Ask About Baltusrol, You Get a Long Story

SPRINGFIELD, N.J. —  The 17th hole at Baltusrol for the PGA Championship is 650 yards long, which means you could chop it up and have about three really nice par-three holes. Only that’s not the way you play it.

Par at this green monster has been established at five, and that seems fair, as long as you don’t get lost trying to find the green, keel over from exhaustion from the walk or suffer acute eyestrain trying to see the flag from the tee, which you can’t.

Think about it -- it’s 1,950 feet from the tee to the flagstick, or 23,400 inches. That’s 3,900 six-inch sub sandwiches laid end to end in the grass.

The numbers are so big, they’re kind of silly. You can hit it, say, 300 yards off the tee and you’ve still got 350 yards left. This means it’s darned near impossible to reach the green in two shots. In fact, it’s so far from beginning to end, if you reach it in two hours, you’ve done all right.

Jack Nicklaus has won twice at Baltusrol, so he knows it well. But he wasn’t exactly sure how long the 17th is now.

Told that it’s 650 yards, Nicklaus laughed.

“Oh, that’s all.”

Oh, but it’s so much more.

The tee has been moved so far back, if it goes any more, it’s going to land in the 16th fairway.

It’s already perilously close. The 17th tee is actually in front of and to the side of the grandstand at the 16th green.

On a green wooden post, a blue-and-white sign spells out the danger that’s ahead.

650 yards ... Par 5

From the raised tee, the view is simple and straightforward with trees on the left and trees on the right. Down the middle, there’s nothing but fairway that seems to stretch from yesterday to next week.

There’s no water to cause problems, only some bunkers on the left side of the fairway and a series of bunkers short of the green and left of the green.

As long as the 17th hole measures, it’s probably not going to scare too many players, basically because most of them knock the tar out of the golf ball anyway. Chris DiMarco hit a driver, a three wood and a sand wedge onto the green in his practice round Wednesday, and that’s probably the way most are going to play the hole.

One of the odd features of Baltusrol is that its two finishing holes are par fives, and they’re the only par fives on the course.

Jeff Sluman, who doesn’t hit it far at all, said no one is going to reach the 17th in two shots, but most everybody can do it at the 18th, so he figures that takes some of the power away from the big hitters.

Not everyone agrees, but Vijay Singh, who will defend his title this week, said back-to-back par fives to end a round could play tricks with your mind.

Colin Montgomerie said patience, which is often in short supply when they start dumping pressure on you, might be a huge factor.

“It will be interesting, you play 16 holes waiting for a par five to come and the bloody thing is 650 yards long. It’s as difficult as any.”

Topping out at a beefy 7,392 yards, Baltusrol is long by any standard, but until the fairways dry to allow balls to run out, it’s going to play even longer.

Tiger Woods said that power hitters have an advantage, to be sure, but so do players such as DiMarco or anyone else who launches a ball on a higher trajectory.

Flying the ball is a premium quality, according to Woods, much as it is at the Masters. Baltusrol is not the U.S. Open, or the British Open, where players could run the ball onto the green because the fairways were so fast.

And nowhere is that more vital than the souped-up 17th.

Last year, there was a 618-yard par five at Whistling Straits for the PGA Championship, but that doesn’t come close to the 17th here this week.

Yes, the PGA of America has gone to great lengths to make sure the players have something to think about when they stand on that raised tee and stare out at the expanse of fairway in the distance, framed on either side by a grove of trees.

It’s more inviting than intimidating, and that’s the beauty of a 650-yard hole.

Chances are, someone’s going to make it happen at the 17th, where birdie is reasonable, then follow it up with the reachable par-five 18th, a mere 554 yards, and a place where eagles are not out of the question.

So how about a birdie-eagle finish for somebody on Sunday?

It’s not out of the question, not by a long shot.

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Serious test

Baltusrol Golf Club Lower Course Hole No. 17

The hole is often referred to as one of the greatest par fives in America. An accurate drive and second shot are needed to set up an uphill approach to the well-bunkered green.

* John Daly is the only player to reach the green in two, with a one-iron for his second shot in the 1993 U.S. Open, but the hole is 20 yards longer this year.