skyboxes, either, but I don't know what they call them.

Q. Chalets.

JACK NICKLAUS: Whatever they are. (Laughter.)

I think you're going to find a lot more birdies. I think you'll find a lot of fairly conservative 3s, and I think you'll also find a few double-bogeys that will come in there, which an errant shot will not be rewarded and a good shot will be rewarded, which is what a good hole should be anyway.

"If the goal with this new format is to grow the game of golf, why was there no talk of how to stage such an event at your own club?"

I enjoyed the many suggestions from readers who watched the Power Play Golf event at Celtic Manor, and also thought this observation from Stina Sternberg, reviewing the event for GolfDigest.com, should be noted by the television folks.

 If the goal with this new format is to grow the game of golf, why was there no talk of how to stage such an event at your own club? The UK commentators, mainly from SkySports, seemed like they were making things up as they went along and obviously weren't very familiar with the PowerPlay movement.

I think that was most evident when Ian Poulter hit an incredible drive next to the last hole to set up an eagle putt and the on course commentator acted like he'd hit a nice wedge in there, only to be rescued by the play-by-play man who noted what an amazing shot it was.

Jay Townsend, you of course were spectacular.

Power Play Coming Up!

Kevin Garside reminds us that today is the debut of Power Play at a soggy ("pissing down rain" -Poulter) Celtic Manor.

The format, played out over nine holes, offers players two pins to aim at, one with a greater degree of difficulty yielding more points. The format has been trialled at more than 400 clubs over a period of three years. The made-for-TV event is designed to appeal to a new audience, attracting those who might not otherwise engage in golf.

Gary Player is PowerPlay's leading advocate:

“PowerPlay is not meant to take the place of tour golf but to augment it. And if golf is to grow and develop a grass-roots following in other parts of the world PowerPlay is a great idea. Just look at what Twenty20 has done for cricket. You would never have visualised anything like that.

The event appears to have some impressive organizational backing and television outlets across the globe. It's coming on Golf Channel live at 12 ET.

Update on 2011-05-30 19:36 by Geoff

**I had high hopes but as seems to be the case with many of the attempts at novelty, they piled on one too many layers for the format to resonate. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do love the concept of a second hole location and reward for playing it.

How would you make this just a little more palatable?

NCAA May Madness: Rough Obsession Returns

Northwestern coach and Luke Donald instructor Pat Goss posted this image from the NCAA Men's Golf Championship's today:

Well-informed sources say these signs were posted last year as well, which means the NCAA pulls these out of storage to ship to the NCAA's. All to preserve the integrity of the "rough."

Good to know the NCAA brings its point-missing ways to golf, too.

Woman Qualifies For Canadian Tour!

Thanks to reader Bob for this Score Golf item on Isabelle Beisiegal, a 32-year-old Montreal native who qualified in the the Canadian Tour's Spring Qualifying School. This makes her the first woman to successfully earn status on a men's professional golf tour.

On the back nine Isabelle would make bogeys on eleven and twelve and sit four over par for the day with six holes left to play. She then birdied the par 5 thirteenth before a stubbed chip from off the green at fourteen lead to another bogey. She would make another birdie on the short par 4 15th, but here drive on 16 found the water off the tee and lead to another bogey.

Her tee ball on the par 3 17th left her with a six-foot put for birdie which she would go onto make, and then ground out an up and down par on the eighteenth hole which gave her a fourth round score of 75, and a tournament total of 296 (+8) which would be good enough to earn the last non-exempt card.

"I went into today just trying not to get ahead of myself. I focused on thinking about where I was and not what could happen. I was assured in the fact that no matter what happened it was going to be ok."