Videos: Explaining The Many Dangers Of Olympic's 13th

The 199-yard 13th has the players flummoxed and with good reason. There's one shot to hit and anything else is likely to find some sort of trouble. This has always been an unusual par-3 but never were things like this said about it...

Q.  Compared to other U.S. Open courses how does Olympic‑‑ what kind of special shots does it favor or require?

BUBBA WATSON:  Not that I know this in my head, but 13, what is that, the par‑3, 13, the par‑3 they shaved all the grass on the left side of the hole.  So if you hit it‑‑ you could actually hit the ball on the green and end up in the hazard.  I don't understand why they did that.  But they did it.

And from Phil Mickelson's transcript:

PHIL MICKELSON:  I think that 13 provides the most challenging shot, because it's a long, narrow green with wind blowing right‑to‑left.  It's pushing the ball left.

If you miss it right, you've got a chip that's downhill, downwind, you're not going to get it up and down.  And if you miss it left, it's off to Hartford.  You may as well pack your bags, and we'll see you next week at Hartford (laughter) because that ball is going to go down the creek, in the rough, under the trees, and you may still be there on Monday.

I think that provides the most difficult, penalizing challenge to where a lot of people are going to get knocked right out of the tournament the first two days because of that one hole.

In the first video, I start by looking at the tee shot issues:

A view of the issues facing players who hit their tee shot in the right bunker.

And finally, that tightly mown back area that has been introduced this year and which is creating much of the consternation. How much this comes into play will depend mostly on firmness and wind. Today it was manageable because of the morning fog and tight mow having gone uncut for two days.