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Hazeltine's length, bugs can bite unwary golfers
AP Photo
Padraig Harrington of Ireland, followed by Alastair Forsyth of Scotland walk across the bridge on No. 16 at Hazeltine National Golf Club.
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Published: August 13, 2009
Anyone who plays Hazeltine National Golf Club needs two weapons in the bag: a bazooka driver and mosquito repellent.
For everyday players on a lake-skipping holiday in Minnesota, the bazooka driver matters less than the bug spray.
Hazeltine National -- "The Big H" -- stretches out a few hundred more yards each time the club hires architect Rees Jones to polish his deceased father's prairie plan. At the PGA Championship today, pros will hike across a course that covers 7,674 yards from the back of the back tees -- the longest ever in a major tournament.
But distance is relative. Casual golfers can adjust by moving to a friendlier tee. The middle-range tee measures 6,646 yards. The pros don't have that luxury, nor do pros require luxuries beyond free lunches, free range balls and free advice from the stout drinkers packed into the range bleachers.
Besides, nearly every PGA competitor owns a bazooka driver or a laser alternative capable of positioning the ball for a productive approach shot.
The bug spray is not optional. Years ago, before playing Hazeltine for the first time, I asked my Minneapolis host what I needed to bring. The gruff answer: "Lots of golf balls and Deep Woods Off."
I thought he was exaggerating, at least about the mosquito juice.
The course begins with a long par-4 out in the open plains, a classically rural Midwestern hole worthy of idealized stereotype. Soon, the course turns inward, toward the woods.
When my short-wired bazooka misfired on the fifth hole, with the ball skipping into the woods, my buddy delivered his first on-course warning: "Don't walk up there in the shade or they'll eat you alive before you get near your ball."
Snakes don't eat people alive. In that emphatic Southern redundancy, snakes kill people dead. But he didn't mean snakes. He meant mosquitoes. I dutifully walked down the center of the fairway, a cathedral of hardwoods visually severed by a strip of golden morning sunlight. I turned left at the right moment and ventured into the shade.
Here they came, one after another, attacking the medicated ankles with youthful ferocity, little biting babies barely visible under the trees. One hurried escape shot later, I whipped out the DEET-free repellent and sprayed again.
Toughest hole
Everything went reasonably well until we reached Hazeltine's signature hole, the 16th. This is the hole Johnny Miller called "probably the hardest par-4 I ever played."
The 16th barely exceeds 400 yards, but it resembles a natural puzzle from the tee. The drive must carry more than 200 yards of water. On the right, the rest of Lake Hazeltine. On the left, a healthy creek. Straight ahead, bulrushes and reeds that obscure the fairway.
The hole bends to the right, with the green stuck on a peninsula jutting into the lake, exposed to winds. At every edge of the green, the bank slopes toward the marsh.
Robert Trent Jones originally designed the hole as a long par-3. During the 1970 U.S. Open, a tournament afflicted with cool winds and coldhearted course set-ups, contestants reveled in calling No. 16 the only dogleg par-3 on Earth.
Tough hole. When former cell-phone salesman Rich Beem beat Tiger Woods for the 2002 PGA title, his 35-foot birdie putt on 16 provided the eventual one-stroke margin. The field averaged 4.494, making it the fifth-hardest hole on the American tour that year.
For hackers, it's considerably harder. The second shot is not necessarily the approach shot. Sometimes, the second shot occurs at the very spot where the first shot was struck, on its short trip into the bulrushes.
Occasionally, the approach shot (regardless of number) occurs from the woods on the radically deep left, near the 17th tee. That's where our foursome trudged in search of the last wayward ball before venturing onto the green.
The ball was in the trees, where lots of baby mosquitoes were joined by mature marsh mosquitoes. When the first spikes kicked aside the first debris, the mosquitoes swarmed toward exposed skin. And swarmed. And feasted. Suffice to say, it took longer to escape the mosquitoes and fire up the spray again than it took to finish the hole.
Mosquito memories
Hazeltine has its critics. The proprietors seem to believe that distance remains the only true guardian of par, which explains four par-5s (yardages: 572, 606, 633, 642) that might turn Woods into a three-shot wonder.
At the 1970 Open, runner-up Dave Hill noticed the local water tower and the silos and the prairie landscapes. After one round, he consumed lunch and cocktails before heading over to the press tent for interviews.
"Just because you cut the grass and put up flags doesn't mean you have a golf course," Hill said. The reporters laughed, which Hill interpreted as social acceptance. Then someone asked what the course lacked.
Hill: "Eighty acres and a few cows. They ruined a good farm."
The members didn't laugh. They stewed, and they vowed to make "The Big H" better. Mostly they made the course longer.
It says so right on the souvenir scorecards, which I would cite in greater detail if I could only locate the right box or drawer.
The real Hazeltine souvenirs sit on the second shelf of the medicine cabinet, residue from the most recent trip: Burt's Bees herbal repellent and Buggins DEET-free repellent. They claim to be safe and effective.
At Hazeltine, they might be safe.
■ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com.
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