Inside decision to change brutally hard 10th hole into par 5 at PGA National

"Give ’em a break."

That was the prevailing drift when Steve Rintoul, PGA TOUR Vice President of Rules & Officiating, started talking to players, officials, caddies, and others last summer about a dramatic mid-round change at PGA National, the host course for the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches.

The proposal: Transforming the difficult 10th hole from a 508-yard par 4 to a 530-yard par 5.

“One of the biggest things was when I was a chief referee, when I looked at the overall flow of the golf course, the par 5s came at No. 3 and then at No. 18 and there's no par 5s for that whole stretch in the middle,” Rintoul said. “And I mean five through 17 are just hard hole, hard hole, hard hole. And there was just no letup, no break, especially when the wind blows.”

The stats bear this out.

Last season, the 14-hole stretch from No. 4 through 17 at PGA National was the longest on the PGA TOUR without a par 5. That was a problem for a few reasons, one being that with a two-tee start some unlucky pros got stuck playing the unforgiving 10th at 6:45 a.m., the equivalent of getting hit in the face with a skillet before you’ve gotten the sand out of your eyes.

The other issue. Anyone who got off to a bad start on the front nine had almost no chance to steady himself on the back and would thus stagger away feeling bruised and battered.

Rintoul considered the numbers, the agronomy and the flow. He spoke to tournament host Jack Nicklaus, plus active players like Billy Horschel, Keith Mitchell, Webb Simpson and others.

To a man, everyone loved the idea of the change, and it was the toughness of The Champion course, where just four players reached double digits under par last year — led by winner Chris Kirk and Eric Cole at 14-under — made the decision easy.

“Traditionally the 10th hole as a par 4 has played as the hardest hole on the golf course,” Rintoul said. “Always ranked No. 1. So, I'm like, well my eye from 30,000 feet was like, I think we need to seriously look and shift No. 10 back from a par 4 to a par 5, which would be a historic moment in TOUR history. We never do that. We're always going the other way.”

Nicklaus said he liked the dogleg-right 10th better as a par 5 — as it plays for the general public. That opinion carried a lot of weight with Rintoul, and with 2024 bringing a new title sponsor, it seemed like a good time to make the change. Rintoul got in touch with the Nicklaus Design team, “to see what we could do with the fairway at the corner, the fairway width of the corner,” he said.

“This was right before the overseed was going in, and we were able to change the fairway lines at the corner just a little bit to make the players play more down the hole instead of over the corner trees,” he continued. “… Then I called (NBC Golf Producer) Tommy Roy, I said, ‘You do this show, you see it every year. What do you think?’ And he goes, ‘It would be great to have some ebb and flow in the show because it’s all pars and bogeys.’”

With birdies and even eagles now in play at No. 10, and with the newly added par 5 serving as a catalyst for players to make a big mid-round move, fans should see a difference. Perhaps not coincidentally, there’s been an uptick in field strength, too, as local stars like Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler have returned, as officials hoped they would.

Those players and others have already noticed a difference in practice rounds.

“You'll hit maybe a long iron or a 5 wood into that (10th) green,” said Daniel Berger, who finished second to Padraig Harrington in a playoff at PGA National in 2015. “But it's just another birdie opportunity on a course that doesn't have a lot of birdie opportunities.

“Maybe a little bit of relief in the middle of the round,” he continued, “if you're starting on the front nine to look at the scorecard and say, 'Hey, if I hit a good drive, there's a chance for a birdie or an eagle and kind of get the round going a little bit.'”

One additional nuance: Now that the hole is a par 5, tournament officials have a lot more options for pin locations than they did when players were hitting long-iron approach shots.

Kirk anticipates the change at the 10th affecting players mentally more than anything.

“Scoring average probably won't be a whole lot different,” he said, “but I guess mentally it may be nice to have a hole that's in your mind a little bit easier, even though it’s the same exact hole pretty much before you get into that stretch on the back nine.”

They’ll have Rintoul, plus Nicklaus and others, to thank for a welcome change.