Richard Dunn
A longtime danger zone for members of the Senior PGA Tour, the
fifth hole at Newport Beach Country Club is now more customer friendly.
Not that the senior tour's fifty-something field needs a break when they
play in the upcoming Toshiba Senior Classic, but hole No. 5 has been
anything but welcoming for the past four years.
Newport Beach has hosted the senior tour event since 1996, and each year
players have "taken the fifth" midway through the front nine when it
comes to making birdies.
The 430-yard par four ranked as the toughest hole on the golf course in
1996 and '97, was the fourth-hardest hole in '98 and ranked second last
year, inducing a tournament-high 67 bogeys (tied with hole No. 9), even
though the famous fifth was shortened 25 yards before the 1999 event.
But a mound was constructed behind the fifth green last fall and club
officials believe it will make the hole easier.
While it's still no cream puff, the fifth hole should certainly lend
itself to more birdies in this year's Toshiba Classic March 3-5.
"Before, you would look through that green and see the 11th green (behind
it), but now the new mound blocks that, and the green is framed in with
the mounding and palm trees," Newport Beach Country Club President Jerry
Anderson said. "It gives that hole much better definition of distance to
the green, and you're no longer looking at just the 11th fairway and 11th
green. You see the mounding there, too. It kind of frames everything in."
The hole has always played uphill and upwind, requiring careful club
selection on the approach shot to the green, which is bordered by two
bunkers.
"With the new mound behind five, that's going to help the players select
the proper club," Newport Beach head professional Paul Hahn said. "That's
a much easier green now visually with the mounding. They'll be hitting
some mid- to short-iron shots in there now."
Hahn said the mound will make the hole seem shorter to the players.
Not everyone has struggled on the fifth, however. In 1996, after the
event was moved to Newport Beach from Mesa Verde Country Club, Jim
Colbert made a living there, lapping the field with birdies in all three
rounds to win the tournament.
Speaking of mounds, former major league pitcher Jim Abbott, a Corona del
Mar resident and member of the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, has been
taking golf lessons from Hahn for the past month and his swing reportedly
is improving.
"He can hit that ball," Hahn said of Abbott, who played for Milwaukee
