Harbour Town makes pair of course changes

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (WTOC) - The RBC Heritage is set to tee off Thursday morning on Hilton Head Island.

When players tee off, they’ll notice changes designed to make two of the easiest holes on the course a little tougher.

At the par 5 second, the tee box has been backed up to the other side of the road just off from the first hole. That lengthens the hole from 502 yards to 550, forcing players to hit longer shots into a green they’ve been able to attack with middle irons recently.

At the other par five on the front nine- the fifth- that tee box has been pushed back about 25 yards. That move makes players consider the trees and the fairway bunker on the left and shape their tee shot again.

Sea Pines Director of Sports Operations John Farrell says they felt the changes were necessary to challenge the kinds of players on today’s PGA Tour.

“Because the ball goes so much further now and the club and the athletes are so much stronger now, we’re trying to get it where the landing areas are now back in play and the shots that were required of them to hit into those par fives has been restored. And I think we’ve been able to do that to an extent,” Farrell said.

Farrell says the other challenge of making changes was to not go away from course architect Pete Dye’s original vision for this course. He says they’ve deliberately only made longer holes that were intended to be long.

We’ll see how those changes at 2 and 5 impact scoring when first round play at the 54th RBC Heritage begins on Thursday morning.