Bear Trap at PGA National - What Makes It So Darn Difficult

PGA National has a legendary 3-hole “Bear Trap” that ensnares the best of golfers. Here’s why.

The Bear Trap caught Adam Scott last year. Scott won even though he had a quadruple bogey on the 15^th hole, the middle of The Bear Trap, at the PGA National Champions Course in the Honda Classic.

The 14^th, 15^th and 16^th is a tough stretch of golf, although the holes individually are not the toughest on the PGA Tour. So why is The Bear Trap hard? It’s convoluted.

Pete Dye’s Design Philosophy

Many years ago I was out in the dirt with Pete Dye while he was building golf courses. As this happened several times, I don’t recall which course it was at the time he mentioned it. It could have been PGA West’s Stadium Course, the Dye course at Mission Hills CC, the Dye course at Mission Hills Resort or the Citrus Course at LaQuinta. But the interesting thing was that he talked about how he tried to design the golf course to be a problem for the elite player, the touring professional, and that he tried to give the average golfer a chance to play each hole.

Anyone who has seen a Pete Dye golf course and been confronted with a moat of water or a wall of railroad ties or a bunker that’s 19-feet deep might wonder where Dye got the impression that he was designing to make a course playable for the mid-handicap player. However, here’s what he said he was trying to do.

The bad miss of the professional is left, he explained. The miss of the mid-handicap amateur and higher handicap golfer is right. So Dye said he wanted to put his worst trouble on the left. You can see that at Harbour Town on the 17^th and 18^th, where the water is on the left and golfers can play to the right. Or at TPC Sawgrass where the final hole has water along the left.

The Bear Trap Should Be Easy for the Pros

At The Bear Trap, the design is opposite. The trouble is all on the right and safety is on the left. So, in theory, that should make The Bear Trap easier for professionals.

Regardless, the Bear Trap employs the most unforgivable hazard of all. Water. The location of the course, in South Florida, adds the other element that makes it tough: Wind.

When water is combined with wind on a golf course, it just plain spells trouble, and those are the main reasons why The Bear Trap is hard.

Wind & Water Make The Bear Trap Hard

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It’s hard to find a day without wind in Florida, unless it’s in hot months, especially August when you could really use a strong sea breeze. In recent years the gusts at the Honda Classic have been moderate to strong, and no golfer really likes to play in a lot of wind because then Mother Nature is in control of where the golf ball is going to land.

In 2016, winds ranged from 20 to 30 MPH the first day, from 12-22 MPH the second day, from 10-15 MPH the third and from 10-18 MPH on the final day. In addition, the wind direction changed so whatever a golfer did in round one did them no good in round two or three or four. In the last three years, the lowest winds have been 10-15 MPH. This from the PGA Tour because they actually keep track of the conditions of play and post it in their media guides.

If water and wind weren’t enough, the angle of the greens adds to the difficulty. Jack Nicklaus is fond of angled greens, particularly angled from left to right, favoring a fade more than any other shot. Nicklaus played a fade during his career, and so his brain must just gravitate to that shape green. On the other hand, someone who can play a fade has an advantage when it comes to getting closer to the hole on The Bear Trap at Champions Course. The angle of the greens is another reason why the Bear Trap is hard.

But what do the players think?

Padraig Harrington said in his pre-tournament press conference, “I start thinking about it the night before for sure. You’re never quite comfortable on this golf course until you’re through the Bear Trap.”

Last year, before the tournament, Rickie Fowler said, “You can’t fake it around here. It’s a good test and especially when we get the kind of standard 10 to 20-mile-an-hour winds.”

In other words, get ready for another year of water balls, re-teeing, and big numbers at The Bear Trap. How do we know? Because the PGA Tour keeps track of all kinds of stats, and in their information packet sent out to media for this week’s Honda Classic, they said the Bear Trap is the third-toughest, three-hole stretch in all their tournaments over the last 10 years.

Next: Five Honda Classic Groups to Watch

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Bear Trap at PGA National – What Makes It So Darn Difficult

By Kathlene Bissell | Feb 23, 2017