The 17th at the WM Phoenix Open Has Shenanigans, But Also Helps Determine Winners

Next door to the raucous 16th, the 17th at TPC Scottsdale appears tame but its marshals have stories. In the tournament, it also plays a pivotal role.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The best place to watch the WM Phoenix Open isn’t necessarily The Loudest Hole in Golf, the par-3 16th hole known as The Colosseum.

It’s the drivable par-4 17th, a risk-reward hole that lacks a similarly catchy calling-card title. Maybe, The Loudest Hole in Golf’s Next-Door Neighbor?

The 17th features layers of strategy. Go for the green and risk finding the pond or lay up and if so, lay up where? That Sunday position in back near the water is a classic sucker pin. At 16, the pros have a short iron in their hands. The only strategy: Don’t get booed.

“I worked at 16 for six years,” a volunteer marshal tells me near the 17th green, where he’s working this WMPO. “Then they turned the music up loud in between groups. I mean, loud. That was it for me, I got out of there.”

Jim (not his real name because he doesn’t want his superiors to think he shirked his fan-wrangling duties by talking to a media guy—he didn’t, we chatted only while each threesome walked into the teeth of Thursday’s blustery northeast wind to reach their tee shots), was awarded a 10-year service pin from the tournament this year. “I’m pretty sure I’ve done at least 12 years,” he said.

While the 16th gets attention for the crazy antics of the 15,000-to-20,000 vocal fans and the equally crazy responses from players trying to curry favor, the 17th is a key hole that often determines the tournament’s outcome.

Last year, Sahith Theegala was tied for the lead when he teed it up at 17 in Sunday’s final round. He went for the green, his shot took an unfortunate kick left and went in the water. Some guy named Scottie Scheffler notched his first PGA Tour victory as a result.

In 2016, Rickie Fowler fumbled a great chance to win when he debated with his caddie about what club to hit at 17 on Sunday. He went with driver, hit it over the green and into the water. In a playoff with Hideki Matsuyama, Fowler had to play the 17th a second time. Another debate followed. Fowler hit driver again, this time into the water left, and lost the tournament.

“His caddie said, 'wrong club,' and Rickie told him, 'I’ll hit what I want,'” Jim said. “I hated to see it. I was rooting hard for Rickie. He seems like a really nice kid. Of course, at my age, they all seem like kids.”

Jim liked that Fowler was one of the players who usually had a box of souvenirs—hats, visors, balls—to toss into the crowd. “A lot of the young guys learned that from Phil Mickelson,” Jim said. “The people here followed him religiously. He was an Arizona State guy so this was like his hometown. The crowds were all over him but I never saw him get impatient. He was always smiling and waving and signing autographs. Ricky Barnes was another one who brought stuff to give to the crowd. It’s like Gary McCord said on CBS, 'you’ve got to feed the animals at the zoo.'”

The marshals at 17 see plenty in the crowd ... and some golf :: Gary Van Sickle/Sports Illustrated

The 17th is no zoo. It’s more like a laboratory with different experiments. Is driver too much to hit off the tee? Is 3-wood too little? What club is required to take that deep bunker in the middle of the fairway out of play? And what’s a good angle to hit a second shot from depending on the pin location?

The 17th was no eagle hole Thursday, heading right into the brunt of the blustery winds. “A lot of guys are going for it but nobody’s getting home,” Jim noted.

In one threesome, Nick Watney and Rory Sabbatini each deposited shots in the fairway bunker while Emiliano Grillo found the left side of the fairway. The group was a collective 16 over par at this point. Watney got in the bunker first, took a few swings, got out, then got back in, took a few more swings, got out, switched clubs and got back in. He muffed the shot and didn’t get it out of the bunker. The crowd at the 17th, nearly surrounded by high-rise grandstands and corporate suites, wasn’t anything like the rowdy 16th hole fans but Watney drew a huge groan—not one of sympathy, more like surprise after all that pre-shot fidgeting. He tried again and left it short of the green.

Sabbatini played a beautiful shot that landed 10 feet short of the flagstick, which was perched on the green’s back right shoulder, but the spin and the wind combined to make it zip back 30 feet. It was a tough day.

The fans at 17 are usually less active than the ones at 16 but there has been plenty of action there. One trick Jim learned while working the 16th was to take the name tag off his shirt. “If they saw your name, somebody would make up a song about you and pretty soon there are 15 or 20 people singing it,” he said. “It’s, ‘hey, Jim, come along and …’ I don’t remember the words. It was never mean, though.”

Marshals also get frequent requests for the "Quiet!" signs they hold up before a player hits a shot or a putt. “They all want the ‘Quiet!’ sign,” Jim said. “I don’t know why. It’s not because they want to be quiet. Some of the pitches you hear. The girls were like, ‘what do I have to do to get that ‘Quiet!’ sign?’ It’s crazy.”

This week, the paved cart path that fans formerly followed past the end of the 17th hole high-rise boxes to the 18th tee is roped off. Fans have to cut through a tunnel beneath the stands to get to 18. Jim and his cohorts redirected a number of confused fans. “It was a last-minute routing change,” he said.

Before, fans could watch action on the 17th green from near the water’s edge. Jim remembers when one fan walked over, calmly talked with him and two security guards, then suddenly turned and jumped into the lake.

“The Scottsdale cop says, ‘did you see what I saw?’ And I was like, ‘did you just see what we saw?’ The guy wasn’t drunk at all,” Jim recalled. “They got him out and he said, I thought I would just jump in the lake and cool off. He got arrested.”

Another veteran marshal at the 17th, let’s call him Bert, said the biggest highlight he saw was when a male streaker darted out to the fairway bunker and starting making sand angels.

“He’s got some buddies up on the hill egging him on,” Bert said. “It was Saturday, our biggest day. He gets out of the bunker, grabs his d--- and starts swinging it. Then his buddies took his clothes and hauled ass outta there. The guy was lucky because the police couldn’t find anybody at 17 with a kid who saw the incident. If they had, he would’ve faced pedophile charges. I think he got a $1,000 fine and community service hours. He was lucky.”

You never know what you’re going to see at 17. Or when. Bert heard a hot but unconfirmed rumor from a marshal supervisor that some pro playing aced the 17th during practice round late Monday or Tuesday evening. “Hardly anybody was out there to see it, he told me,” Bert said. “I don’t know which player it was. That would really suck—you make a hole-in-one on a par-4 hole and almost nobody sees it. That’s like making an ace when you’re playing by yourself.”

A brief canvas of tournament officials and several caddies turned up no evidence of the remarkable ace. The 17th remains the site of the only par-4 hole-in-one in PGA Tour history. Andrew Magee did it in 2001 when he used driver to hit a shot that bounced onto the green while the group ahead was still putting. His ball caromed off Tom Byrum’s putter into the cup for a unique ace. A plaque on the tee commemorates the moment.

There are a few other plaques located on the grounds, including one for the time in 1999 when a group of fans rolled a boulder out of Tiger Woods’ line of fire. But the rockin’ Phoenix Open doesn’t really seem like an event needs plaques or is too worried about history.

“It’s a golf tournament for the first hour every day,” Jim said. “Then it turns into a party.”

Come to the 16 for the fun. Stay at 17 to see the winner decided.