Photos: TPC Boston Mini-Primer

The PGA Tour moves to TPC Boston for this week's Deutsche Bank Championship and longtime readers know they can relive many of the past posts showing the redesign work by Gil Hanse, Brad Faxon and Jim Wagner under the topic TPC Boston.

PGATour.com has a nice hole-by-hole guide with photos and hole renderings.

And then there are the before-afters from six(!) years ago, including holes one, four, five, seven, eight, nine, ten, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and the recently renovated eighteenth green.

Gil: “We just wanted to create a little more interesting finish."

Rex Hoggard talks to Gil Hanse about being called a rooster Luke Donald's 18th green complaints and the TPC Boston rebuilder makes clear that interest was emphasized over difficulty.

For the week, the 18th is playing harder statistically. Last year the hole played to a 4.50 average with 19 eagles, 165 birdies and 23 bogeys. Through three rounds this year the hole has a 4.650 average, 14 eagles, 106 birdies and 28 bogeys.

“We just wanted to create a little more interesting finish,” Hanse said. “If that translated to the hole being harder, fine; and if it was easier that was fine. It was never the goal to go out and make the hole more difficult.”

Golf Channel's Before-After Shot of TPC Boston's18th

Finally, a visual look at the change to the TPC Boston's home hole green courtesy of Golf Channel's first round broadcast of the Deutsche Bank Championship.

Not a huge change from afar but several details standout: the approach area over the wetlands allowing for a shot to land and release, the short grass area to the rear, and the loss of green left where most players bailed out.

2011:

2012:

TPC Boston's 18th: “I don’t think it’s a bad change or a good change, but it’s a hard change.”

There's an excellent unbylined Golfweek.com story about the new 18th at TPC Boston (I'm presuming a McCabe authored piece) and as you'd expect, the players are not too jumping for joy about change that makes their jobs tougher. Defending champ Webb Simpson:

“I think with the old green, it was a wide target, but the left half of the green was small because it wasn’t that long in depth.”

It was clear for Hanse and even the million amateur architects who are out there that was there was a simple way for the big boys to play the 18th – drive it into a wide fairway and then launch your second shot from anywhere between 190 and 230 yards. If you were wide left or long, no worries; you had a basic wedge shot out of thick rough and getting it up-and-down was hardly needed for creative talents.

No more, not with shaved-down areas left and long and when balls bounced through the green or wide of the green, you will have a number of style options – putt it, try and flop it off a tight lie, or pitch it into the slope and get it on that way.

But if the homework was done during practice rounds, players know that the swales are steep – especially left.

“We can’t bail out left,” Tiger Woods insisted. “That swale is going to be (a challenge). We’ve got to figure out where the spot is to miss it.”

Chances are, many of those in this week’s Deutsche Bank Championship field will figure it out. After all, we can’t sue for false advertisement because indeed, these guys are good. But Hanse knows when a group of tour players gather, they can’t come to a consensus on what day it is, so don’t expect universal agreement on the work done to the 18th green.

We'll find out Friday in round one of the Deutsche Bank Championship.

First Look At TPC Boston's New 18th Green

Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner and Brad Faxon along with TPC Boston superintendent Tom Brodeur will be unveiling their latest change to the host site for the Deutsche Bank Championship. It's a long overdue renovation of the 18th green, a remnant of the mostly-abandoned Arnold Palmer design and modified to match the other greens on the course that have been rebuilt (but there's still a ways to go to do all 18).

Brad Klein describes the changes to the green.

From there, the old green was miles wide, and because Tour-quality players rarely hit short (they just miss it right or left), there was little question they’d get home, Now that more of a question since the new green, 30 percent smaller and perched, brings more trouble into play, including wetlands on the right that had hardly been relevant before.

Tom Layman in the Boston Herald talks about the new green, including the square footage reduction from 6,500 to 4,100 and even talks to a few players about the change.

“It’s interesting, very interesting,” said Jason Day, who has two top-five finishes at the Deutsche Bank the past two seasons and is 88th in the FedEx Cup playoff standings entering the tournament. “I’ve talked to a couple of guys, but there’s obviously mixed thoughts. If I was a new guy and this was my first year on tour and you’ve never played the course before, 18 would just look like a tough second shot hitting into that green.

“Since it’s new, it’s obviously going to play a little harder.”

Of the 918 ranked holes on the PGA Tour last year, only 26 were easier than the 530-yard, par-5 finishing hole at TPC Boston. The scoring average was 4.5 during last year’s tournament, and it has been the lowest-scoring hole on the course ever since the event became part of the FedEx Cup playoffs in 2007.

A New England Sports Network report hosted by Alexandra Grace looks at tournament enhancements, with quite a bit of video footage looking at the new 18th along with an insightful interview of the club GM, Brad Williams.

I had the video embedded, but it automatically played the ad everytime you opened my page. So tacky, especially since the NESN owners don't have to pay Adrian, Carl and Josh's salaries any longer!

For more on the TPC Boston, including before-after shots of other holes and analysis from last year when I was at the event, check out the Topics page for TPC Boston.

TPC Boston's Second Green

This revamp debuted last year but this is the first time I've had a chance to see what Gil Hanse, Brad Faxon and Jim Wagner cooked up for their remodel of the second green. I must say, television does not do this one justice. I definitely plan to spend some time there as the Deutsche Bank kicks off. And not just because it's so close to the media center.

The green is located in the same spot as the Palmer designed green, with the bail-out area changed from a giant drainage catch basin to a more level and natural look. But check out what golfers face if they do bail away from this reachable par-5 green (click on the images to enlarge).

(Above) left side lay up view, note how the "bump" creates problems.

 From above the bail out...what a wild shot!

And the view from the ShotLink scaffolding...

"Nobody in the world’s going to want to take 70 million less."

With a contract expiring after next year's event, the PGA Tour has to be encouraged by today's comments from Deutsche Bank CEO's Seth Waugh:

“You can think of the golf tournament as a silly little thing in terms of what’s going on in the world,” Waugh said Wednesday, citing studies that put the economic impact of the Deutsche Bank Championship at $40 million to $70 million annually, “but these are the bricks that can build the economy back up. Nobody in the world’s going to want to take 70 million less.”

TPC Boston Changes To Look For

Jim Wagner filled me in with a few more specifics about the minor work done at TPC Boston. Most of this won't show up on television, but I can say it makes a huge difference in making the greens feel a bit more naked and giving the golf course an older feel.

• Green surround mounding removed: No. 1, No. 10, No. 18
• Greenside bunker renovated: No. 4 (a feature was added in the left portion of the bunker to make player think a bit before automatically aiming for the hazard)
• New fairway bunker, mound removal: No. 9 fairway
• Bunker renovation, island added: No. 11
• Fairway expansion in first landing area: No. 18
  

It was interesting how many players didn't care for the tee shot options on No. 18 last year, so the expansion should help the shorter hitters a bit.

Here's No. 10 with some of the rear containment mounding that should be gone.

"The story of the year was the retro-restyling of the TPC Boston"

Bradley Klein serves up his annual architecture year-in-review, noting the TPC Boston's redo, Chambers Bay and the slow state of the new course business.

Golf Digest Best New 2007

Now posted at GolfDigest.com, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Doak's Sebonack takes the private category.

The Best New Public With Hot Beverage Cart Girls Over $75 goes to Virginia's Highland Course at Primland by Donald Steel and Martin Ebert.

Best New Public Where You Might Have To Change Shoes In The Parking Lot Under $75 goes to another Virginia course, Ed Carton's Spring Creek.

The Best New Public Remodel, Lester George's restoration of The Greenbrier, beats out in stunning fifth place position, the horrid Industry Hills, aka Misery Hills, oh, wait, it's been rebranded as Industry HIlls GC at Pacific Palms Resort. I think the rebranding put it in the top 5.

Best New Private Remodel, goes to Gil Hanse, Brad Faxon and Jim Wagner for their revitalization of TPC Boston, edging out Rees Jones remodels of Bellerive and Atlanta Athletic Club as well as Jack Nicklaus's work at Ohio State.

And Best New Canadian goes to Muskoka Bay by Doug Carrick.

Stephen Szurlej's exclusive photos of the winners are posted, but other than the aerials of Sebonack I wouldn't waste your time unless you want to see a bunch of TPC Boston ground views from behind greens guarded by lakes. Not as horrific as his photo of Rustic Canyon when it won, which actually was taken by a blind ground squirrel. However, considering how easy the two courses are to photograph (I know, I'm biased) and considering the landscape photography work of folks like Lambrecht, Dost, Brown, the Henebry's, Cuban, Furore and Scalletti, Golf Digest should farm this assignment out.

While not award winning, at least some of these images give you a sense of why TPC Boston edged out some tough competition.