PGA Tour opts for internal out of bounds at newly redesigned East Lake

There will be internal out of bounds for this week’s Tour Championship after all.

The PGA Tour announced Wednesday morning that there will be two instances of internal OB at the newly redesigned East Lake Golf Club: No. 10 fairway will be out of bounds when playing the par-5 18th hole, and No. 7 fairway will be out of bounds while playing the par-4 sixth hole.

The decision comes after GolfChannel.com reported that the Tour had discussed such setup measures before determining they would be too penal. That thought process obviously has since changed.

On Tuesday, Scheffler talked about the potential alternate route off the tee at No. 18, which was made more inviting after the removal of several trees and the reshaping of the fairway cut on both sides of the hole’s massive lake.

“The way they reshaped the fairway there, the fairway crowns like this and it’s a very difficult fairway to hit, and if your ball goes into the right rough and you don’t get a good lie, you have to chip it 10 yards down the fairway because there’s nowhere really to lay up,” Scheffler said. “Before there used to be some opportunity there, where now there’s not. You’re now hitting it across the lake. If you hit it into the right rough, you’re now hitting it over a pond to a fairway that’s pretty narrow. If you hit it in the left rough you probably can’t hold the green from there, and if you don’t get it to the fairway, you’re going to be in the water.

“It seems like a safer play to take all that out of play, hit it down 10. The green is going to be pretty extraordinarily hard to hold anyways with it being a downslope and having a long club in there. It’s more you’re playing for birdies. There is less opportunity I think for eagle than there was before.”