Revamped course wows Viktor Hovland ahead of Tour Championship - ESPN

ATLANTA — Defending FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland, who walked away with an $18 million bonus after winning the Tour Championship last year, is a fan of East Lake Golf Club.

At least the way it used to play.

Hovland and the other 29 participants here for the Tour Championship, however, are playing a completely different East Lake course for the first time in the FedEx Cup season finale that starts Thursday.

«I only played the front yesterday, and just as soon as I walked on the property, I was kind of shocked,» Hovland said Tuesday. «It looks nothing like it used to.»

The starting point for all 30 golfers who have qualified for next week's PGA Tour Championship — and its $25 million prize — at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

Architect Andrew Green was tasked with restoring East Lake, and he found an aerial photo from 1949 in a government database that served as his blueprint in returning the course to the way Donald Ross rerouted it more than a century ago.

«Oh, there's absolutely anxiety, for sure,» Green said. «But I think it just comes with the territory. You don't know what you have until you tee it up. The golf course has matured amazingly since June 15, when the last piece of sod went down. But at the same time, it's going to need to mature to see the full effect.»

The former East Lake course was known for its thick rough off the fairways and around the greens and deep flat-bottomed bunkers. There wasn't much variety in the shapes of the greens; they typically sloped from back to front.

Green's changes to East Lake are dramatic. The eighth hole is now a short, drivable par-4. The 14th hole, formerly a long par 4, is now a par 5. Green removed a large number of trees — he wouldn't specify exactly how many — and