This year The Players Championship has an important novelty in the Tee of Hole 6 (PAR 4) of the Stadium Course of the TPC Sawgrass, which has been carried out, among other things, to complicate the exit of the players. The truth is that it has simply tried to recover an element that was part of the game until 2014, but the same, an immense tree located on the right side, seems somewhat more uncomfortable than the original.
In 2014, the oak that was always in that Tee died for natural causes and was removed. That was a relief for the golfers, because it had a branch that over the years ended up falling too much. According to Davis Love III, the designer Pete Dye “wanted the tree not to hinder, but that it would be thought.” Of course, according to the player, “it reached the point where the original tree was literally hindering. It was fallen.”
Last year, Love III was one of the people in charge of looking for a new oak that gathered characteristics similar to those who died. The ‘chosen’ should not be more than 90 meters from the place to which it was going to be transplanted to complicate the maneuver a little less. In total, the tree, the roots and the excavated surrounding land weighed more than 226 tons. The PGA Tour filmed the entire spectacular movement, which at the moment does not have many fans among the players.
The tree also required to move the leaving tee back and together the players have to refine a lot now. The ball output vertex is reduced by half of the 30 meters that it usually reaches, as the height of the branches prevent the clean blow. The PGA Tour has been attentive to the reactions of the players in the days prior to the start of the tournament, and the most effusive was Matt Fitzpatrick: “This is the dumbest tree I’ve seen in my life. Who was the brilliant idea of bringing this tree back? If someone could take it away, it would be fantastic,” said English as soon as I arrived at the TEE for the first time this year. “Golf is too easy, so it is better to make it more difficult,” joked Collin Morikawa. Scottie Scheffler commented: “Something aggressive.” It is not the island of 17, but of course the change becomes singular to hole 6.