After splitting the four morning foursomes matches, the United States and Great Britain & Ireland teams had a little bit of a break before the afternoon singles matches on Saturday. That gave the crew at Los Angeles Country Club some time to set up the 15th hole in a very unique way.
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A 284-yard par-3 is stout, but we're here to talk about the 79-yard 15th. That's insane! A majority of par-3s fall somewhere between 130-230 yards, so 79 is a clear departure from the norm.
Being that short, you'd think players were able to fire right at the pin without much difficulty. Well, thanks to the beauty of golf course architecture, that isn't the case.
The flag was just a few paces off the edges of the green and, as you can see, was guarded by some absolutely nasty rough and two bunkers. In addition to that, the surface of the green around the hole was extremely fast, making the chances of landing anything near the hole slim.
This kind of setup is what makes the match play format so fun. Whatever players had their match reach this hole were forced to execute an incredibly tricky shot under the pressure of playing for their country and their teams. The margins for error here were so slim and this hole could have swung the trajectory of a match, as it did for Maverick McNealy on Saturday afternoon. It was the perfect pressure cooker. Hopefully they do it again.
