Golf’s Blue Monster

The Doral Golf Resort and Spa (formerly known as the Doral Country Club) is all of 48 years old, and is located in Miami-Dade County, in an town that has since been named for it (Doral, FL). The club itself was named in a most unusual, though as it turns out, practical way, as founder Doris and Alfred Kaskel simply took the first letters of each of their names and put them together. It's a good thing it was ladies first, or else the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods may have been playing at the Aldo Country Club.

There are five courses at Doral, and they are all world-class, but the one that gets the most attention, and carries the most prestige is the one they call the Blue Monster, recently re-branded as the TPC Blue Monster at Doral, as it has joined with the Tournament Players Club. For this year's WGC-CA Championship it is over 7200 yards in length, and annually the top players in the world who gather for that tournament curse the designer, Dick Wilson.

That's because the crown jewel of Wilson's design is the notorious 18th hole, a par-4 that is highlighted by the famous fountain that you have undoubtedly seen many times on television if you have followed the game. That's the pretty part; the ugly part is that it is a nightmare to negotiate; literally a "monster within the monster."

GOLF Magazine has named it one of the 100 greatest holes in the world. Last year it was the second most difficult hole on the PGA Tour (At Doral, they must have been offended at being "only" the sixth toughest finishing hole in the 2008 stats). The empirical evidence bears that out - in last year's WGC-CA, only eleven birdies were scored.......the entire tournament. That compares with 125 scores of bogey or higher. Believe me; it’s not hard to go higher.

When the winds are blowing, which is often the case in south Florida, it can make things even rougher on the players as they try to come home. In Thursday's opening round, for example, this particular hole played a half a stroke over par on the average. These are not duffers out there; these are the world's best and are qualified here by being among the top-rated players in the World Golf Rankings, the FedEx points standings, and on their respective international tours. That is an indication of how tough it is to play the 18th.

In looking deeper at Thursday's statistics, of the 68 players entered, only five of them (or 7.4%) birdies the hole. Thirty-seven of them (54.4%) posted a score of a bogey five or higher. Eighteen of them (26.5%) hit their ball into the water. There is just no simple solution.

Yet, from the early signs, it looked like they were having more success at it than last year, when there were 11.4 times more bogeys or worse than birdies, and birdies were made on only 3.47% of all attempts. No, you did NOT catch me laughing.

By the way, if you were looking for the toughest hole on the PGA Tour last year, you'd be staring down the barrel of the 518-yard, par-4 12th hole at Hazeltine, where the PGA Championship was held last year. The stroke average on this hole was 4.502, which is around what they're scoring at Doral this year so far.

Hazeltine is in Minnesota. You know, I'd be willing to wager that the 12th hole plays even more difficult in January.

What do you think?

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