Hope May Be Hopeless, Thanks to PGA West

The Stadium Course at PGA West was designed by:

a) The Marquis de Sade.

b) Lawrence of Arabia and Jacques Cousteau, collaborating for the first time.

c) Pete Dye.

The answer is c , but the touring pros who have played on his courses will tell you that a had nothing on Pete Dye.

PGA West, open since January of last year, has a United States Golf Assn. rating of 77.1, which is the projected score a scratch golfer would shoot.

No course in the country is rated higher, although some of the pros believe that Oak Tree Country Club in Edmond, Okla., which has a 76.8 rating, is more difficult because of its undulating greens. What both courses have in common is that they were designed by Dye.

Fortunately for the pros, PGA West is only one of the four courses they will play in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, a five-round tournament that begins today. The other courses are the significantly more manageable Bermuda Dunes, Indian Wells and Tamarisk.

Unfortunately for the pros, at least for those who survive the cut, PGA West is the tournament’s host course, which means that two of the five rounds are scheduled there.

There are 128 pros here along with 384 amateurs, including such notables as Gerald Ford, Tip O’Neill and Bob Hope himself. After all 512 have played the four courses, the field will be cut to 70 pros and ties for the final round Sunday at PGA West.

Because of PGA West, the Hope has become the hopeless.

Mac O’Grady, who won the first tournament of the year last week at La Costa, played nine holes at PGA West Tuesday and quit in frustration.

He said he felt as if he was starring in “Papillion,” a movie about prisoners on Devil’s Island.

That is coming from O’Grady, one of the world’s most talented players.

Imagine Gerald Ford on PGA West.

“With some of these amateurs, we’re looking at 5 1/2- or 6-hour rounds,” Fuzzy Zoeller said.

This tournament will be like deja vu for Alan Shepard, one of the amateurs here. He once hit a 6-iron on the moon.

One of the holes at PGA West, No. 2, is called Craters because it looks like a moonscape. Other holes have names such as Double Trouble, Black Hole, Moat, Cavern, San Andreas Fault and Alcatraz. Alcatraz, No. 17, is a tiny green completely surrounded by water and rocks.

There is more water on the course than fairways. There is more sand than greens.

Some numbers to remember: 5,000 railroad ties, 250,000 hand-planted shrubs, 8 lakes. The players have to go over water nine times. One sand trap is 200 yards wide.

One bunker is 19-feet deep.

“Sand traps are tough enough when you can see what you’re shooting at it,” touring pro David Edwards said this week. “You can’t see from some of these traps.”

From the back tees, PGA West plays 7,271 yards long. Charitably, the PGA has shortened it to 7,114 yards for this tournament, about the same length as was used for the Skins Game in November.

“Just because somebody decides to put a tee somewhere doesn’t mean that’s the right place to play from,” PGA Commissioner Deane Beman said, defending the decision to shorten the course.

“The purpose of a championship is not to punish the players. It’s to provide entertainment and good competition. I don’t know if you can do that at 7,400 yards.”

Even at 7,000 yards, some of the pros feel they are being punished.

“I don’t like the looks of it, and I don’t like the playability,” Tom Watson said.

“And that’s my diplomatic answer.”

Watson said the course is unfair.

“I’m not saying every course should be the same,” he said. “There should be risk and reward, but there should also be forgiveness.

“The course is too tough. I know that’s what they want me to say. They think more people will watch on television if they hear it’s the hardest course in the world.”

If that’s the intention, Edwards said he is not sure it will work.

“I think people want to see us shoot 64 or 65,” he said. “I don’t think they want to see us par and bogey. They can do that themselves.”

Zoeller won $370,000 at the Skins Game on PGA West, but he had few compliments for the course Tuesday.

Nevertheless, he said he may stay around for a day after the tournament is over. He wants to fish balls out of the water.

“Is the pro shop going to have a ball sale after we leave?” he asked. “Somebody’s going to make a lot of money going into the water after all the balls we put in there.”