The PGA Tour did not mandate the major course changes coming to East Lake Golf Club following the completion of the Tour Championship this week, tour officials said Tuesday. However, the tour has been aware of the planned renovation for some time.
East Lake will undergo a massive renovation immediately following the Tour Championship, the finale of the FedEx Cup playoff this week. East Lake has been the permanent home of the Tour Championship since 2004. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said he expects the relationship between tour and course to continue “for many years to come.”
“No, is the short answer,” Tyler Dennis, the PGA Tour’s Senior Vice President and Chief of Operations, said when asked by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whether the PGA Tour had a direct say in the planned work. “Every PGA Tour venue has to continue to invest in itself. It’s a natural evolution. Part of it is the growing infrastructure inside the ropes – agronomy, the changing way we take care of the turf grass. That’s a natural cadence that occurs at all of our venues. …
“We are used to that. It’s something that is generally planned out years and years in advance. It’s been a conversation we’ve been having here at East Lake for many years.”
East Lake will close for a full year as the course undergoes the renovation. The aim is to make the course more closely resemble the one that Bobby Jones and others played decades ago.
Andrew Green, of A.H. Green Design, has been retained for the renovation. A recently uncovered aerial photograph from 1949 will be used to bring back the look, feel and playability of the course. There will be extensive tree removal on the property. Bunker shape and locations will be changed. There will be more mounding, and greens will be redesigned to be more characteristic of the era.
Several holes will undergo major changes. The green at No. 9, the par-3, will be lowered and moved to the left to bring water into play with the removal of the large tree to the left. The lake that presently is part of the driving range will be extended to be more in play on No. 18. Several holes will be undergo adjustments to more closely resemble Donald Ross’ original routing.
“We are excited about it because you are going to see the classic features of the course restored,” Dennis said. “… It’s going to continue to be a classic venue that we can contest our season-ending championship on.”
Jon Rahm enters the Tour Championship fourth in the point standings. He will start at 6 under par, four strokes behind leader Scottie Scheffler. Rahm is making his seventh consecutive appearance at the Tour Championship, tied for the longest active streak.
Rahm said he likes the challenge of East Lake, which he called a fitting end to the FedEx Cup playoffs.
“I like it because it’s very difficult to assert a dominance,” Rahm said. “You can’t shy away, you can’t be missing shots and somehow maneuver around this golf course. Like, you eventually have to play good golf and put the ball in the fairway to give yourself a chance to attack those pins.
“And those greens, some of them have a lot of slope to it, they’re tricky. So even though you can score out here, you need to be the better player, you need to be the better player for the week. That’s why I think it’s very fitting for this tournament.”
Rahm said that while there is not much about the course that he would change, ultimately, East Lake belongs to the members the other 51 weeks a year.
“The members should do whatever the members think is best for the golf course,” he said. “That’s what I would say. I think it’s great the way it is right now, but if they want to make it member-friendly, I am nobody to object against that.”
Xander Schauffele hopes a good thing isn’t ruined. This is his seventh consecutive appearance at East Lake, including top-10 finishes in the previous six tournaments. He won the Tour Championship in 2017 when the tournament and the FedEx Cup were split events.
“I’m a big believer in not changing anything that’s already really great,” Schauffele said. “... So the guy that’s going to come, Andrew Green is going to come in and he said he’s going to take out a lot of trees and it’s a little concerning, to be honest. I’m not a member here. I hear members are excited. But as a tour pro, we talk about distance and all those things, but the thing that we can’t do is hit it through trees. So when you start taking a bunch of trees off a property it definitely can change how it plays. And I’m hoping that East Lake keeps its teeth, because when it plays hard you shoot 10- or 12-under you’re going to win this golf tournament.”
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