Masters makes late change on No. 17's pin location

Masters Tournament officials thought about dialing the clock back to 1986 for Friday’s second round.

The pin on No. 17 was originally set near the location where Jack Nicklaus rolled in his famous birdie putt en route to his sixth green jacket.

“They had it on the back right,” said Chez Reavie, who played the hole first with Martin Laird. “They came up to us on (No.) 9 or 10 and said ‘Hey, we changed the pin on 17.’ That happens a lot. I don’t know about here, but it’s happened before on tour.”

Tournament officials moved the pin to the middle front, an easier, if not easy, location. The 440-yard, par-4 hole still ranked as the sixth-hardest during the second round, yielding an average of 4.266 strokes.

Six players made birdie, while five made double bogey or worse. There were also 62 pars and 21 bogeys.

The 17th hole was the fifth-easiest in the first round. Tournament officials almost made it devilishly tough for the second round, but they pulled back. Not that every professional noticed.

Webb Simpson didn’t look at the pin sheet ahead of time and didn’t hear of the pin change until he reached the No. 10 tee.

“They told us at the turn that we had a new pin sheet, so I didn’t even really look at it,” Simpson said. “It was a normal pin, one of the few pins I thought would be on that green.”

“It was a tough pin because that green’s always really, really firm,” said Brandt Snedeker, who finished several hours before the final pairing. “It’s going to be really tough on them later in the day."

Snedeker and Simpson each parred the hole.

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