For the 18th straight season, the FedEx Cup Playoffs will come to an end at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. However, unlike past iterations of the season finale, the 2024 Tour Championship comes with a twist as East Lake underwent an extensive restoration process in the offseason.
The course has turned back to the clock -- no longer the golf course some have grown used to playing.
"As soon as I walked on the property, I was kind of shocked," said Viktor Hovland, the reigning FedEx Cup champion. "It looks nothing like it used to. Seems like [golf architect Andrew Green has] basically changed every single hole out there. It was just kind of wild how much you can actually change the holes with not really moving holes around. It's all kind of in the same place, but yet none of the holes look exactly the same. I could probably try to describe a person that's never been here before what it used to look like, and it's almost like you can't imagine it."
While the scorecard may not look all that different -- East Lake now plays as a par 71 as opposed to its traditional par 70 for professionals -- the golf course is unrecognizable to some. Removing a number of trees, contouring greens, adding all new grass, modifying run-off areas and enhancing bunkers, Green did his best to restore Donald Ross' design to its original intent.
Two of the most significant changes include the possibility of playing the par-4 eighth as drivable -- a hole that features water all along the left side -- and the par-5 finisher where a champion will be crowned on Sunday. Green reshaped the fairway to force players to hit their second shots off a downslope; he also elongated the pond that cuts through the fairway and up alongside the right side.
More of a factor on players' second shots, that pond in particular has some thinking of a different way to attack the closing hole. Combine that with the increased firmness of the greens -- common for new greens as the grass has yet to settle (just look back to Quail Hollow this spring) -- and eagles may not be part of the equation like they used to be. In other words, players will instead be playing for four.
This has caused some golfers like Scottie Scheffler, Sam Burns and Xander Schauffele to play down the adjacent 10th hole during practice rounds. it's a strategy other players were likely pondering as well, one Ross probably didn't envision when designing the golf course. The PGA Tour Rules Committee has since stated No. 10 will be marked as internal out of bounds.
"The way they reshaped the fairway there ... it's a very difficult fairway to hit, and if your ball goes into the right rough and you don't get a good lie, you have to chip it 10 yards down the fairway because there's nowhere really to lay up," Scheffler said. "Before, there used to be some opportunity there, where now there's not. You're now hitting it across the lake. ... If you hit it into the right rough, you're now hitting it over a pond to a fairway that's pretty narrow. If you hit it in the left rough, you probably can't hold the green from there. And if you don't get it to the fairway, you're going to be in the water.
"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. It's more you're playing for birdies. There is less opportunity for eagle than there was before. You've got three bunkers in front of the green now, and with how firm the greens are … it's very challenging to hold the green in two.
"If you don't hit the 18th fairway, you're in a heap of trouble. That's something I'm still going to toy around with [Wednesday], but I think it's likely you'll see some guys hitting it down the 10th because it's a safer play."
Would be something to watch the PGA Tour "season" and the $25 million come down to two guys playing up different fairways on the last hole... pic.twitter.com/GwdXdDMEHW
— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) August 28, 2024
Some may ultimately like the changes made to East Lake, but the general consensus among players appears to be that the jury is still out. Knowing some golfers, their vote will not come without bias -- if they play well, they'll love it (and vice versa). While this week will tell a lot about Green's efforts to restore the past, the golf course will need time to settle into its own.
"Whatever record I had is the past, I have no memory or anything really on any hole to go off of -- not even a tree I could aim at that I used to aim at. It's just that different," Schauffele said. "To me, it's got the same name; it's East Lake Golf Club. It's in the same property, similar square footage. But that's about it."
