Backspin: Drivable par-4 provides excitement on Sunday

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This past Sunday proved there needs to be more drivable par-4s on the PGA TOUR. Any Sunday, or every Sunday.

I'll get to Rocco Mediate's unbelievable win in a moment, but one of the biggest reasons the finish to the Frys.com Open was so good was because of the 358-yard par-4 17th, which was this week's Kodak Challenge hole.

In one very short span Sunday, Rickie Fowler easily drove the green there (the hole played to just under 300 yards in the final round) to set up a 22-foot eagle putt that slid just past the edge of the hole. Then Alex Prugh came within two feet of holing his tee shot for a double eagle.

Then Mediate, who said he could have only reached the green on a 95-degree day when he was 35 years old, holed out from 116 yards with a perfect wedge that landed just behind the hole before spinning in.

Recently, I had a chance to play golf with course designer Bob Cupp, which is a little like taking a painting lesson from Rembrandt, only more entertaining.

Cupp is a big believer in drivable par-4s. He's designed ones at Liberty National (No. 16), Pumpkin Ridge (No. 17) and, among others, Capital City Club in Atlanta, which is where we played the week of THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola.

"I think it just needs to be toward the end of the golf course," Cupp said. "You want to create a situation where a player can make up something and take a gamble if they need to."

That's exactly what CordeValle provided for Prugh and Fowler, whose birdie at the 17th on Sunday kept him in a tie for the Kodak Challenge lead with Troy Merritt.

The real danger, of course, is that you can make a hole like that too hard, says Cupp, by putting in too many hazards or making the design too difficult. The flip side is the value it places on creativity, whether a player goes for it (and misses and now has to rely on short-game ability) or lays up the way Mediate did.

That's one thing Cupp learned, for example, hanging around Jack Nicklaus for a number of years -- that a guy like Stan Utley could on occasion compete or even beat Nicklaus because of his genius around the green. Much the same way Mediate could beat someone like Fowler on Sunday. Of course, no one designs a short par-4 with the idea that someone is going to hole out from the fairway. But that situation was at least helped by good design.

The end result? A thrilling finish.

"It makes it an awful lot of fun that you can blast it down there and have a chance," Cupp said. "I think we need to see shorter courses and I'd like to see more short par-4s."

Judging by what happened Sunday, so would a lot of players.

Stock up

Bo Van Pelt: A final-round 71 will stick in Van Pelt's craw, but he's now finished in the top 6 in each of his last two starts and has eight top-10s for the year. And while he did miss plenty of makeable putts, Van Pelt did have three birdies on the back nine Sunday and was second in the field with 21 birdies for the week. Graham DeLaet: With two top-6 finishes and a tie for 25th in his last three starts, the former Canadian Tour Rookie of the Year is on his way to wrapping up a TOUR card. He comes with a pretty good resume, too. DeLaet won 10 tournaments while in college at Boise State, the same school Troy Merritt attended, and has steadily worked his way to this point with four career wins between the Sunshine and Canadian Tours. Kevin Streelman: I'd say Streelman has done a nice job proving that the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup system works and he deserved to be in Atlanta at the end of it. In his last six starts, Streelman finished in the top 20 four times, which included a tie for 16th in California. Of those, he finished in the top 10 twice with more than half of his $1.472 million in earnings being made over his last six tournaments.

Stock down

John Daly: About the only thing positive for Daly was that he didn't finish last. He came close, though, after a lackluster 82 in the final round that included a 44 on the back nine and a quadruple-bogey 8 on the last hole. Rocco Mediate's four best holes of the week were played in 8 under. Daly's five worst were played in 13 over. Briny Baird: Now was not the time to miss a third cut in four weeks, but that's what Baird did with his fifth and sixth straight rounds in the 70s. Baird hasn't finished outside the top 125 on the money list since 2005, but he fell outside it this weekend, dropping from 123rd to 127th with two events left in the Fall Series. Robert Garrigus: One hole really can make all the difference. Had Garrigus not blown a three-shot lead on the final hole in Memphis earlier this year, he'd have nothing to worry about and his card would be secure for the next two years. Instead, he's flirting with finishing outside the top 125 -- he's currently 123rd -- after a T66 in California following two missed cuts.

THE BACK NINE: 9 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

1. How often does a guy make five bogeys over his first 12 holes and still go on to win the golf tournament? That's what Rocco Mediate did in one of the more amazing finishes in recent memory. Mediate shot a 2-over 73 but still won by one thanks to his play on two holes -- the par-3 16th and, of course, the drivable par-4 17th.

2. "Unbelievable" is how Mediate described the victory. You want to know what a finish like Mediate's can do to not only a season, but a career? "I have a job," Mediate said. "I signed up for TOUR school, and I was going to go." Had Mediate finished second, he might still be going. "The two years is huge," Mediate continued. "But I don't have to do the school again, and that's ridiculous."

3. Mediate went 194 starts between victories, but, as Kirk Triplett once said of himself, Mediate knows how to get people out. Now, Mediate is a better player than Triplett, but the reason he's hung around this long is because he's recorded at least one top-10 in 22 of his last 25 seasons and has finished inside the top 125 on the money list in 19 of his 25 years on TOUR.

3. Here's why I think Rickie Fowler will be a really good player for a long time, aside from his obvious and enormous talent: He understands the moment. Earlier this year, he was in contention coming down the stretch of the Waste Management Phoenix Open when he laid up from 230 yards on the 15th hole on Sunday. Fowler was criticized in the media for the decision, but he never wavered given the circumstances of not having the right yardage or the right pin. Sunday, he was in contention again but this time drove the 17th green to set up an eagle attempt. Fowler missed the putt, but he made the right call because he mostly hits it straight off the tee, the hole was the second-easiest on the golf course and it was the penultimate hole.

4. Get used to seeing Fowler in these situations, too. He had six top-10s this year, including a pair of runner-up finishes. "Every time I get in contention I keep feeling a little more comfortable than the last time," Fowler said Sunday. "If we keep putting ourselves in the same spot, hopefully it'll payoff in the long run."

5. What was so surprising about Mediate's performance Sunday was the fact he was able to hold up physically. Mediate has a notoriously cranky back, and the cold, rainy weather certainly didn't help. "I warmed up pretty good, but, still, it's hard for me to move with this stupid back," Mediate said. "It wasn't like pain, it was just stiff. I couldn't move and I was awful most of the day. I couldn't hit it where I was looking." Except for 17.

6. A final-round 73 might not lose you a golf tournament, but 31 putts can. That's how many Bo Van Pelt took on Sunday -- his second 30-plus putt day of the week -- on his way to an even-par 71 that should have been at least a couple of strokes lower. "Yeah, it was more just I had three three-putts today," Van Pelt said. "That's what did it. My speed was terrible. Three-putted the first hole and I was fighting my speed all day. That's what I'll look back on."

7. Van Pelt will also look back on a season that included eight top-10s. That's a career year for Van Pelt, but it will also feel bittersweet. "When they graded me, GOLF CHANNEL, they said my putting was a C this year," Van Pelt said. "I know what I got to work on the next two-and-a-half months. We're going to do a whole a lot of that and get ready for 2011."

8. If you haven't seen the video of Ben Crane "working out", click here . Crane has always had an infectious personality, but this was downright hilarious, particularly the bit about the snake shaker.

9. On a programming note, there will be a guest columnist for Monday Backspin next week while I'm on vacation on an island with no internet (or cell phone service, hopefully). Monday Backspin will then return Nov. 15, after the season-ending Children's Miracle Network Classic.

The Forward Spin

Vegas, baby. That's where the TOUR heads this week for the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open for the fourth of five Fall Series events. Last year, Martin Laird was the fifth-straight player to make this tournament his first career win, so look for someone who's yet to win on TOUR to play well there. Also in the field is Anthony Kim, who hasn't played since the BMW Championship, where he tied for 48th. Kim is worth watching following a thumb injury that caused him to miss three months in the middle of the season. He hasn't played well since returning from the surgery, missing four straight cuts at one point. Any time a player suffers any sort of serious hand or wrist injury, it's significant. Just ask Ryan Moore or Luke Donald. It can set a career back. Kim was one of the best players in the world before the injury. Now? Only time will tell.

This week's Kodak Challenge hole

HOLE: The par-5, 560-yard 16th at TPC Summerlin. THIS WEEK: A good tee shot puts big hitters in position to go for the green in two. Trees guard both sides of the fairway, and a lake guards the front of the green. Click here to tour the Kodak Challenge holes | Current Kodak Challenge standings

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