Second time around: Beyond new tee boxes and 212 more yards, the Black is a modified course from 2002. Davis won't likely move the tees forward on No. 6 to tempt participants with a drivable par 4--but he might.
The par-4 10th is also longer, now 505 yards, but its fairway has been extended 40 yards closer to the tee to avoid the controversy of 2002, when several players (from the 492-yard tee) couldn't reach the fairway and ended up in deep fescue. The same thing happened in '02 on the 504-yard par-4 12th, so its fairway has been widened on the right to provide a bailout alternative. As at the ninth, Jones re-turfed the backside of a carry bunker on 12, and it will be mown as fairway.
No hole comes closer to Burbeck's desire to instill the image of Pine Valley into the Black than the 435-yard par-4 11th. From the tee, the narrow fairway is engulfed by acres of sand left and right, with more bunkers pinching the green. At the urging of Mike Davis, the USGA's senior director of rules and competitions, Jones tightened the 11th fairway even more this year by expanding bunker lobes on both sides closer to the centerline.
The par-5 13th will be 51 yards longer than it was in 2002, now measuring 605 yards. While some will still be able to reach the green in two, most of the field will have to contend with a nasty, steep-faced fairway bunker short right of the green on their second shots.
The last of the newly expanded holes is the downhill par-4 16th, now 490 yards long, with a fairway so skinny it looks like an apostrophe from the tee.
Despite all the length, the biggest changes to the course occurred on two of the shortest holes. At the downhill par-3 eighth, which previously played over a pond that really wasn't a factor, front and rear pin positions, re-established before the 2002 Open, now have added hazards. For this year, the slope just short of the green was re-grassed to be tightly mown, so anything landing short of the green could likely roll back into the pond. A grass hollow left of the green has likewise been re-turfed, posing a tougher recovery pitch shot from a tight lie.
The hole locations give Davis extreme flexibility. With the pin in front, perched just above the pond, he could move the tees well forward, to 156 yards if he wishes. With a pin on the back shelf, guarded by deep bunkers left and behind, he can push the tee markers to the max, 210 yards to the center of the green, another 23 yards to the back edge. Or he can come up with variations in between.
The par-3 14th doesn't offer quite so much set-up creativity, but recent changes there make it the most improved hole on the course. In 2002 it played 161 yards to a rather ordinary, canted, oval green protected by one large deep bunker at the front right, shaded in the back by a dense forest of trees. Last year, Davis asked Muirhead if it would be possible to add a front-left hole location. They created a narrow thumb—just 12 yards wide—on the front left, protected by the big bunker on the right and a new serpentine bunker on the left. They also flattened a dome along the back of the green to make it possible to cut a hole there as well, thus bringing the steep ravine behind—now devoid of trees—into play for overly aggressive shots.
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