Par-5 17th Hole May Be Ryder’s Unlucky Number

For anyone who plays the daily double, hits on 15 in blackjack, takes the points every Sunday and thinks a really great fabric is green felt, we give you the infamous 17th hole at Valderrama Golf Club.

It’s 511 yards of roulette. This hole doesn’t need marshals, it needs dealers. When the Ryder Cup arrives at the par-5 17th hole, well, anything can happen, because playing this thing is a definite gamble.

Seve Ballesteros, the European captain, redesigned the hole, which could make for some interesting irony if somehow the 17th becomes the pivotal hole in the Ryder Cup, which begins Friday near the blue-green water of the Mediterranean Sea.

Yes, the hole stinks: “The worst hole we play all year,” Colin Montgomerie said.

“I know who designed it, and I don’t care. He may be the best player who ever lived, but he is no course designer. It makes this course a lottery.”

No. 17 is not just a nice number, it’s also a nice hole: “There’s nothing wrong with the 17th at all,” said Mark McNulty, who won the 1996 Volvo Masters at Valderrama.

You either love the 17th hole or you hate it, which is easy to understand once you take a look at the thing. Ballesteros worked on No. 17 in 1993 when he shortened it by 60 yards to entice players to gamble on reaching the green in two shots.

But Ballesteros was just getting started. He also put in a 20-yard wide swath of rough 280 yards from the tee to affect the long drivers. Then he positioned a pond in front of the green as well as a creek that meanders down the left rough. He also carved a swale behind the green.

He wasn’t through. Two years later, Ballesteros added a series of seven mounds about 3 feet high and 10 feet in diameter in the driving area, then narrowed the landing area for the second shot by about half. This was supposed to entice players to try for the green in two.

To top it all off, Ballesteros replaced the bunker behind the green with three of them and also shaved the front bank of the green to increase the chance that balls landing short would roll back into the water.

Now, for anyone who thinks what Ballesteros did sounds a lot like a few famous holes at Augusta National, you have the honors. The pond (No. 15 at Augusta), the swale (No. 13 at Augusta), the mounds (No. 14) at Augusta) and the shaved green (No. 15) are all copies of what players see at the Masters.

Not everyone is impressed. Mark O’Meara doesn’t care what he sees at Augusta, he just doesn’t want to see 20 yards of rough across the fairway.

“I don’t agree with it,” he said. “Why should you put rough right across the middle of a par 5?”