Bay Hill has made a noticeable change on one of its closing holes

One of Bay Hill’s closing holes looks noticeably different this year.

For decades, the par-3 17th hole has featured a large, beach bunker in front of the green that bled into the water, gobbled up short tee balls, and produced challenging recovery shots, especially to back-right pins.

But that bunker is no more, replaced by thick rough.

The beach bunker was added to Bay Hill as part of a 2009 redesign by Palmer Course Design to coincide with Arnie’s 80th birthday. The intent of the initial design was to make the green look smaller from the tee box. This year, No. 17 is listed at 221 yards.

Jason Day, a past Arnold Palmer Invitational champion, hadn’t seen the changes in person, but when shown some photos on the practice green on Monday, he was a bit stunned.

For one, Day says, the tee shot will be “a whole lot more intimidating,” especially if they’re playing it all the way back. The carry to a back-right flag is longer, with water replacing much of the area where there used to be sand (Scottie Scheffler found the bunker on Sunday en route to his second API title). Come the weekend, when the greens are at their firmest, that could prove especially difficult.

“At least there was a little bit of room for error because that green, when you have Bermudagreens greens and it does get a little bit firmer depending on the conditions, it gets pretty shallow,” Day explained. “So, when you hit it in that [right] part, there was still chance for it to roll back in the water, but there was enough room for error.”

Without having seen any tee shots from PGA Tour pros into it, it’s impossible to know for sure, but the slope of the new grassed area between the green and the lake doesn’t look too severe. Balls landed into the bank should, more often than not, stay dry.

From there, Day thinks the challenge is diminished compared to the bunker era.

“It’ll be probably simpler to hit those rough shots than the bunker shot now, just because when you’d hit the bunker shot – it would roll down onto the flat, and if you had an average lie, it was very difficult to hit it high and soft and keep it short enough, especially to that back-right pin that was close to the bunker,” Day said. “If it is thick rough, that adds a tough element, but because you’re on such an upslope, you just have to chop it up and it’ll just come down soft.”