The 18th hole at Yas Links will offer the potential for fireworks Sunday, as the penultimate event of the DP World Tour season comes to a close. We can only hope that those fireworks involve Tyrrell Hatton.
Not for his own psyche, of course, because Hatton hates that hole. But mostly because seeing players conquer — or succumb to — emotions like hatred of a hole happens so rarely in this sport. In part because players so rarely share disgust with golf course design out loud, during a tournament.
But that’s what Hatton did Saturday after his third round — a resplendent 64 that, predictably, ended in a bogey on the par-5 finisher. Hatton had made double bogey on that hole to finish his second round, feeding the fire.
“Then, yeah, my least favorite hole in the Middle East,” Hatton said of the 18th. “Which has got a close rival to next week’s finishing hole [at Jumeirah Golf Estates]. It was not the best shot, the second shot in. It was a perfect tee shot. And yeah, I don’t know how a ball plugs with a 7-wood, but I mean, the sand is so bad, which is incredible; we’re in the desert.”
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There’s more than one nugget in that complaint. Firstly, Hatton doesn’t seem to be a fan of the bunker sand at Yas Links, since his second shot on the 18th seemed to have plugged in the bunker, despite it coming with a lower-spinning 7-wood. But back to the start …
Hatton hates the 18th enough to call it his least favorite hole in the Middle East — a region where he plays plenty of golf annually, between about four DPWT tournaments and at least one LIV event. The hole has a bunker cut into the center of the fairway around 280 yards. Beyond it, the fairway cinches around the 360-yard mark.
With a snaking water hazard up the left side of the hole and not a very wide path to the green, there isn’t much for a comfy lay-up position, which causes players to pull driver and, as Hatton found Friday, occasionally end up in the centerline bunker. That’ll upset anyone, as it did Hatton just three years ago.
“That must be one of the worst par-5s I’ve ever seen in my life,” Hatton said at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in 2022. (He had just made a quadruple-bogey 9.)
When pressed to explain himself, he uncorked:
“What’s wrong with it? Where do you start? It shouldn’t have a bunker in the middle of the fairway, and it shouldn’t be over 600 yards from a forward tee. If you hit a good drive as a pro, you should have at least a chance to go for the green in two, otherwise the hole becomes a par 3, and that’s if you play it well. Hardly anyone will get there in two with the wind even slightly against you.”
