RORY MCILROY has hit out officials for making changes to one of the par-3 holes at the Genesis Invitational.
The £15million PGA tour event starts at Riveira Country Club on Thursday, but golfers will have to prepare for a tweak to the format.
The fourth hole, which was labelled as one of the hardest holes in 2024, has now been extended from 230 yards to 273 yards.
And Masters champion McIlroy, 36, has vented his frustration at the “horrible change”.
He said: “I don’t think four plays any differently, you’re just hitting a slightly longer club. I actually think it’s a horrible change.
“Like if you want it to be a 275-yard par-3, you have to change the apron leading up onto the green.
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“It can’t be kikuyu, it has to be another type of grass that can help you run it onto the green because again, in the right conditions, you try to fly that ball on the green with a 3-iron, it’s going to land – it’s going to finish up on the fifth tee box.
“That’s sort of what I mean by why it’s not a great change.”
McIlroy wasn’t the only golf star to voice his fury over the change as US Open champion JJ Braun added: “The problem with it being soft is that you can’t really use the Redan as it’s intended to be used by design.
“But with how soft the greens are, you can pretty much just fly it at the green and it should plug and roll out maybe to the mid-centre or back-centre of the green… three 3s or four 3s there is going to be a pretty good score this week.”
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And Collin Morikawa said the hole was a “hit and hope”, calling it “too soft”.
He said: “It’s too soft, unfortunately, to have a lot of control to say, ‘Man, I’m going to play a tight 5-iron and run it up’.
“I think a lot of us play it left to chip uphill, but with a 3-wood in hand, that cart path on the left honestly comes into play because the dispersion just gets that much bigger.
“There’s not a lot of thought to it other than just kind of hitting the green and moving on, unfortunately.”
Collin Morikawa also voiced his displeasure at the how little thought has gone into the hole, and dubbed it a ‘hit and hope’.
“It’s too soft, unfortunately, to have a lot of control to say, ‘Man, I’m going to play a tight 5-iron and run it up’,” Morikawa, who won the Pebble Beach Pro-Am last weekend, said.
“I think a lot of us play it left to chip uphill, but with a 3-wood in hand, that cart path on the left honestly comes into play because the dispersion just gets that much bigger.
“There’s not a lot of thought to it other than just kind of hitting the green and moving on, unfortunately.”
In 2024, the fourth hole at Riveira yielded just 11 birdies and 60 bogeys.
The course was described as “frustrating” by US star Scottie Scheffler, who said it had “little tricks” in store for golfers.
He added: “When you look at this golf course and you look at it on paper, it seems kind of easy.
“Then you start playing it… then the golf course just eats away at you over time. I feel like this golf course can be about as frustrating to play as any on Tour, just with the little tricks that it has.”