Our Caddybytes.com Featured Hole of the week is the famous 448 yard par 4 18th hole from the Riviera Country Club and this weeks  Northern Trust Open golf tournament on the PGA Tour.

This tough par four finishing hole has been extended an additional 25 yards for this years LA Open making the hole now 472 yards.


Here is a picture (left) of the tee shot view up the hill.  The correct tee shot target is just over the left side of the 'knob' on the hill's horizon which is just to the right of the palm trees you see in the picture down the left side of the hole.

If you hit it down the right side with a fairway sloping left to right in the landing area, you will most likely then have to play a cut shot around the big eucalyptus trees there on the right.

Here's a look (picture right) of the second shot view into the green of this great par 4 finishing hole.

Here you get a good look at how the fairway slopes left to right here from the natural tilt off the canyon wall (to your left in pix)

You can see the clubhouse in the distance (original) and how the canyon and eucalyptus trees help to 'frame' the hole.

Often at the time of year that the L.A. Open is played the wind will be chilly off the Pacific and at your back here, helping you to gain distance especially if it's playing 'hard and fast' that week.

G. C. Thomas has quite a few holes which are left to right in design and a lot of those par fours are tougher with that westerly Pacific wind instead in the players face.

Here's a view (last picture left) from behind the green looking back down the hole.  You get a good look here at how much you need you tee shot to be down the left side (right side in pix), in order to have the proper angle into the second shot here.

Notice how the bunkering left is almost invisible on the horizon to the short left of the green.  This is a Scottish influence in the design and was done in reverse on a lot of the links courses in Scotland.

The green is 31 yards deep and fairly narrow.  That hillside between the two firs and the green is mostly Kukuya grass there in the rough and very difficult to play a sloping away chip should you miss you second shot there.
Sundays pin is often cut close to the left side expressly for that reason.
  

Click Here to -Take a look at our new virtual tour of more pictures of Riviera Country Club and the 2008 Northern Trust Los Angeles Open!