You’ll have to excuse Viktor Hovland.
He has a soft spot in his heart for the old East Lake Golf Club.
The defending FedEx Cup champion returns for the Tour Championship to a completely different course from the one he walked away from last year with a trophy and a massive check. The course has been completely renovated over the past year. Most notably, there are fewer trees to make the course more closely resemble the one played by Bobby Jones.
“As soon as I walked on the property, I was kind of shocked,” said Hovland, who played the front nine Monday and planned to play the back nine Tuesday. “It looks nothing like it used to. Seems like (the architect) 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.”
But now the $25 million question. Does he like it?
“If I showed up here and I’d never seen the golf course before, then I would say, yeah, looks pretty good. It’s a pretty good golf course. Looks pretty hard, as well,” Hovland said. “But just from being here four or five times before and just remembering what it used to be, I just think it was a way more kind of simplistic golf course before, but it was still – it was simple but it was very, very good. I’m still a little bit biased toward what it used to be. …
“In my heart, it’s like, East Lake was never – it never had that look, and it’s such a historic place. It’s like, should we really try to make East Lake look like a major championship golf course. That’s kind of the only place I’m at. But I don’t think he’s done a bad job. It’s just the style of it.”
One tends to have good memories of a place where he captured the PGA Tour’s playoff championship and walked away with a cool $18 million. The unthinkable prize money has increased this year.
Hovland shot a closing-round 7-under-par 63 last year to win by five strokes. It was the lowest Sunday score for a Tour Championship winner.
There are more changes facing Hovland this year. Last year, he entered No. 2 in the FedEx Cup points standings and an 8 under was two strokes behind leader Scottie Scheffler in the staggered scoring system. This year, he his 17th in the standings and will start at 2 under, eight strokes behind Scheffler.
“I wouldn’t say East Lake ever had a lot of strategy off the tee before,” Hovland said. “It was always kind of tree-lined fairways, narrow fairways, and you had an occasional bunker here and there. But usually it’s just kind of – you either hit driver or 3-wood, and you have to hit it straight.
“I really do appreciate that kind of golf because I think trees really add a lot to the strategy of the golf course. But at least here when he’s taken away so many trees, you really have to emphasize the strategy portion of it or else it just becomes a bombing-fest where everyone hits driver. And I do think (course architect) Andrew (Green) has done a great job with positioning certain bunkers in there. You really have to think, OK, well, if I want to cover this bunker, I have to worry about the next bunker and what kind of angle I’m getting in there and all that stuff. I think he’s done a pretty good job with that.”
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