17th Hole Asks, Do You Feel Lucky?

SOTOGRANDE, Spain — For anyone who plays the daily double, hits on 17 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-five 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 pivotal in the Ryder Cup, which begins today 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 only 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 three 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 possibility 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 fairway on a par five? If the guy is good enough to drive it down there on a 20-yard wide fairway, and he can hit it 320 yards, more power to him. It creates a little controversy, I’d say.”

Gee, why would he say that? Just because you hit a perfect drive down a narrow fairway and the ball can bounce off a mound into the rough? Or you lay up and your landing area is about as wide as a tongue depressor? Or you do manage to hit the green, but your ball rolls back into the water?

Of course, there is a chance that some of the matches will have ended before the 17th hole. Montgomerie was asked if Ballesteros had any advice on playing it.

“He said don’t ever play the hole,” said Montgomerie, who played a practice round Tuesday with Nick Faldo and Wednesday with Thomas Bjorn. “He was there when we played the hole yesterday. I laid up and made par and left quietly.”

Ballesteros said he thinks the European team has the advantage on No. 17 because (a) he designed it, and (b) he says so.

Ballesteros is about as subdued as titanium, so he reacted predictably when asked what he thought about the 17th hole.

“I think it is a very beautiful hole, a strategic hole, very special, very spectacular and dramatic,” he said.

Well, there you go. Tom Kite, the U.S. captain, said such a difficult hole coming late in a round is destined to be a huge factor in deciding the Ryder Cup. Other than that, Kite said his opinion on No. 17 doesn’t really matter much.

“Well, it’s not really up to me to approve or disapprove of the way the golf course is set up,” he said. “The golf course is what it is.”

While that’s not exactly going out on one of these cork tree limbs, it is probably something on which everyone can agree.

Valderrama Golf Club

Hole 17

511 yards

Par 5