ESPN.com - Golf Online - PGA Championship 2000 - Valhalla's beauty in eye of beholder

By David Kraft
ESPN Golf Online
Friday, August 18

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Big Bird, the Harvey Penick of the rugrat generation, often says: "One of these things is not like the other."

What, then, should we make of the following foursome: Augusta National, Pebble Beach, St. Andrews, Valhalla?

Past champion defense

Mark Brooks won at Valhalla in 1996, and not surprisingly he is of the course's defenders:

"I know a lot has been said about playing second fiddle to all the other courses. I think it's actually the perfect venue to have the final leg of the millennium championships. It couldn't be more fitting playing on a course designed by easily the best player in the last century on a course that I know he had a lot of input on and is one he actually, I'm sure, spent a lot of Time making sure it was right.

"I think it's a great test. And we can't play all -- or should we play all -- our championships on pre-Depression golf courses. Most of those have been changed, altered, modified, refurbished, lengthened. You are not going to find an old golf course that we play today in major championships, or even good Tour events, that has not been changed in some significant manner.

"So, I think this is a great setting and I hope they continue to find others, because there have been a lot of great golf courses built in the last 20 years that are deserving of major championships. I commend the PGA for finding them."

Which one doesn't belong? Even Regis would be embarrassed to ask this question.

"I think Valhalla is a perfectly nice golf course -- for a Nike Tour event," David Duval once said.

Valhalla Golf Club, a 430-acre track of Kentucky farmland developed by Dwight Gahm and designed by Jack Nicklaus less than two decades ago, has taken more abuse than John Daly's Weight Watchers counselor as it gets set to host the 82nd PGA Championship.

"I'm not going to tell you it's my favorite golf course in the world," said Justin Leonard, who finished fifth here four years ago in the PGA. "But we're all playing it this week. So that's where we are."

Much of the dissing of Valhalla is historical -- the course underwhelmed many pros when it first hosted the PGA in 1996, when 46 players bettered par. The fact that it was a down-to-the-wire finish with Mark Brooks and Kenny Perry didn't help, either.

Plus, few courses compare with the aforementioned venues that hosted millennium majors, and with the PGA heading to prestigious courses like the Atlanta Athletic Club next year, followed by Hazeltine National and Oak Hill, new-kid-on-the-block Valhalla doesn't seem to stack up.

Much of it is because of the perception of the PGA Championship itself -- the year's fourth major and generally regarded as weak alongside The Masters, U.S. Open and British Open, despite the fact that more top players are in this field than in any of the others.

And much of it is financial. The PGA has a 50 percent stake in the club -- expected to be 100 percent by the end of the year -- meaning it stands to make more money here than at any other venue in the country. And nobody likes to think they're playing at a venue strictly because of the almighty dollar.

But the PGA Championship is here this year. It was supposed to be back here in 2004 before the PGA moved the tournament to Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. The Ryder Cup is here in 2007.

Like it or not, Valhalla, Gahm's dream come true of a major championship course cut partly from the flood plain of a creek, partly from the lush Kentucky woodlands, will be thrust into the golf world's consciousness, whether it likes it or not.

"I feel strongly that the PGA will be here forever ... and we believe in this golf course," said Jim Awtrey, CEO of the PGA of America.

Few pros will openly attack Valhalla -- at least publicly. Privately, they say it's nothing more than the kind of TPC course the PGA Tour sees frequently, that it has too few memorable holes, too many trumped-up ones and too few ways to separate the great from the not so great.

"I don't remember much about Valhalla from 1996 other than they had a lot of strange holes with shots that just didn't appeal to my eye," said 1988 PGA champion Jeff Sluman.

"It doesn't quite live up to the history of Pebble Beach or St. Andrews," said Ernie Els, "but it's a good golf course to play a major championship at and we'll have to see how we play it."

"If you're asking if I'd rather be at Winged Foot or Crooked Stick, that's different," said Fred Couples. "But any course can be a championship caliber course, so it's wrong to say we shouldn't be there (Valhalla). It will be a challenge."

Valhalla has its share of quirks -- the option of playing a second fairway on the par-5 seventh hole for one -- and has its share of memorable holes -- the 13th is a beauty of a short par-4. There are birdies to be had both early and late, including a risk-reward par-5 18th, the same hole that cost Perry the title in 1996 when he bogeyed the hole after Brooks had birdied it.

Overall, Valhalla is what it is -- a vintage mid-'80s Nicklaus design, with plenty of mounds alongside the fairways and severely undulating greens that put a premium on the ability to hit the ball high to the flag.

"It sets up well for anyone who hits the ball high," said Tiger Woods, who first saw the course for a practice round less than two weeks ago. "Obviously, that is the way Nicklaus golf courses are designed. You have got to bring the ball in high."

The course has been lengthened slightly since 1996 -- 21 yards on the first hole and a bigger tee on the second the most noticeable. And, unlike 1996, a parallel fairway will be in play on the 597-yard seventh, giving players a chance to shave 60 yards off the hole but running the risk of hitting the ball through a narrow passageway that, if missed, will probably leave them with a 220-yard third shot into the green.

"If you're playing well enough to win the tournament, you're playing well enough to hit it into the left (shorter) fairway," said Phil Mickelson.

Leonard, as expected, disagrees. "I think everybody should have to play the same fairway," he said.

"It's easy to criticize this golf course, but it was just built in 1986," said Loren Roberts. "Who knows after 60 or 80 years -- it might have its own aura about it. You have to give any new golf course some time."

"Everyone wants to see Winged Foot -- a traditional course with trees everywhere," said two-time U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen. "But I think this is a fantastic golf course and a beautiful setting. It tests your game well and there are a lot of good holes."

In addition to a little more length and other tweaks -- 12 of the 18 holes have had some sort of adjustment since 1996 -- Valhalla has a lot more trouble than it had four years ago. The rough is at 4½-inches -- U.S. Open territory. Several bunkers have been added to narrow landing areas.

"It's a better golf course than it was four years ago," said Roberts. "There's more grass on it. The rough is a little higher. The greens are a little firmer."

Of course, little, if any, of the pre-tournament scuttlebutt will matter come Sunday. Woods is seeking his third straight major, looking to become the first man since Ben Hogan in 1953 to do so. Els is looking to snap a string of three straight runner-up finishes in majors. The field features 91 of the top 100 players in the world.

The winner will still get his named engraved on the Wanamaker Trophy.

"At the end of the day, it is not really the golf course," said Greg Norman, who has never won the PGA. "At the end of the day, it is the players and who finishes up with the lowest possible score."