One hole stood out to many golfers participating in the 105th PGA Championship at Oak Hill.
“Six is probably the hardest hole I’ve ever played,” Scottie Scheffler told Golf.com. “I don’t know what everybody else is saying or the scoring average, but it’s pretty stinking hard.”
Oak Hill’s dreaded sixth hole is 503 yards with a creek straddling the left side. It caused many bogeys and double bogeys throughout the week, but the pros seemed to figure it out by the weekend. ESPN broadcasters pointed to Nos. 6, 7, 14 and 15 as holes golfers should be wary of.
The sixth hole almost cost Brooks Koepka his fifth major title. He bogeyed the par-4 hole on Sunday, but still won the tournament by two strokes.
Scheffler shot par-par-bogey-par on the sixth hole in each round. He was the tournament leader entering Round 3 and finished the tournament in a tie for second place with a seven-under par 273, two strokes behind Koepka, who went par-par-par-bogey on the sixth hole through the tournament’s four rounds.
Viktor Hovland bogeyed the sixth hole in the first round but made par the rest of the way. He had a solid strategy.
“Six is a very hard tee shot, especially today,” Hovland said. “I hit it a great drop to the left side of the fairway and I still had 225 yards in there to a back left bend. … It’s just one of those holes where you just try to give yourself an easy par, and if you can, you try to limit the double bogeys. If you make a bogey there it’s not the end of the world.
“There’s a few of those holes out there where if you miss the fairway off the tee you’re going to have a really hard time making pars. You just try to hit fairways and greens.”
Oak Hill’s sixth hole
Club pro Michael Block was a fan favorite after an historic weekend that saw him finish in a tie for 15th. He even aced the 15th hole. But the California-based “every man” even found trouble on the sixth hole when the St. Louis native double bogeyed the sixth hole on Saturday.
By Sunday, though, many of the tournament’s top golfers had their plans intact for the par-4 sixth hole. Many participants posted respectable scores in the final round. Here’s how some of the top finishers did at the sixth hole on Sunday:
Birdie: Justin Rose, Cameron Smith, Patrick Reed, Stephan Jaeger.
Par: Viktor Hovland, Scottie Scheffler, Corey Conners, Cam Davis, Victor Perez, Patrick Cantlay, Tyrrell Hatton, Eric Cole, Mito Pereira, Xander Schauffele, Shane Lowry, Justin Suh, Michael Block, Matt NeSmith, Ryan Fox.
Bogey: Brooks Koepka, Sepp Straka, Kurt Kitayama, Alex Smalley, Min Woo Lee.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: How golfers fared at Oak Hill’s dreaded 6th hole at PGA Championship