The 'Funk Magical Memory Tour' of TPC Sawgrass
By Fred Funk with Steve Ellis
This article is reprinted with permission from PGA TOUR Partners Magazine. Click here to visit the magazine's web site.
Fred Funk is a mystery wrapped in cashmere inside a pair of two-toned adidas golf shoes. He's a 5-foot-8, 165-pound, straight-hitting enigma, who in 20 seasons on the PGA TOUR and less than two full seasons on the Champions Tour has hauled in more than $22 million in prize money.
And at soon-to-be 52 (June 14), the one-time University of Maryland golf coach is showing no signs of slowing down ... on either of the Tours! Early into the 2008 season, he had made five of six cuts on the PGA TOUR and won the opening event on the Champions Tour, the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai.
No wonder he wears a perpetual smile. Life -- and his golf game -- is in a good place for the "Funkmeister."
Among his eight PGA TOUR victories is the 2005 PLAYERS Championship, which he won a few months shy of his 49th birthday. It was a local-boy-makes-good triumph for the resident of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and made him the oldest player to claim the prestigious title. The win also earned Funk exempt status on the PGA TOUR through 2010, when he will be 54 years young.
Funk's victory on the daunting PLAYERS Stadium Course more than qualifies him to be our expert guide over its vaunted last three holes, touted as the most exhilarating stretch of risk-reward holes on the PGA TOUR and which Funk regards "as the stars of the greatest theater in golf."
The "Fred Funk Magical Memory Tour" starts where the title hopes of many players have ended -- on the par-5, 523-yard 16th hole, architect Pete Dye's start to a fabulous finish.
THE 16TH HOLE
Par 5, 523 yards
"The ideal tee shot is a little draw around the corner," Funk says. "If I can hit that downhill trough and get it to scoot a little bit to around the 228 front [sprinkler] head, that's my 'go-for' yardage. The aggressive line is to draw it off the green control boxes and around the corner. The long hitters, if they take it on that line, will go through the fairway and into the rough, which is dead. It's a hole where the long hitters will hit 3-woods off the tee.
"The lay up here teases you a little bit because if you get too close to the tree, you're blocked. Your lay-up iron is a 9-iron at most and your landing spot is a little bit center to right center because the more left you go the more tree you have to go over. The 96/112 head is ideal, leaving you a wedge or sand wedge into the green.
"Anywhere around the tree or left of it is trouble. The waste area of sand around the tree doesn't create much fun either. And usually the bermuda rough is a lot deeper at tournament time and causes a lot of trouble.
"The pin position where you can be most aggressive is front left. One of the hardest pins is back left. The typical Sunday pin is front right. That puts the front right bunker into play and the water into play. Guys bail out left and it's hard to get up and down."
THE 17TH HOLE
Par 3, 137 yards
"No, you cannot," Funk said matter-of-factly, when asked if there is a way TOUR players can ever block out the water. "The main strategy is to hit your ball on the green. You know the water is there and that it's all or nothing. It's a round-ruiner, but it's exciting as hell.
"The year I won, the wind was blowing 30-40 mph on Sunday, and I had to play 17 twice because we had 32 holes to finish. When I got into contention on my last 18, I started thinking, 'Boy, 17 is going to be brutal.'
"Sure enough, when I got there two groups were waiting to hit. Two guys in the first group hit in the water, and two guys in the group ahead of us hit in the water, and then Adam Scott, ahead of me in my group, hits it in the water, and I'm thinking, 'C'mon, this is not good.' I hit it on, but then I three-putted.
"Top one," Funk said laughing, when asked where No. 17 ranks among par-3s on the PGA TOUR, "because of where it falls, it's the 71st hole in a huge tournament, surrounded by the best amphitheater in golf, and it usually comes down to this hole.
"You have the typical nerves coming down the stretch, but even more so because of this hole. It's almost a little too much. Some complain it's too penalizing, but that's what makes it the great hole that it is. You know you got to suck it up and hit a good one."
THE 18TH HOLE
Par 4, 462 yards
"Easily one of the toughest finishing holes in golf," Funk says. "It places a high premium on hitting a good tee shot. There's really no room to bail. If you bail out you either leave yourself a long shot or you're in the right rough, which is not good. Or you hit a poor shot and you're in the water.
"Again, the year I won the wind was really howling in left to right and it was pushing a lot of guys' tee shots into the right rough. I decided to suck it up and I aimed down the boards on the left side and hit a little draw about head high. The wind held it from drawing too much (and into the water) and it went out about 270 yards. Normally, I would aim right center with a draw, but Mother Nature determines a lot how the hole plays. To this day it's still the best tee shot I've ever hit.
"The green has really got a lot of wild stuff happening, with three plateaus on the left side, and you have a ridge that divides the right side from the bumpy part on the left. And then you have those three little bermuda mounds and bunkers over there on the right side, which is dead.
"I hit it in the left bunker the year I won. I was aiming left of the the flag and betting the wind would bring it to the right, but I toed it and pulled it, and because I toed it the wind really hit it. I thought I knocked it into the lake, but, fortunately, I hit it solid enough to go into the bunker and that it rolled out of its egg and layed on the lip of its own impression. I made a nice up and down from five to six feet to win, but it looked more like 12 feet.
"This is not a hole you would want to have to make birdie on. You can do it, but it's very difficult. You have to be creative and lucky to get it on the green. You have to be willing to aim at the water and try to cut it off those boards, and if you over-cut it you end up in those bunkers and mounds on the right, which is really trouble."
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