Viktor Hovland is amazed by the course renovation before the Tour Championship
Atlanta East Lake Golf Club is a favorite of viktor hovland, the reigning FedEx Cup champion who won the Tour Championship last year and took home a $18 million prize. The way it used to play, anyway. But in the FedEx Cup season finale, which begins on Thursday, Hovland and the other 29 players here for the Tour Championship are playing a whole new East Lake course for the first time.
“I only played the front yesterday, and just as soon as I walked on the property, I was kind of shocked,” Hovland remarked on Tuesday. “It looks nothing like it used to.”
Architect Andrew Green was assigned to restore East Lake, and he used an aerial shot from 1949 that he discovered in a government database as a guide to reroute the course to its original configuration, as altered by Donald Ross over a century ago.
“Well, anxiety is definitely present,” Green remarked. However, I believe it simply goes with the territory. Before you tee it up, you have no idea what you have. Since the last sod was placed on June 15, the golf course has grown tremendously.
However, it will also need to develop in order to fully manifest its effects.”The thick rough off the fairways and around the greens, as well as the deep, flat-bottomed bunkers, were the hallmarks of the original East Lake course.
The greens usually sloped from back to front, with little variation in shape. Green has made significant alterations to East Lake. It is now a short, driveable par-4 as the eighth hole. Formerly a lengthy par 4, the 14th hole is now a par 5. No matter how many trees he cut, Green would not say how many, but he did widen the course’s trademark lake so that water now plays a part on No. 18.
The course is currently 7,455 yards, less than 100 yards longer, and plays to par 71, one more than it was previously. “Seems like he’s basically changed every single hole out there,” Hovland stated. “It was quite amazing how much you could alter the holes without actually shifting them. Even though everything is somewhat in the same location, no two holes are precisely alike.
The new greens have distinct forms and slopes, and some have spectacular run-offs. They should be exceptionally firm this week. A few greens were completely shifted; for example, the ninth hole’s par-3 green was moved down a hill to include water.
Green says that this week the greens are too firm to use the back tees on Nos. 9 and 15. “As soon as I saw the green areas, that was like, ‘OK, wow,'” said Hovland. This golf course will never be the same because of the massive, undulating greens with massive runoffs. And you have really, incredibly tight zoysia around the greens instead of tight Bermuda.
“It’s just going to play completely different.”
Some of the grass-faced bunkers that Ross made famous are situated in landing zones, and Green has rebuilt them. Players now have to choose whether to hit their tee shots over or short of the bunkers.
“I could probably try to describe a person that’s never been here before what it used to look like, and it’s almost like you can’t imagine it,” Hovland stated. “It’ll be interesting to kind of get used to it, that’s for sure.”
In less than a year, Green hopes the repair preserves East Lake’s legacy while offering PGA Tour players a fair challenge. “For me, it’s trying to respect the integrity of a place and be able to come here and experience it in a one-of-a-kind format,” Green stated. This is not a golf course like any other, and it never should be. That’s the crucial aspect.”