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ORLANDO – The 17th hole at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Lodge & Club has a long reputation of being no day at the beach. But for this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, Palmer’s distinctive beach bunker has been removed and replaced by rough, and the water is closer to the putting surface. And one person with keen insight into what The King might think of the change says he’d be none too happy to see the front bunker that bled into the water hazard being gone.
Golf course architect Brandon Johnson used to be one of Palmer’s right-hand men, along with Thad Layton, during their days at Arnold Palmer Design Co. Layton drew sketches of the front nine while Johnson was responsible for the back nine during a renovation of Bay Hill in 2009, which coincided with Palmer’s 80th birthday. Johnson pitched a plan to shorten the 17th hole and remove the beach bunker, which had been added in 1989. Such a change also would have allowed for the lengthening of the par-4 18th.
“There are no short par 3s at Bay Hill,” Johnson told Golfweek in a phone interview Tuesday. “Could you make a really good shortish 150-yard par-3, still keep the same look minus the beach bunker, and move the 18th tee back and get driver back in their hands?”
How did Palmer react when he checked the blueprints?
“It was a quick no from Mr. Palmer,” said Johnson of removing the beach bunker (as well as shortening the hole). “I knew it was a feature that he vied for. He gave us a lot of freedom, but that was one time where he insisted on keeping it. So, I hate to see it go.”
Johnson recalled Palmer calling the feature “a water bunker,” and likened it to the one at Pine Valley’s 15th. Architect Mike Strantz popularized the feature, and Palmer incorporated it into other courses he designed such as The King & Bear in St. Augustine, Florida, and The Tradition Golf Club in La Quinta, California.
While Palmer shot down the idea of removing the beach bunker at 17, he did agree to one concession: the elimination of a beach bunker guarding the left side of the par-5 16th. Johnson ended up embracing his “inner beach bunker” and expanded the beach bunker at 17 in 2009.
“I ended up really liking it,” he said.
But thick rough has replaced the bunker fronting the green of the par 3, which will measure 221 yards. Johnson concedes the beach bunker could be a maintenance problem, including last summer when heavy rains flooded the area as two hurricanes hit Florida.
“It became a bit of a mud pit at times, and it was really hard to maintain it in a way that was consistent with the rest of the bunkers on the golf course,” said Sam Saunders, Palmer’s grandson.
Saunders, who grew up at Bay Hill and played in the API numerous times, was asked how differently the hole will play this year for competitors.
“Not much. In terms of playability I would say it’s slightly easier,” he said. “I think some people might have been concerned when they see the bunker being gone that if you miss short the ball would go in the water. We were very thoughtful about that decision because 17 is already an incredibly difficult hole. It’s a long par 3. Obviously to a back right pin, it’s a forced carry. And if every ball were to come back into the water, that would be just a little bit too brutal. So we built that slope in a way where a shot that’s short will stay there. We’re not shaving the bank down so that everything rolls back into the water. It just a more consistent test for the players.
“I think once all of the players go through and see specifically that that slope is not incredibly severe, and that the grass will … a shot will stay there, I think they’re going to say, OK, that’s good.”
But it won’t present the same challenge that it did on March 30, 2004. That’s when Palmer avoided the beach bunker with a 7-wood and scored the 19th hole-in-one of his life.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Bay Hill removes waterside beach bunker on No. 17
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