It’s a new golf course from what it was before,” said Scottie Scheffler after having a practice round at the newly constructed East Lake.

Andrew Green, the architect of the course, made it all the more difficult on the last hole. And well, he did succeed in his plan. The scrutiny of the par-5 18th hole did get into the heads of the players.

Even the best ones. However, Scottie Scheffler figured out the perfect alternative to play it safe.

During the practice round, while swinging the driver with his partners, he figured out that the 18th hole was on the right and the 10th hole was on the left. 

According to him, hitting from the 18th tee to the 10th fairway is easier because of the many obstacles, which include the pond to the right, and water to the left that are there on the 18th hole.

“It seems like a safer play to take all that out of play, hit it down 10. The green is going to be pretty extraordinarily hard to hold anyways with it being a downslope and having a long club in there,” he said.

Even Xander Schauffele agreed to the alternative and said, “Yeah, I hit two drives up 10.” As the players set up the entire strategy to get through the newly constructed toughest hole on the course, the board members shattered the entire plan with their new directives.

On Wednesday, right after the practice round, the players received tournament media. It stated that there had been two internal boundaries introduced by the PGA Tour Rules Committee.

“The fairway on No. 7 is out of bounds during play of No. 6, and the fairway on No. 10 is out of bounds during play of No. 18.” Furthermore, players who end up defecting the routes, will be fined with two penalties.

The mail wreaked havoc on their entire gameplay. As they stated, the rules were made solely based on the safety concerns of the players. While most of the players were left disappointed with the rule, worried about how to go about the final hole, the decision came as a practical one for some of the players as well.

On receiving the mail from the PGA Tour rules committee, Chris Kirk was among the very few players who thought it was a significant move. According to him, it is important to ensure the course is played as intended by its design.

He had advised the officials to address the situation because, from a player’s perspective, the most logical choice for a good score seemed to be hitting toward the 10th fairway instead of sticking to the original hole design.

This was exactly what the top players had planned on. However, he values maintaining the original design of the course. “I think that it would have been a pretty bad look on TV if you’re finishing a golf tournament and everybody is hitting it down the wrong fairway”, added Kirk.

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Source: Tampa Bay Times