By Ryan Herrington
Plenty of courses have notable three-hole stretches that are intrinsically connected to a PGA Tour event. The Bear Trap at PGA National and the Honda Classic, the Snake Pit at Innisbrook and the Valspar Championship, the Green Mile at Quail Hollow Club and the Wells Fargo Championship and, of course, Amen Corner at Augusta National and the Masters.

Detroit Golf Club, site of this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic, is hosting a tour event for just the second year, but it’s hoping to replicate what the others have done—while giving it a charity kick. Tournament officials are highlighting the 14th, 15th and 16th holes on the Donald Ross layout, a par-5, par-3, par-4 stretch, and are challenging tour pros to shoot 3-1-3 on the holes, which corresponded to the primary area code in Detroit.

As part of the AREA 313 Challenge, for any tour pro who makes an eagle 3 on the 14th hole, Rocket Mortgage will give $5,000 to the tournament’s Changing the Course initiative. A hole-in-one on the 15th garners a $25,000 donation, while a birdie 3 on the 16th means another $5,000 pledged. All the proceeds will be funnelled into the Connect 313 Fund, a program that aims to improve access to the internet and digital resources to parts of the Detroit metro area where there are gaps in coverage. Officials are estimating the initiative will raise more than $200,000.

Meanwhile, if any one golfer goes 3-1-3 over the stretch of holes, $313,000 will be donated to the cause. That’s a tidy sum, although given how rare an accomplishment it would be, perhaps Rocket Mortgage might chip in a little more.

The PGA Tour says that 318,658 rounds have been captured since 2003. Only three times has a player in a single round made an ace-birdie-eagle combo in any order in three straight holes with the birdie on a par 4, ace on a par 3 and eagle on a par 5: Kevin Stadler, 2005 Shriners, first round; Jason Dufner, 2015 Memorial, second round; and Keith Mitchell, 2019 Sony Open, second round.

Never, however, has a player gone eagle-ace-birdie in a three-hole stretch in that time.

Fans can contribute when players post a 3-1-3 with online donations being taken.

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By Alex Myers
The Bryson DeChambeau Show heads to the Motor City for this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic. It’s a new event for the PGA Tour star, but it’s played on a golf course designed by one of the game’s old masters. Not that DeChambeau seems too worried.

At his pre-tournament press conference at Detroit Golf Club, the bulked-up Bryson was asked about the Donald Ross track. Here was his response:

“I think there’s a lot of bunkers that are around like 290, so hopefully I’ll be able to clear those and take those out of play,” DeChambeau said. “So, sorry, Mr. Ross—but it is what it is.”

Hey, at least he called him “Mr. Ross” before obliterating his golf course. And it’s nothing personal. DeChambeau has been overpowering all PGA Tour venues since putting on some 40 pounds (18kg).

DeChambeau currently leads the PGA Tour in driving distance and he’s second in strokes gained/off-the-tee. And he’s not just driving for show as evidenced by him being a combined 46 under par in the three events since the season re-started earlier this month.

The 26-year-old’s feats of strength have been well-documented from a 428-yard blast last week to reactions to his power by recent playing partners Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson. DeChambeau has been taking aggressive lines off the tee that Ross couldn’t have dreamed of when he passed away in 1948. Heck, Bryson had to move back at the Harbour Town driving range because it couldn’t hold him.

So again, it’s nothing personal, Mr. Ross, but hazards that are “only” 290 yards away aren’t even on Bryson’s radar anymore. And it’s a big reason why he’s the overwhelming favourite to win this week.

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Architecture experts marvel at Seminole’s compact yet complete routing. On a trapezoid of land of just 140 acres, Ross positioned his 18 so that golfers must contend with wind from a slightly different direction on nearly every shot. His remarkable layout lies on three levels. Closest to the seacoast is a lateral sand dune parallel to the beach, on which two greens (the 13th and 18th, the latter later added by Dick Wilson) and three tee complexes now rest. Inland is a wide, low basin, just a few feet above sea level, previously swampland that Ross’ crew drained and graded into eight holes now edged by palms, bunkers and lakes. On the far west edge of the site is a wide sand ridge some 40 feet higher than the basin. It contains three complete holes and the tees and greens for seven others. Its topography is reminiscent of Scotland’s Royal Dornoch, where Ross was born, raised and first took up the game.

Competitive players have long admired the subtle challenges of Seminole. Most fairways are comfortably wide, but deceptively so, because on windy days and when turf is firm and fast, drives can trundle off a fairway and into one of the more than 70 fairway bunkers or, on some holes, into a sandscape rough recently enhanced by the design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. The true test lies in shots onto the greens, putting surfaces that range from long and skinny to wide and shallow. Unless hole locations are toward the centre, flag-hunting is risky, as the perimeters of most greens slope gently toward deep bunkers that frame most greens and encircle several. Once on the greens, most contours are imperceptible at first look and make for deceptive putts. Some of today’s finest players, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff will take on these challenging elements during the recently announced TaylorMade Driving Relief Skins Game, to take place at Seminole on May 17, 2-6 p.m. on NBC.

Carlos Amoedo

While Ross had the reputation of mailing in many of his blueprints to be built by others, there are newspaper clippings that document his presence on site supervising construction of Seminole, which was built in seven months and opened Jan. 1, 1930. Ironically, whatever attention to detail Ross gave to greens and bunkers have been lost, as a regrassing effort some 50-plus years ago showed little regard to his original rolling contours. Even before that, the bunkers had been reshaped and rebuilt by Wilson in 1957 (not 1947 as repeatedly misreported in the past by this writer). There is no desire to reclaim the original Ross greens because members like what’s there now, but in recent years, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have restored the look and purpose of many original bunkers.

Stephen Szurlej

Any number of Seminole’s holes are classics of the craft. Crenshaw’s favourites are the sixth and 15th (above). No. 6 is a straightaway 390-yard par 4 that plays like a dogleg because of a diagonal string of bunkers that eat into the line of play from the right. The 15th is the second of back-to-back par 5s (a rarity for Ross) and features alternate fairways (also a rarity), a gambling right-hand route along a water hazard separated by bunkers and palms from the longer, safer left-hand one.

Jon Cavalier

An equal share of Seminole’s majesty is provided by its timeless clubhouse, a pink stucco structure of Spanish American flavour built in 1929, with its original lockers of California knotty pine still in use. Positioned in the southeast corner of the property adjacent to the coastal dunes, it has no window to the sea. The story goes, when asked why, Ross replied, “This is a golf club, not a beach club.” As Ross had nothing whatsoever to do with the design or construction of the clubhouse, the tale is likely apocryphal.

Although it hosts a top-level amateur competition each year (the Coleman Invitational), Seminole has never before hosted a professional event witnessed by hundreds of thousands of television viewers, so most golfers around the world have known Seminole only by its reputation. How it will stand up to the rigours of the power game that dominates professional golf today is a great unknown. The four combatants in the TaylorMade Driving Relief Skins Game are capable of reducing Seminole’s par 4s and 5s into a succession of short-iron approach shots, but if the wind blows, that’s doubtful, and if the pins are tucked, the targets will become much smaller, even if approached with short irons.

In a way, the Skins Game will serve as a prelude to next year’s Walker Cup Matches, which are scheduled to be held at Seminole in early May. That event is expected to be open to spectators. For now, we’ll cherish this moment to admire Ross’ masterpiece, all for a good cause.

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By Stephen Hennessey
Oakland Hills Country Club’s South course will be the latest to undergo a significant renovation by Gil Hanse’s design team, a news release confirmed on Friday, as work will begin in the fall of 2019 to restore this Donald Ross gem, ranked No. 17 on Golf Digest’s most recent 100 Greatest rankings. The South Course will be closed through 2020 and will re-open in Spring 2021.

The South Course most recently hosted the 2016 U.S. Amateur, adding to the club’s impressive major championship history, which includes six U.S. Opens, three PGA Championships, the 2004 Ryder Cup, two U.S. Amateurs, a U.S. Women’s Amateur and two U.S. Senior Opens. Rees Jones helped the club with a restoration project in 2006, but this will be the South Course’s most significant renovation since, in the hopes of hosting more majors.

Oakland Hills joins a growing list of prestigious championship venues that Hanse and his team have worked at recently, with Merion East currently also closed for major renovation work. Winged Foot Golf Club’s West and East courses have also been worked on by Hanse over the past five years, in preparation of the West course hosting the 2020 U.S. Open. Hanse has also worked at Aronimink Country Club, which will host the 2018 BMW Championship; Ridgewood Country Club, host of the 2018 Northern Trust Open; Los Angeles Country Club’s North course; Pinehurst No. 4; and Sleepy Hollow, among others. The designer of the Rio Olympics course also saw his Streamsong Black open in September 2017 to accompany courses at the resort by Bill Coore and Tom Doak, and the Ohoopee Match Club, a private club in Georgia, opened in 2018.

Courtesy of Oakland Hills

According to the release, Hanse’s work will include extending greens to reclaim pin positions on the famous Ross greens, extending the championship yardage to 7,500 yards and installation of green subsurfaces in the hopes of significantly improving drainage.

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