L.A. North's 10th
A look at the 2023 U.S. Open's back nine starter and George Thomas' scrapped idea for a more intricate design. Plus, a reminder for players to stop and smell the (Thomas) roses!
The back nine journey starts with a beautiful par 4 where George Thomas dreamed of extreme ways to traverse the amazing land forms depending on the day’s hole location. But at some point between typing out his thoughts and 1928’s final stages of re-constructing the North at Los Angeles Country Club, the architect decided his concept did not work. So an editor wrote an update accompanying the article I’ll share later in this latest look at the 2023 U.S. Open course.
The 10th Thomas and Billy Bell built remained strategically interesting until the last decade or so when juiced equipment whey protein-infused uber-athletes started hitting the ball prodigious distances. A hole that was long a wild journey over natural and man-made intrusions recently lost most of its meaning after a solid 75-year run. Which is a nice way of saying I have no idea how it’ll play in the U.S. Open. But I do anticipate, through no fault of the design or attempts to maintain No. 10’s relevance, that it’s the hole most likely to be unfairly branded an “eh” bit of architecture by players.
Grasping for answers on how the 10th might play this June, I checked in with Chat GPT to see what AI had to say about the 10th’s evolution. Other than getting the dogleg shape wrong, suggesting bunkers were re-positioned when they weren’t, claiming the hole proved pivotal in the 2017 U.S. Amateur (played at Riviera down Sunset Blvd.) and topping off this misinformation sundae with well worn golf cliches, the Artificial Intelligence proved to be almost entirely artificial. At least it nailed Thomas’s middle initial and spelled Gil’s name correctly!
Incidentally I switched my AI request to the 11th hole and received nearly an identical answer, down to the whole dogleg right par 4 nonsense even though it’s a par 3.
On that note, here is The Quad’s AI-free deep dive into the 10th at L.A. North.