The opening stretch at Wentworth Club’s West Course is renowned as one of the most challenging on the DP World Tour, and last year’s BMW PGA Championship was no exception.
The course lived up to its reputation, with the first and third holes emerging as two of the toughest. Champion Ryan Fox gained more than two-thirds of a stroke on the three most difficult holes, the first, third and 15th, which helped propel him to become the first player from New Zealand to ever win the BMW PGA Championship.
Here, legendary caddie Billy Foster walks us through the challenges posed by these three holes and offers insights on how this year’s field should approach them.
Hole 1
Par 4 | 473 Yards | 433 Meters
2023 scoring average: 4.31
There’s two ways of playing the first hole and it depends on the wind conditions. You can hit a 3 wood to the top of the hill between 280-290 yards which will leave an elevated second shot down to the green with a 5 iron. The second option is to be a bit more aggressive and hit driver over the top, but the fairways slopes dramatically left to right and the normally ends up in the right-hand rough. Getting onto the green with that second shot from the rough isn’t as easy as you think, so the sensible play is to hit the 3 wood off the tee and leave yourself a 5 iron into the middle of the green. It’s a challenging hole so take your four and move onto the second.
Hole 3
Par 4 | 459 Yards | 420 Meters
2023 scoring average: 4.22
This one is up there with one of the toughest holes on the golf course. It’s an uphill tee shot with traps up the right which you can’t really carry. Basically, you try and hit a driver at the right edge of the left-hand bunker off the tee which leaves you in the region of a 5-6 iron for the second shot uphill. The green has a false front so if you’re short it will roll off the front, you’ve also got deep bunkers left and right as well as plateau at the right-hand side, the front and another one middle-left at the back. It has three different levels so it’s a tricky green but a lot easier if you get it on the right level. If you don’t, you’re facing a very tricky two putt and if you miss the green you’ve got those deep bunkers so it’s quite difficult to get your chip close to the pin because of the three different levels. It’s one of the most challenging holes on the golf course.
Hole 15
Par 4 | 491 Yards | 449 Meters
2023 scoring average: 4.19
The 15th hole is usually quite a demanding tee shot that is usually a driver. If it’s downwind you can possibly hit a 3 wood depending on how firm it’s playing. There’s a ditch that runs tight to the right edge of the fairway and across the fairway at 340 yards. You normally try and hit a driver down the left half of the fairway to obviously take that ditch out of play. The second shot is around a 6 iron to a green that plays three of four yards downhill. The green runs away from you front to back and slopes right to left, so you try and land it middle-right half of the green to let the ball feed into right to left to the flags. It’s one of the toughest finishing holes so you take your four and get out of there.
