NBC's Johnny Miller likes to refer to an accessible hole location as offering players a "green light special." But there's no such thing on the par-3, 137-yard 17th hole with its island green at the Tournament Players Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. It's the caution flag at best, and usually a red flag. Play away from the hole, that is.
Miller will be calling the shots during NBC's telecast this weekend of the Players Championship on the dazzling course that Pete Dye designed, with input from his wife, Alice, on the 17th in particular. Some background to the design of the hole is appropriate.
Dye and his wife, who won two U.S. and two Canadian Senior Amateur championships, had in 1946 played the Ponte Vedra Club near what would become the TPC. The architect Herbert Strong - the designer, incidentally, of the public Lakeview course in Mississauga, which has a series of fascinating green sites - incorporated a green with water all around. Bunkers and some grass areas meant it wasn't a true island green.
While doing the TPC, Dye figured on a par-3 of 150 yards for the 17th hole. As it happened, the surrounding soil was top-notch sand that was dug out for other areas. The result was a crater that got bigger and bigger.
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Presto, the idea of an island green occurred to Dye. He's said that maybe Strong's hole at the Ponte Vedra Club inspired him. He talked it over with his wife, an accomplished architect as well as player - and a close pal of Marlene Streit, the great lady of Canadian and world golf. They liked the idea, as did then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman, the man behind the TPC.
Dye thought the hole was no big deal, only a short iron. And so he sloped the back of the green toward the water. There lies a story.
Now, readers of a certain age will remember White Rabbit, the Jefferson Airplane song from 1967, and its suggestion to "Go ask Alice." And so, once upon a time, we did.
"I told Pete they wouldn't finish the first round," Dye's wife said. "All the groups would be waiting on the tee for the first group to finish because they'd have hit their shots in the water behind the green."
Dye took his wife's advice and raised the back of the green. Still, plenty of balls bounce over the green, especially when it's firm. It's firm this week, so far anyway. Green light specials are nowhere to be found. About the only relief comes when the hole is cut on the front right of the green, because a higher middle section, where smart golfers aim, slopes toward there.
The hole generates all sorts of drama. The fun begins when caddies during one of the practice rounds use their players' clubs and take a shot at the green. Players put a few bucks into a pot and the caddy whose shot finishes nearest the hole picks up the money. Mike Weir's caddy and pal Brennan Little is usually a good bet to take the cash, since he's a pro himself.
Weir, a lefty, once hit the green in a practice round swinging right-handed with one of Vijay Singh's club. Singh, a righty, had just hit the green with one of Weir's left-handed clubs. Weir, not to be denied, answered the call. He'd like to hit the green every round this week. So would every player. The hole has danger, and big numbers, written all over it.
Asked about the course yesterday, defending champion Phil Mickelson addressed the 17th hole. Naturally.
"Well, 17 is, I would say the hardest [green] to hit, just because there's no miss," Mickelson said. "It doesn't really challenge your creativity. If you miss it, you drop in the drop area. I think that's the most challenging because it's so penalizing, there's no bail-out. Usually if there's a bail-out, you can make an aggressive swing to a certain section and try to hit a certain half of the green."
The green is relatively small, at 3,912 square feet. It appears tiny from the tee across the water, and terrifying when there's wind. Dye, who was at the course yesterday for the announcement that he will in November be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, doesn't mind.
"The island green at the 17th made me realize that I had created a hole that was planted in the player's mind from the very first tee," Dye wrote in his book Bury Me in a Pot Bunker.
Green light special? Never. Nerve-wracking? Certainly. Priceless? Always.
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