Olympic Club’s latest tweak
LESS THAN TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE COURSE HOSTS THE U. S. OPEN, USGA EXECU TIVE DIRECTOR
MIKE DAVIS GREENLIGHTS A NEW BUNKER ON THE 17TH HOLE // BY GEOFF SHACKELFORD
DANIEL VASCONCELLOS
FREE TO SUBSCRIBERS
WHEN IT COMES to last-minute
course changes, the USGA will never
top its overnight tree planting after
Lon Hinkle decided to take a shortcut
on the eighth hole during the first
round of the 1979 U.S. Open at
Inverness. However, a new bunker
currently going in at San Francisco’s
Olympic Club, less than two months
prior to the course hosting the U.S.
Open, might be the latest a new
hazard has been added to a course
before a major championship.
Members started noticing the
introduction of construction stakes on
Olympic’s 17th hole earlier this month.
By June a bunker will have been
installed roughly 60 yards from the
green on the right side of the club’s
penultimate hole. The uphill par 5,
typically the hardest hole in previous
Opens when it played as a par 4 and
rankled players due to its severely
canted landing area, has been
extended to 522 yards.
The par change for the
Open (the hole is a par 5
for members) will offer
what USGA executive
director Mike Davis
hopes will be “a truly
compelling finish” and a “swing hole”
where a Sunday eagle is possible.
The impetus for the new bunker
started last fall when Davis (above)
ordered the severely sloped green
complex’s right rough shaved all the
way down the right tree line. It has
always been “a cardinal sin” to miss
the green left, Davis says, but now as
a par 5, more right-side danger
needed to be introduced. When Davis
returned to finalize the setup in
February, he spent nearly an hour by
himself at the 17th green pondering
the possibilities and concluded that
he had a problem. The new closely
mown area, when tied into the
fairway, created a lay-up position so
inviting that he feared the hole would
be devoid of strategy.
“I was looking at it thinking, ‘Oh my
gosh, we’ve made it almost so easy
that there won’t be the temptation to
go for the green due to the widening,’ ”
installation—and its removal if
requested after the Open. The club
agreed, with Davis telling consulting
architect Bill Love what he was
looking for. Construction started in
mid-April only after Olympic Club
director of golf maintenance opera-
tions Pat Finlen assured Davis he
could have the bunker playing like the
rest on the Lakeside course.
