Why Riviera C.C.'s Drivable 10th Hole Still Tricks Tour Players | The Hole At | Golf Digest

hi I'm Ron Whitten the architecture editor emeritus of Golf Digest Magazine digging deep into the profile of an individual golf hole today the 10 Rivier Country Club Pacific Palisades California one of the greatest short par fors in the world of golf Riviera Country Club is a treasure Golf Digest ranks it among the 18 greatest golf courses in America Architects study it because it has so many quality golf holes there's so many holes to choose from but my favorite has always been the 10th hole a short Par Four of 34 yards what I like about it is it offers width it's rare that an architect gets a chance to have a wide golf hole with width comes options if you look at the tenth hole from overhead you can see all sorts of options from the back te you can place something less than a driver across the cross bunkers that are 175 yards off the te into this little thumb of Fairway leaving you about 100 yards in a perfect distance in which to spin a wedge and stop it close to the hole or you can aim right at the left hand bunker which is 254 yards off the T stop your drive somewhere short of it and that gives you the best angle into the long axis of the green if you're talented enough to hit a high fade with your driver you can hit it right in the green holding the problem with that is the green is long and narrow barely 12 yards wide at a certain point and everything on the green flows from front left to back right which makes it very hard to hit and hold the green even with a wedge let alone a driver so a lot of things may roll over into a bunker behind the green or fall short into a bunker in front of it Rivier was designed by George C Thomas Jr and his associate Billy Bell Thomas was a great architect and a great author wrote one of the best books ever written on golf design Golf Course architecture in America published in 1927 the same year that Rivier appeared this map of the hole appeared in the book and the configuration of the hole has not changed since the beginning back then he had just one t and you could play it over the cross bunker or out to their left the course is only a mile from the ocean so you have a lot of prevailing ocean winds so he gave you plenty of margin for error up the left side Thomas also added a bunker short right on a direct line to the green here's what the hole looked like in the beginning you'll notice the big Crescent cross bunker and that bunker short right of the green here's the green and what you notice is the absence of any bunkers around it his original design had no greenside bunkers in his book he explained that he did so in concerns for pace of play yet by the time the course hosted the 1929 Los Angeles open the first PGA event it ever held there were bunkers on either side of the green as well as that Target bunker off to the left these were added in prep preparation for that tournament by Thomas and Bell so the risks in playing the hole included the bunker that back in the Hickory shaft days required a good punch to carry as well as the bunkers close to the green and the surrounding rough which was of kakuya grass which has the consistency of steel wool so it begs the question was this golf's first drivable par 4 I don't think so Thomas in his book described it as a drive and Pitch par for it wasn't Thomas's intention at that time that anybody would drive the green so when did the concept of a reachable par for enter the realm of golf course architecture well at the 1937 Masters Byron Nelson hit his drive on the seventh hole of 340 yard par 4 in that time and bounced all the way onto the green the next year when Master's competitor showed up the seventh green had been moved back 40 yards and up a hill and fronted with bunkers nobody was going to drive that green anymore in 1946 Sam Sneed won the open at the old course in St Andrews and in the process drove three greens repeatedly the reason he drove those greens was that the fairways at St Andrews were unirrigated and they were hard and fast and balls would roll for 60 and 80 yards two years later Rivier hosted its only US Open Ben Hogan won the 1948 open his first of four but he was never the kind of golfer that took a chance he always played for position and the drive and Pitch strategy that Thomas had instilled in the tenth hole played right up Hogan's alley despite the suggestion in the program I found no evidence from any newspaper report that anybody attempted to reach the 10th green at Riviera during that open it wasn't until 1984 that somebody deliberately designed a par for meant to be reached from the tea this was J morish and Tom weisskoff and it was Weiss's idea to do so he got the idea from playing in the British Open at St Andrews in 1970 and he remembers thinking this is just like going for a par five and two I wonder why nobody's trying to design a par for that way at one point in his design career weisskoff codified his rules for what he thought made a a good drivable par 4 first he said it had to be somewhere between 285 and 315 yards he wanted the hold to play as consecutive par 3es so that if golfer was going to lay up off the te it was just as difficult if not harder than going for the green one side of the ho he said should be inviting but actually offer a false sense of security because once you hit there you realized it was a much more difficult second shot he thought the green on such a par4 should be big but should be a demanding two-putt he wanted the surrounds of the green to put a premium on the short gain either through bunkers or lots of humps and Hollows finally he thought the hole should not automatically be driven in every round a golfer should occasionally be able to reach the green he said with the emphasis on occasional so when you look at the tenle at Riviera darn if it doesn't look like something Tom Weiss scof would have designed you can certainly play it like two par 3s one side seems very inviting but actually offers a false sense of security the surrounds certainly put a premium on the short game and the green is definitely a demanding two-putt there's a golf pro named Lou stagner Who plays around with golf stats in fact he calls himself golf stat Pro on Twitter in the spring of 2023 Lou posted shot dispersion charts on our hole the 10th at Rivier for over the last 20 years here's how the hole played in one round of the PGA Tour event in 2005 you'll notice about half the field laid up one fellow couldn't even get it across the Crescent shaped cross bunker several hit that Target Fairway bunker on the left several more ended up under the trees left of the green a lot of golfers ended up in the front right bunker a lot more ended up behind the green one even reached the 11th T I counted 13 balls that actually reached and stayed on the green most of in the front look at the difference in 2022 the shot dispersion is all around the green almost nothing in the Fairway several ended up in that left- hand bunker several more in the right- hand bunker several in the bunkers around the green many blew it left under the trees apparently trying to get the best angling of the green and many more ended up on the 11th T in the 2019 event shot link reported that 80% of the field went for the 10th Green from the te and were combined 63 under par the 20% that laid up were a combined 18 over bar so that tells you all you need to know Pro golfers today play by the percentages would you rather be in this bunker just short of the Green in one or two George Thomas didn't designed the ten Hool at Rivier to be drivable but technology certainly has made it drivable there's one last little wrinkle that you may or may not have noticed on these aerial views and that's this little green next to the 10th green It's actually an alternate green for the 10th hole curiously enough in 2005 one golfer actually reached the Green from the tea that green has been there since 1993 it was built because the course was hosting 60,000 rounds a year and the poor 10th green was getting Beat to Death golf architect Ron force a course restoration expert was offered the job and at first he wanted to turn it down because he didn't want to mess with Thomas's design but the club convinced him he could build an alternate green and that not be intrusive so what he did was was tuck it behind that far right bunker from the te you can't see the green you can only see the flag he tilted it in the same direction front to back as the regular green and when you play the hole just like for the regular green the best angle of approach is from the far left side of the Fairway the PGA Tour will never use this screen in its tournament but the club regularly uses it about 3 days a week this is a perfect example how a golf hole evolves it started as a drive and Pitch par 4 it's now a reachable par 4 the question is as an architect should you do something to combat the fact that everybody's trying to drive the green green these days I just posed the question would it be a better hole if you replace these bunkers with thick kakuya grass it would certainly be a harder up and down for Good Tour Pros now purist will tell me you don't mess with George T Thomas Jr but go back to his original design he didn't have any bunkers around the green remember [Music]

Channel: Golf Digest

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Keywords: Golf, Golf Digest, Every Hole At, The Hole At, Riviera Country Club, Ron Whitten, 10th hole, driver, course, architecture, history, california

Id: K6v8Aimpr8w

Length: 9min 38sec (578 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 31 2023