The PGA Championship returns to Atlanta Athletic Club this summer (August 11-14), which means Georgia golf fans attending the event are all but guaranteed a thrilling finish to the final major of the year.
Over the years, the PGA Championship has produced a lengthy list of dramatic conclusions, with both last year’s championship and the one a decade ago in Atlanta among the most memorable.
Last year’s PGA at Whistling Straits included a multi-player battle down the stretch, with Germany’s Martin Kaymer emerging with a playoff victory over former Georgia Bulldog Bubba Watson.
Although the playoff was set for only three holes, it had more than its share of momentum swings, with Watson yielding his lead when he hit his second into the water guarding the green at Whistling Straits’ demanding 18th, which also served as the final hole of the playoff trio.
Watson nearly saved himself when he almost holed a bunker shot, watching in agony as his sand shot that likely would have sent the playoff to a fourth hole clanked off the flag stick.
The Kaymer-Watson playoff theatrics followed a terrific final round that featured a huge cast of characters, none of them more prominent than Dustin Johnson, who was coming off a disastrous fourth round showing while in contention at the U.S. Open two months earlier.
Johnson had a par putt to seemingly win the tournament outright on the 72nd hole. But after his bogey set up an apparent three-way playoff, he was disqualified for the now-infamous penalty he received for grounding his club in one of the many extraneous bunkers on the Pete Dye layout, one which had been trampled by tournament spectators and was not immediately recognizable as such.
The two-stroke penalty knocked Johnson out of the playoff, and shared the headlines with Kaymer’s playoff victory over Watson, but did not detract from Kaymer’s performance in the manner of the 1968 Masters scorecard snafu of Roberto de Vicenzo.
Kaymer turned in a brilliant effort over the final 54 holes, capping it with a clutch par putt to get into the playoff, a birdie on the second playoff hole to match that of Watson’s on the playoff opener, and a heady play on the final playoff hole that was a bit reminiscent of the finish of the 2001 PGA at AAC.
Although it has been almost 10 years since the PGA was last played in Atlanta, that year’s finish is still ingrained in the memories of golf fans everywhere. Leading Phil Mickelson by a shot heading to the famed 18th hole on AAC’s Highlands Course, David Toms elected to lay up with his second shot after driving in the rough on the demanding par-4, which measured in the 500-yard ballpark, with a pond fronting the green.
Toms flicked his third shot within 8 feet of the cup, and after Mickelson missed his birdie try, the former LSU golfer holed the putt for a championship-winning par. His 72-hole total of 265 is the lowest in major championship history.
Mickelson’s score of 266 is the second lowest all time in majors, and was one of a string of near misses he suffered in the four “Grand Slam” events before breaking through in the 2004 Masters.
Toms and Mickelson engaged in what amounted to a 72-hole battle. Both opened with 66 to trail first round leader Grant Waite by two, with Toms holding a share of the lead after 36 holes (Mickelson was one back in third). Toms was first by himself heading to the final round, with Mickelson alone in second, two off the lead.
Mickelson briefly held a slim lead on the back nine in the third round, but the tournament turned on the par-3 15th, when Toms aced the 227-yard hole with a 5-wood, turning a two-stroke deficit into a one-shot lead in a matter of minutes. Toms never trailed again, although Mickelson pulled even with him three times the final day before Toms took the lead for good with three holes to play.
Tom and Mickelson will be among the 156 players who will comprise the field for the 2011 PGA Championship, with the course they will face considerably different than the one they played in 2001.
Famed golf course architect Rees Jones has renovated the course since the PGA last visited the northeast suburbs of Fulton County, with several significant agronomic changes also made since then.
The fairways of AAC’s Highlands Course have been converted from Bermuda to Zoysia, with the surrounding Bermuda rough also slightly different from that on the course in 2001. The big difference, however, is the change in putting surfaces, with Champions Bermuda replacing the former bent grass surfaces.
The primary reason for the low scores a decade ago was the softness of the greens, which allowed the game’s best players to fire at the flags with relative impunity. To keep tender bent grass greens alive during the Summer in the South, the amount of watering required prevents superintendents like AAC’s Ken Mangum from keeping the surfaces as firm as they need to be to create championship conditions.
With the more heat tolerant Champions Bermuda now in place, Mangum will be able to keep the greens as fast as they need to be for a major championship, while retaining the firmness that will make approach shots to front or tucked pin positions much more challenging.
In addition to the agronomic changes, some of the fairways have been re-contoured and bunkers have been re-built, with many of those along the fairways now deeper and more severe than previously.
The course has also added some length, with Highlands now listed at 7,486 yards for this year’s PGA Championship, some 275 yards longer than 2001. Six holes are now at least 25 yards longer than in ’01, with the converted par-5 second hole now 512 (from 471) par 4 and the already difficult 16th adding 44 yards to 485.
The par-3 15th has a new back tee that would make the hole play 260 (over water), but is still listed at 227 on the PGA scorecard. The 18th, which unofficially was the first 500-yard par-4 in major championship history, is now official at 505, up 15 yards from the ’01 scorecard.
Atlanta Athletic Club’s Highlands Course plays to a par 72 for its members, with the 2nd and 18th played as par 4s in majors to make it a par-70 layout.
Since 2001, a small lake has been added short and left of the 6th green, and the 426-yard par 4 will likely be played at least a day or two from forward tees (296 or 330) to give the tournament a drivable par 4, which has become a chic component of recent major championships.
Almost one-third of the 156-player field for this year’s PGA Championship has already been determined, with four qualifying avenues available between now and the week before the tournament.
All PGA Tour champions from the 2010 to 2011 PGA Championship will qualify, including winners of the four opposite-field events. The top 70 players in earnings since last year’s PGA will earn invitations, with the PGA typically inviting the top 100 players from the World Rankings a few weeks prior to the tournament. Those just outside the top 70 on the earnings list are alternates, and a few of them make it into the tournament each year.
In addition to 136 tour players, the top 20 finishers from the 2011 PGA Professional National Championship will also qualify. Because of the inclusion of 20 club professionals, some consider the field for the PGA Championship a bit watered down, but the event has consistently sported the strongest field among the four majors in recent years.
The other three majors inevitably have anywhere from a handful to a dozen or more world class players absent from their fields, but the only players of consequence who will not tee it up at AAC are those who are injured or in the midst of a lengthy stretch of sub-par play.
Georgians already qualified are former PGA champion Davis Love, 2009 British Open winner Stewart Cink, 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson, 2010 PGA Tour leading money winner Matt Kuchar, and recent PGA Tour winners Heath Slocum and Jonathan Byrd.
A variety of ticket packages remain for the tournament, starting with daily $25 tickets for the practice rounds. Daily grounds tickets are $85 for Thursday and Friday and $90 for Saturday and Sunday. Season tickets, which include all seven days, are $285, with Wannamaker Club packages that provide access to a pavilion on the course costing $550.
Ticketed adults can bring up to four juniors (age 17 and under) with them at no additional charge. Information on tickets, as well as parking upgrades, is available at www.pga.com or by calling the PGA Ticketing Center at 1-800-742-4653.