‘APPROACH SHOTS CAN SPIN NEARLY 60 YARDS OFF THE GREEN’

Cary Cozby, PGA Director of Golf at Southern Hills, on what you can expect when Rory & Co roll into town…

The course has changed dramatically since ’07.

In 2018, we did a project with Gil Hanse to restore a lot of the Maxwell routing. We’ve opened up a lot of views, removed trees and all the green complexes have been redone. Now if a shot does not have the correct shape or spin, it will roll right off and there’s no rough around the greens to stop it. The greens are probably 15 percent larger, but they play about 10 percent smaller than the old greens because of the new edges and roll-offs.

The winner is going to have to be a good pitcher of the ball.

A lot of the guys who played last year’s Senior PGA also played the ’94 PGA,

’01 US Open and ’07 PGA. I had lunch with a few of them and they felt like it was a little easier off the tee than it used to be, but significantly more difficult on the approach shots. It’s still a really long course, but every hole has a bend to it. It’s definitely a second-shot golf course with the need for a tight short game. If you short side yourself, you are going to be in real trouble. We’ve also got about 90, well-positioned bunkers on the golf course.

On the longer holes, the greens are bigger and have more subtle slopes.

On the shorter holes, the greens are crazy. I actually think the shorter shots are tougher at Southern Hills because of the spin. When I played in the Senior PGA, I hit one shot on 10 which landed a fraction short of the top of the ridge and then ripped straight back down. I had 57 yards left for my third shot!

The greens are not as crazy as Augusta’s, but the placement and run offs are quite similar.

Ben Crenshaw told me that Maxwell actually worked a lot on the green complexes at Augusta National.

I think the front nine is two-and-ahalf shots harder than the back nine.

The 1st hole is just under 500 yards, the 2nd hole is just over 500 yards, but both are par 4s. The 5th is the only par 5 on the front and it’s 670 yards. The 6th is our toughest par 3, the 7th historically plays as one of the toughest holes on the course (and the green’s just been moved 45 yards further back), and then the 8th is a slightly uphill, 260-yard par 3. If you are level par through the first eight holes, you are going to be ahead of the field.

Nine through to 15 are really scoreable holes.

If you put the ball in the fairway, you are going to have some looks because you’re not hitting a long iron into any of them, apart from the par-5 14th. We’ve lengthened that hole to 640 yards, but it does play downhill. When Viktor Hovland came in January, he hit driver/3wood and got on the green.

Holes 10, 11 and 12 will probably be the most exciting to watch because of the precision required.

But the last three holes are all about holding on for dear life. It can be tough to make birdies if you are chasing. I’m guessing 18 will play as the hardest hole. Typically it plays into the wind and we know from past Majors that the green is super, super difficult.

We will have some wind in May.

We tend to have thunderstorms in the spring time, but we’ll accept that over the really oppressive heat we had back in 2007.

If we get a bunch of rain and it’s super soft, they will shoot low numbers.

But if we get some wind and it’s running firm and fast, the winning score will be in single digits. If you look at past winners here, most of them have one great round and three around par. It’s a cool golf course because you can make bogey anywhere. We won’t have a ton of rough, but the real defence is the greens, the way the holes are shaped, and the fact you don’t get many flat lies.

Below The par-4 17th played as short as 269 yards during the 2021 Senior PGA Championship. Bryson will love it!