‘The Bear Trap’ at PGA National leaves ‘no place to hide’ | Golf Central | Golf Channel

Paige Mackenzie joins Golf Central to discuss what makes “The Bear Trap” at PGA National so difficult to play and what the treacherous stretch of holes means for golfers at the Cognizant Classic. #GolfChannel #GolfCentral #PaigeMackenzie
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‘The Bear Trap’ at PGA National leaves ‘no place to hide’ | Golf Central | Golf Channel
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well the Florida swing take a look at
the toughest courses on the PGA tour
last season for non major events and
what do you notice about the next four
weeks all four of the courses that make
up the Florida swing are on that list in
the top 10 of course inis Brook the
hardest of them all but there’s PGA
National that bear trap down at the end
and it is lurking and with that we say
hello to Paige McKenzie you know as we
said the next four weeks page they uh
all will have significant bite but a
good deal of the teeth marks this week
will no doubt be felt at the bear trap
so but let’s for a moment zoom out a
little bit generally what makes for a
winner here on this
course uh well the bear trap proves a
microcosm for what goes on at PGA
National it provides the challenges that
the players will face that ultimately
determine the champion so I’ll start
there and take you through what the pa
what the players face when they face the
bear trap is the series of three holes
starting at the 15th a par 3 179 yards
and there is no place to hide uh
effectively no bailout to this hole
because you can see it’s surrounded by
the water and not much room to the left
either um in fact for the players that
do miss it left as you can see that
bunker gets quite a workout they average
uh two10 of a shot more than anybody
else and of course anybody missing it to
the right they’re in serious trouble if
you do hit it in the water so once you
get through the 15th hole then you head
to the 16th hole this is the only part
four in the mix and it’s a challenge for
both off of the tea as well as into the
green so much of this whole putting a
good ball placement in the Fairway uh
you can see then you’re going across the
water towards this green and what I saw
last year when you looked at what the
players did on their drive it’s even the
best of drives these black dots are
bogeys by the way red dots birdies uh
the blue is pars the black to see how
good those drives are out front they
still weren’t even able to make par and
a lot of that has to do with this whole
location that was in the final round and
that can be used throughout the week
this week and in the front right or in
the right hole location brings into play
the bunker uh next to the green and what
that does is causes a lot of problems
for anybody that tries to get too
aggressive from a good drive and goes at
this hole ends up in the right bunker
and you can see the trouble from the
right bunker averaging almost over 4 and
a half so over half a shot over par if
you find that bunker on the right and
then you see a few more of those black
dot bogeys on the green so even if you
try to bail to the left this is the most
three putted green on the golf course so
really from T to Green a difficult hole
then you move into the 17th hole the
balabit hole on this golf course and as
if the the time in the around doesn’t
make it stressful standing on this tea
looking at the green and knowing that if
you miss that high right uh little
floater you’re in serious trouble and
you’ll be sinking towards the bottom um
and if we look at what was done last
season on the 17th pole you know that uh
it can cause a lot of trouble but even
so Jimmy they’re not even the three most
difficult holes it like I said it’s a
microcosm for what the players face all
round long so to get to the question
that you originally asked which is what
does it take
I want to go back to the last five
winners it is not a putting contest here
this is the average field rank for the
players that won you’re looking at
22.8 uh even the last two Champions
improveed that average the three
previous Keith Mitchell Sun JM and Matt
Jones averaged over 33rd in the field so
it’s average for the players that make
the cut then you go to chipping and in
Strokes around the green it’s a less
emphasis cuz as you even heard from
Chris Kirk it’s a ball Striker Golf
Course um 19% of the stroke game total
comes from around the green And even
Chris Kirk was outside the top 30 last
year in this category when he won then
you move to the the next most important
aspect and that’s off of the tea and and
I think Chris Kirk put it wisely when he
said it’s not a bombers bombers course
it’s much more about strategy three of
the five Champions were actually top 15
in driving accuracy so Strokes being off
the tea takes into account both the
distance and the position off of the te
but so much more of it is about position
here than in some other golf courses um
and then you’ve got stroke gain approach
which typically is the determining
Factor at almost every single week um
but this was the most consistent Factor
when I looked in the Last 5 Years there
were no outliers uh everybody was in the
top 10 with exception of Step sep straa
who was 19th in the field so that was
the the biggest outlier in The Strokes
gain approach category so really it
truly again goes back to the ball
striking and you can see why Jimmy in
going through the microcosm of the bear
trap is there so much trouble if you’re
off your targets if you’re not hitting
the fairways or the greens yeah we we
seem to forget that this is a resort
course and listening to your talk page I
just can’t help wonder how many golf
balls on an average week do they sell in
that Pro Shop must be amazing you don’t
relax on the course you relax off the
course at the resort this
one