ATLANTA — Defending FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland, who walked away with an $18 million bonus after winning the Tour Championship last year, is a fan of East Lake Golf Club.
At least the way it used to play.
Hovland and the other 29 participants here for the Tour Championship, however, are playing a completely different East Lake course for the first time in the FedEx Cup season finale that starts Thursday.
I only played the front yesterday, and just as soon as I walked on the property, I was kind of shocked,” Hovland said Tuesday. “It looks nothing like it used to.”
Architect Andrew Green was tasked with restoring East Lake, and he found an aerial photo from 1949 in a government database that served as his blueprint in returning the course to the way Donald Ross rerouted it more than a century ago.
“Oh, there’s absolutely anxiety, for sure,” Green said. “But I think it just comes with the territory. You don’t know what you have until you tee it up. The golf course has matured amazingly since June 15, when the last piece of sod went down. But at the same time, it’s going to need to mature to see the full effect.”
The former East Lake course was known for its thick rough off the fairways and around the greens and deep flat-bottomed bunkers. There wasn’t much variety in the shapes of the greens; they typically sloped from back to front.
Green’s changes to East Lake are dramatic. The eighth hole is now a short, drivable par-4. The 14th hole, formerly a long par 4, is now a par 5. Green removed a large number of trees — he wouldn’t specify exactly how many — and expanded the course’s signature lake to bring water into play on No. 18.
The course now plays to par 71 — one more than before — and is about 7,455 yards, which is less than 100 yards longer.
“Seems like he’s basically changed every single hole out there,” Hovland said. “It was just kind of wild how much you can actually change the holes with not really moving holes around. It’s all kind of in the same place, but yet none of the holes look exactly the same.
The new greens, which promise to be extra firm this week, have unique slopes and shapes, and some have dramatic run-offs. A few greens were moved entirely; the green on the par-3 ninth hole was moved down a hill to bring water into play. The back tees on Nos. 9 and 15 won’t be used this week because the greens are too firm, according to Green.
“As soon as I saw the green areas, that was like, ‘OK, wow,'” Hovland said. “This is going to be a completely different golf course, because now you have huge undulating greens with big runoffs. And instead of having tight Bermuda around the greens, you have really, really tight zoysia.
“It’s just going to play completely different.”
Green restored the grass-faced bunkers that Ross made famous, some of which are located in landing areas, leaving players to decide whether to hit their tee shots short of the bunkers or try to go over them.
“I could probably try to describe a person that’s never been here before what it used to look like, and it’s almost like you can’t imagine it,” Hovland said. “It’ll be interesting to kind of get used to it, that’s for sure.”
Green hopes the restoration, which was completed in less than a year, provides PGA Tour players with a proper test while maintaining East Lake’s history.
“For me, it’s trying to respect the integrity of a place and be able to come here and experience it in a one-of-a-kind format,” Green said. “This golf course is not like any other, and it shouldn’t be like any other. That’s what’s important.”
