Drivable Par 4s

"When a player would reach to pull out his driver, the fans would cheer. When he reached for an iron, they'd all boo," recalls NBC golf producer Tommy Roy. "It made for great drama."

(When the Ryder Cup returned to The Belfry in 2002, European captain Sam Torrance, trying to play to his shorter-hitting team's strength, stretched the 10th hole to 311 yards and shifted the tee-shot angle to make going for the green less tempting. It was an unpopular decision among fans and even the players themselves. "It was the perfect match-play hole," Woods lamented. "You could make 2 or you could make 6. That's what made it so much fun.")

While The Belfry's 10th is considered among the first of the modern era's drivable par 4s, many players consider Riviera's 10th -- which will confound PGA Tour veterans once again at this month's Northern Trust Open -- the best. "It's such a supreme example of a short par 4," says Geoff Ogilvy. "It really doesn't have many peers."

Playing from a slightly elevated tee to a massive fairway, the tee shot offers several options: Lay up left, for the ideal angle into the bowling-pin-shaped green protected by deep bunkers. Or lay up right, leaving a shorter pitch but from a tougher angle, with the green at its shallowest and sloping away from the direction of the approach.

Or the third option: Take your driver and go for the green.

"When a short par 4 is done properly, it favors no one, and No. 10 at Riviera is the poster child for short par 4s," Arron Oberholser says. "A long hitter can hit driver, but if you miss it an ounce right, you're dead. And if you lay up left, you have to lay up just far enough so that you're hitting straight into the throat of a tiny green. It's a 300-yard hole that plays like a 450-yard hole."

The best quality about Riviera's 10th, says Ogilvy, is it is so seductive. "You know if you lay up all four days you will have a great chance of beating the guys you are playing with," says Ogilvy. "Yet even though you are aware of that, sometimes you still can't lay up. [And] when you don't go for it, and the two guys you're playing with do go for it, you walk down the fairway wondering, 'Why did I lay up?' Whichever play you choose, you can also be just as easily annoyed at it. That's the measure of a great short par-4: how uncomfortable it makes you on the tee."

The drivable par 4 era isn't just a result of golf architecture, but of the boom in power. Advances in technology and equipment have allowed PGA Tour players to take cracks at greens they couldn't reach 20 years ago, such as Doral's 372-yard dogleg 16th, where Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods put on a heroic display during the 2005 Ford Championship.

The number of holes shorter than 350 yards on PGA Tour courses actually has dropped in recent years, from a high of 41 in 1994 to 32 in 2007. However, on the short holes the players face, they are choosing to hit their drivers more often. In 2002, the first year the PGA Tour's ShotLink database tallied its "Going for the Green" stat, 43 percent of tee shots attacked short par-4 greens. By 2007 that number had increased to 50 percent.

A further look at the stats suggests the evolving strategy is the right one -- more players are succeeding at conquering the short par 4s than ever. In 2002 players who tried to attack those holes from the tee were a cumulative 718 under par; those who laid up were just 145 under. Last year the difference was even more pronounced: 1,415 under to 241 under, in favor of the gamblers.

Even major championships are getting into the drivable par-4 act. Augusta National famously shifted its third tee forward during the final round of the 2003 Masters, inducing a shocking double bogey from Tiger Woods, who was in contention. The PGA of America and the USGA also have started to maximize the potential of drivable two-shotters during their major championships.

The 2006 U.S. Open featured a drivable par 4 on the front nine (Winged Foot's 321-yard sixth hole), and the outcome of last year's national championship was influenced greatly by Oakmont's 313-yard, par-4 17th. USGA set-up man Mike Davis is said to be already lamenting that this year's U.S. Open host, Torrey Pines, lacks a classic reachable par 4.