Players will get break at Nos. 9 and 15 in Tour Championship

ATLANTA — The new greens at East Lake Golf Club are hard and fast.

So, for this year’s Tour Championship, the golfers will get a bit of a break.

According to course architect Andrew Green, the back tee boxes on the par-3 No. 9 and the par-3 No. 15 won’t be used for this tournament. Hole No. 3, with new tee boxes moved to the left, can play at 260 yards. Hole No. 15 is the peninsula green with a back tee that requires a long carry over water at 215 yards.

“We’ll see next year if it’s a good fit,” Green said. “If not, that’s OK.”

Aberg missed out

Ludvig Aberg, like all of the golfers this week, is getting his first look at East Lake Golf Club. He has no experience with what the course looked like before the restoration.

But he almost did.

Aberg, who played collegiately at Texas Tech, was supposed to play in the annual East Lake Cup, the college tournament held here each year. He did not get the chance.

“So, the week before, my roommate got COVID, so I was healthy, I was fit, but these contact tracing, whatever they called it back then, so I couldn’t go,” Aberg said Tuesday in advance of the Tour Championship. “I was at home watching it, and I remember that was tough.”

Odds and ends

— Xander Schauffele and Tony Finau will make their eighth consecutive appearances at the Tour Championship, the longest active streak.

— Akshay Bhatia, 22, and Adam Scott, 42, are the youngest and oldest players, respectively, in the field.

— All this week, from Monday to Sunday, every baby born at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital will be gifted a “Lil Champ” onesie, celebrating their birth during the Tour Championship.