The PGA Tour circulated a statement at 6:24 pm local time on Wednesday here in East Lake identifying two areas of internal out-of-bounds at the Tour Championship.
The 10th fairway is out of bounds when playing from the 18th hole, and the fairway on hole 7 is off-limits when playing hole 6. The changes were made primarily for the safety of the players and everyone in attendance in Atlanta.
The course has been widely described as completely different from what the top 30 players experienced this time last year at the FedEx Cup finale after architect Andrew Green’s mass restoration. The large lake in the approach to the 18th green has been shifted, and players will virtually always have a downhill lie with their second shot if they find the narrow fairway.
With this in mind, the prospect of competitors avoiding an awkward second shot by hitting their ball down the 10th hole was one the tour wanted to eradicate, but were the players planning on this cunning tactic in the first place?
Canadian Open and Scottish Open champion Bob MacIntyre wasn’t shy in revealing the plans he and his caddie hatched before the PGA Tour made the 10th hole lava. The Scotsman shot a 2-under 69 on Thursday.
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Internal out of bounds golf rule swap caused Robert MacIntyre to change his plans
“The one down 18, if I had the choice, I would’ve hit it down 10,” MacIntyre told NCG in Atlanta. “I had Mike get all the numbers on Wednesday morning, and he came out early to get all of the numbers then on Wednesday afternoon, I get a message that I sent to him, ‘I’m not at the course yet’, I sent it to him and he says ‘Yep, thanks to me for getting up early!’
“The thing is, golf courses are designed to be played down the hole. We’re always trying to find that little edge. It’s not so much the tee shot, it’s more the second shot. You miss it in that right rough down 18, you’re struggling to get over the water, so that was the idea behind it.
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“If you go down the left, you miss the fairway even on the 10th, you can play it further down the 10th and you’ve got a shot at the green from there. That’s just the way it is, it’s safer for everyone if we all play down 18.”
I spoke to three European Ryder Cuppers about their intentions if the rule change hadn’t been announced. MacIntyre provided a contrasting answer to Tommy Fleetwood, who didn’t share the same scheming mindset after carding a 70.
“The one thing it might change is if you did pull a tee shot and you end up behind a tree, you can’t chip out up 10, so there is that part of it. I struggle to see shots down other holes, it’s just not – I don’t see them,” Fleetwood said.
“Fino (Ian Finnis, his caddie) had seen it earlier in the week and he said he could see a couple of people had been speaking about taking it – because the 18th fairway is so hard to hit. You can hit a perfect drive and end up in the rough, and then the lay-ups hard.
“They’ve probably done the right thing. I feel like on a golf course, you should have to play it the way it was designed.”
Shane Lowry, who also shot a 69 with an up-and-down from the 18th greenside bunker, never had the intention of playing his ball down the wrong fairway:
“I wasn’t. I actually thought you’d make more birdies and eagles going down the 18th, that’s what I thought. I was never planning on doing any of that. I don’t like doing that stuff, I just like playing it normally.
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“It did come into my mind. I hit the fairway on 18 but I didn’t hit a great tee shot and I was thinking about the out-of-bounds on 10, if it wasn’t out of bounds I’d never hit it over there, but yeah…”
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