Shortest hole at longest US Open course could bring trouble to golfers
The ninth hole at Erin Hills is a 135-yard par-3 could be a tough one for golfers at this weekend’s U.S. Open.
ERIN, Wis. — One of the many quirks at Erin Hills is what was originally called the Bye Hole — a devilish, downhill par-3 positioned between the old ninth and No. 10. It was initially built to be just for fun and wasn’t supposed to count on the official scorecard.
By the end of the U.S. Open, a lot of these players might wish the course architects had kept it that way.
The old ninth hole is now No. 8, and the Bye Hole is now No. 9. The 135-yard par-3 is what the makers of Erin Hills consider their answer to one of the world’s most picturesque golf holes — the short, downhill seventh at Pebble Beach.
“We didn’t have the ocean, so we put in erosion bunkers,” said writer/architect Ron Whitten, who helped design Erin Hills.
They also designed a rolling, multi-sectioned green that, in places, is near-impossible to hold, along with a tee box on an exposed, wind-swept hill.
As is the case at Pebble Beach, where the seventh measures 109 yards, on most days the shot requires nothing more than a pitching wedge. But where No. 7 at Pebble Beach ranked as the thirdeasiest hole at the 2010 U.S. Open, No. 9 at Erin Hills is designed to cause more trouble than that. David J. Phillip / The Associated Press
“Honestly, there are a couple spots where you just do not want to be,” said Garrett Osborn, a onetime regular on the Web.com Tour who qualified for his first U.S. Open this year.
No. 9 has been described — and we’ll keep it just to the printable things — as the shortest par-5 in golf, the hole with the scariest second shot at Erin Hills (if you miss the green on the first) and, as Alex Noren of Sweden said, “a hole where there’s no way you can just hit a decent shot to get on there, you have to hit a super-good shot to have a chance.”
During his practice round Wednesday, Noren tried to simulate what happens if the shot is not “super good.”
He randomly dropped a ball in one of the seven bunkers that surround the severely pitched green. He stepped in, leaned down and took a mighty hack. The ball stayed in. He leaned down again and got it out on the second try, then walked to the ball, picked it up, looked at it and threw it toward the stands. The ball had an inch-long gash just above the Callaway logo from his first failed attempt.
Not that avoiding the bunkers guarantees success. The middle of the putting surface pitches severely right and funnels downhill into a tightly mowed collection area that can leave a tricky flop shot for a second.