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 Closer Look: A hard hole to swallow
Posted: Friday June 18, 1999 08:35 PM
By Albert Lin, CNN/SI PINEHURST, N.C. -- Hole No. 5 at Pinehurst No. 2 has been a terror to golfers the first two days of the U.S. Open, the hardest hole on the course thus far. The first-round breakdown: five birdies, 75 pars, 71 bogeys, four double-bogeys. The second round was even worse: five birdies, 61 pars, 74 bogeys, 10 double-bogeys. Why the Day 2 drop off? The greens dried out all over the course, becoming hard and fast and finally revealing No. 2's true colors. The average score Friday was almost two and a half strokes more than Thursday (72.857); only three players were under par on the day compared to 23 Thursday. So numbers were inflated course-wide, but the fifth hole retained its title as the course's most difficult with a pin placement which Tiger Woods termed "questionable." "You go out there and look at 5, you're going to see something that's kind of borderline," he said after firing a one-over-par 71 to move to one under for the tournament, two shots off the pace. Woods also fingered No. 7 as another offender. "Just go there and look at them. They're right on a knob. If you take a look at them, you'll say that pin really shouldn't be there." This from a guy who actually parred No. 5. The names of those who bogeyed it Friday read like a who's who of major champions: Faldo, Irwin, Janzen, Lehman, Leonard, Love, Nicklaus, Norman, O'Meara, Pavin, Singh, Watson. No one was spared. Why is the 482-yard hole so tough? The tee and green are slightly elevated, and there is a slight curve just past the landing area, meaning you play somewhat blindly down into a valley and then have to hit back up. But there is no doubt the sloping green presents the most problems. "I don't want to say impossible, but it's very close to it to actually be on the putting surface," said Phil Mickelson, who went birdie-par on the hole over the first two days and is tied atop the leaderboard with a 137. "If you hit a great drive and you have a five-iron in, the green is such where the first 15 yards, as you've seen, the first 45 feet the ball will come right back off the front. And if you go 30 yards, the ball goes over the green. "So now you're dealing with a 30-foot circle. That's a tight area to have a ball end up, 30 feet on a 490-yard par-4." Jeff Freeman, a sectional qualifier from Palm Desert, Calif., had perhaps a "typical" 7 on the hole. His tee shot strayed to the left and landed at the base of a tree, forcing him to pitch backward into the fairway. His third shot was short of the green, and he hit his chip fat and scooted it off the back. Then his comebacker didn't get over a bump and rolled back down toward the left. From there he two-putted for triple-bogey. "[The hole on 14] is at the top of the ridge, but at least there's some flat area to putt to," Woods said. "It's a little tilted but it's not as severe as 5 or maybe one or two others." Co-leader David Duval may have the right approach. After parring the hole Thursday, he had one of the five Round Two birdies, although he had to drain a 30-foot putt for his 3. Only Hank Kuehne, Jesper Parnevik, Esteban Toledo and Fuzzy Zoeller matched that number. "I have a target picked out behind the green I aim at regardless of whether the pin is there or not. I have a definite place I'm looking at, so going into the hole I already know where I'm going to hit it," Duval said. "I'm not really concerned where the flag is on the hole. You still have to hit it to a certain point."
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