Echavarria eagles final hole for 2-shot Zozo lead

PGA TOUR player Zac Blair is a golf course architecture aficionado with plans on building his own golf course, The Buck Club, in his native Utah. Blair is offering his architecture expertise to PGATOUR.COM to give fans an expert’s insight on some of the unique holes on the PGA TOUR. You can follow Zac on twitter at @z_blair and follow The Buck Club at @thebuckclub. Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth Raynor have blessed the golf world with several amazing golf courses, including National Golf Links of America, Chicago Golf Club, Fishers Island and the Golf Course at Yale. This week’s The Greenbrier Classic, contested on the Old White TPC, will give many fans and players their first glimpse at the work of these amazing Golden Age architects. Macdonald and Raynor are known for their use of template holes, which were heavily influenced by some of the greatest holes on the British Isles. They often repeated these template holes from courses to course, and we will see one this week at the Old White TPC’s 234-yard, par-3 eighth hole, named Redan. The Redan hole is one of the more famous holes in golf. Even if you’ve never heard the term “Redanâ€� before, you’ve most likely played a hole inspired by the original Redan, the 190-yard, par-3 15th hole at Scotland’s North Berwick Golf Club. It is widely considered one of the best par-3s in the world, and has been replicated many times over. Macdonald, who also won the first U.S. Amateur, described a Redan this way in the book Scotland’s Gift: “Take a narrow tableland, tilt it a little from right to left, dig a deep bunker on the front side, approach it diagonally and you have a Redan.â€� The way the green is pitched/tilted from front-right to back-left, any shot that flies over the front-left bunker typically will bounce over the back of the green. Long isn’t a terrible miss, but if played properly you can surely get the ball on the putting surface. With a deep front-left bunker guarding this green, the proper play is aim at the front right corner of the green in hopes of using the raised kicker to funnel balls to the back portion of the putting surface. In my opinion, the strategy that goes into playing this type of hole is what makes the Redan so cool. The eighth hole at the Old White TPC is one of the best versions of the Redan that I have ever played because it is the proper distance for today’s technology and because the green has the correct amount of contour to feed balls right to left. You may stand on the tee and see a back-left hole location and think firing directly at the hole may be the correct play. This strategy couldn’t be any further from the truth. Missing short-left and anywhere right of the green will surely lead to over-par scores, so avoid these misses at all costs. If you execute your tee shot properly you should no doubt have a good look at birdie on this classic Redan.

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CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — Whether the turf is sun-baked or rain-soaked, brown or green, no matter if players attack with driver or proceed cautiously with irons, Carnoustie showed Thursday in The Open Championship that it can hold its own. In what might be the easiest conditions of the week, Kevin Kisner took only 22 putts, one of them for a long eagle that sparked his 5-under 66. It gave him a one-shot lead and little more than bragging rights in the house of stars where he is staying. One shot behind was a collection of players with little history in golf’s biggest events, including Erik Van Rooyen and Zander Lombard of South Africa. Tony Finau had eight birdies to offset his share of mistakes to join them at 67. Of the top seven on the leaderboard, none has won a major. Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm powered their way to 69s, going for the green on short par 4s. Tiger Woods took out his driver one time and shot 71, a round slowed by a short putt he missed and a pot bunker he couldn’t avoid. But no one could go really low. The 31 players who managed to break par were separated by just four shots. “The golf course is great for me,” Kisner said. “The conditions have been fine. Going forward, you never know what you’re going to have in Scotland. I know the rain is coming in tomorrow. I don’t think the rain is going to affect how the golf course is playing in one day, but I have to just keep doing what I’m doing. If I have 22 putts the next three days, I bet I’ll have a pretty good shot.” Three of his housemates also were under par — PGA champion Justin Thomas (69), two-time major champion Zach Johnson (70) and Rickie Fowler (70). Another is defending champion Jordan Spieth, who was in range of the lead until he made one mental error and two bad swings while dropping four shots over the last four holes for a 72 that didn’t do too much damage. Even in gentle weather by Scottish standards, Carnoustie served up its usual dose of craziness. Padraig Harrington holed a short putt for par on the opening hole and turned to leave when he saw a golf ball trundle onto the green. It was the tee shot of U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka, who hit driver off the tee to set up an easy birdie. That was as easy as it got for Koepka for the next two hours. He shot 41 on the front nine. And then he shot 31 on the back nine. “The scores probably weren’t as low as we anticipated, but 1 over is not the worst,” Koepka said. “Definitely didn’t shoot myself out of it, which very easily could have happened.” Sergio Garcia hit a drive that never stopped rolling on No. 10 until it dropped over the edge of Barry Burn. The water was shallow enough for the former Masters champion to smash through a ball rock and water to get the club on the ball and escape without further damage. Carnoustie was not kind to everyone. Dustin Johnson, the world’s No. 1 player, managed only one birdie in his round of 76, his highest start in The Open since his debut at Turnberry in 2009. Masters champion Patrick Reed, Hideki Matsuyama, Bubba Watson and Garcia were all at 75 and now have to worry about just getting to the weekend. On the longest day — from Sandy Lyle hitting the opening tee shot at 6:35 a.m. and the group including newcomer Bronson Burgoon finishing off the first round nearly 13 hours later — everyone had their own style of getting around the course reputed to be the toughest links in golf. “Different players are going to have a different way to see how they’re going to play this golf course,” McIlroy said. “I know Tiger is out there hitting a lot of irons off tees and doing it his own way. No one’s going to argue with him — he did it like at Hoylake, and he was able to win there.” There’s one difference, Woods said. “Hoylake is flat. This is not,” Woods said. “And when Hideki hits a 3-wood 400 yards into a burn, you know it’s kind of quick. A couple of my 6-irons went about 240. It’s hard for people to understand it, but it’s just the nature of this golf course.” Kisner’s best score in three previous trips to The Open was a 69 in the final round last year at Royal Birkdale. The firm, crusty conditions are not entirely new. It reminds him of Palmetto, the Alister Mackenzie design in his hometown of Aiken, South Carolina. Not so familiar was his putting. Kisner, normally solid with his striking and his short game, has not contended since the week after the Masters, and he putted so poorly at the Greenbrier two weeks ago that he spent most of his time on putting when he arrived at Carnoustie. “Worked really hard on my speed, which is always the hardest thing for us to get accustomed to here,” he said. “And the ball started coming off on the line, and when I’m doing that, I feel like I can hole them all.”

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LAS VEGAS — Sung Kang found the missing piece to his game and put everything together Thursday in the Shriners Children’s Open for a 10-under 61 that gave him a two-shot lead after the first round. RELATED: Leaderboard | Phil Mickelson among early adopters of Callaway’s UW hybrids Kang already had nine birdies against one bogey when he hit 7-wood from a fairway bunker to 18 feet on the par-5 closing hole at TPC Summerlin and made the eagle putt. “Last few weeks I wasn’t driving it very good, but my iron play was pretty sharp and my putting was pretty good,” Kang said. “So I was just thinking if I can get my driver somewhere in play I could actually score better.” Sungae Im made five straight birdies on the back and, along with an 8-foot eagle putt on No. 9 at the turn, shot a 63. He was joined by Charley Hoffman and Chad Ramey, who birdied all but two holes on the back nine. Matthew Wolff, who lost in a three-many playoff last year at the TPC Summerlin, was among those at 64. Sam Burns, coming off a victory last week in Mississippi, was poised to move closer to the lead until his tee shot on the par-3 17th hole found the water. He made double bogey — this after four straight birdies — and had to settle for a 66. Las Vegas marked the return of six more Ryder Cup players on both teams, and the Europeans seemed to fare well. Viktor Hovland had a 67, with Paul Casey at 68 and Ian Poulter at 69. Brooks Koepka also shot a 68, while Harris English was at even-par 71 and Scottie Scheffler opened with a 74. Rickie Fowler failed to reach the FedExCup Playoffs last year. With his wife expecting their first child, he began the new season in Las Vegas and had to rally with three birdies over his last six holes to salvage a 72. Kang missed only two greens, one of them a par putt from 15 feet on the eighth hole, and his lone bogey was a three-putt from 20 feet on the par-4 third. The par on his penultimate hole is what he savored because of the momentum he saved, especially with how he finished. He hit a slight draw with his 7-wood out of the sand, and then Matt Kuchar was on the same line with a chip, allowing Kang to see the would would snap off to the left. He knew the eagle putt was good before it reached the hole. “When the putt is 6 feet short of the hole it was just outside the right edge and I knew it was going to go,” he said. The low scoring was not a surprise — it took 7 under to make the cut last year — especially in such calm, warm conditions. “You get no wind, you can start attacking this golf course,” said Hoffman, who played golf at UNLV and lived in town until recently moving back home to San Diego. “It starts blowing 15 to 20 (mph), it’s a different animal.”

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