Drive Straight Down a Tree-Lined Street

REDMOND, Wash. —  Up here at Sahalee Country Club, you can’t see the golf course for the trees. The 80th PGA Championship begins today at a place that looks like a forest with a few sand traps. It doesn’t need marshals, it needs rangers. The only guy who should do well here is that guy named Woods.

There are so many trees that are so tall and so close to the fairway, it could all be intimidating.

“I think the best way to prepare for this course would be to go to New York and maybe play down Fifth Avenue,” Lee Janzen said.

And so it goes in the sunny Pacific Northwest, where the fourth and final major of the year may well be decided by the player whose 14th club is a chain saw.

Staging a major in an area that doesn’t have a PGA Tour event and at a course that few of the players had seen before this week is unusual, but Sahalee may prove to be a popular decision.

“It’s a new venue for everyone, and we’re going to find out who the quick learners are,” Jeff Sluman said.

Meanwhile, about all those trees . . .

Tom Watson said the height of the trees gives the course a vertical look.

“That’s unusual, and it also makes it a very narrow golf course,” he said. “Many of the shots look like they are through a tunnel. You have to hit the ball straight to play this course well.”

Sahalee isn’t particularly long--6,906 yards--and it probably will play short because of the warm, dry weather that has baked and hardened the fairways.

The eighth hole, a 444-yard par four, has drawn a lot of attention, mainly because the golfers probably will need to hit a three wood off the tee. It’s not the hardest drive on the course, but the chances of landing a ball on a fairway that cuts to the right and slopes to the left and narrows where a ball would land when you hit a driver tends to add to the degree of difficulty.

Janzen said it’s just as hard after that--a long iron shot to a small green that slopes from back to front.

No. 11 is no joy ride, either. It’s a 546-yard par five dogleg left that had been played by driving over the trees. They’re so tall, you can’t do that now.

There are also two trees about 25 yards apart down the fairway, sort of goal posts. There won’t be many field goals here, though.

Fred Couples is from Seattle, but he had not seen Sahalee since 1978, so he’s as interested as anyone to see what kind of player will do well keeping his golf ball out of the trees.

“I’d say your typical, patient guys that are playing very well are going to do well,” Couples said. “And that’s about as dumb as something you can say.”

Tiger Woods, who finished tied for 29th last year at Winged Foot in his only other PGA, isn’t going to count himself out this week at Sahalee . . . but he doesn’t do that any other week, either.

Woods has nine top-10 finishes this year and a victory at the BellSouth Classic. In his last three starts, he tied for ninth at the Motorola Western Open, was third at the British Open and tied for fourth at the Buick Open.

“I think this golf course sets up perfect for me because while a lot of guys are hitting three-woods and possibly drivers, I can hit my two-iron out there at 240 or 280 and it’s perfect,” Woods said.

Meanwhile, there is the Mark O’Meara factor. O’Meara, the Masters and British Open champion, is trying to become the only person besides Ben Hogan to win three majors in one year. Hogan won the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open in 1953.

O’Meara sounded pleased to have the opportunity.

“It’s nice to be up in the Pacific Northwest,” he said.

Davis Love III hopes it’s just as nice here as it was last year in New York, where he won the PGA and his first major title. He missed the cut at the FedEx St. Jude Classic after finishing eighth at the British Open, but Love said his sore back is all right.

After he took a close look at Sahalee, Love was asked what kind of game works here. “Straight works,” he said.

And maybe O’Meara works too, Love said.

“Well, it’s going to be tough to win this tournament no matter what you’ve done for the rest of the year,” he said. “Mark’s coming in with a lot of confidence. He’s a very patient, scrambling, hard-working golfer. He’s just getting his dues right now, I think.

“He holes a bunch at the Masters and the next thing you know he’s one of the great players of the game. And that kind of snuck up on everybody. But it just kind of confirmed what the players have always known, that Mark O’Meara is one of the great players of all time.”

So history awaits . . . and so do a bunch of trees.