Amateur golfBrian KeoghEisenhower Trophy, Paul Dunne, Gavin Moynihan, Gary HurleyComment

Big in Japan: Eisenhower stars face 787-yard par-6

Amateur golfBrian KeoghEisenhower Trophy, Paul Dunne, Gavin Moynihan, Gary HurleyComment
Big in Japan: Eisenhower stars face 787-yard par-6

The 787-yard 18th on the Oshitate Course at the Robert Trent Jones II designed Karuizawa 72 Golf East. Picture via twitter/Paul Dunne

I've no idea how much fun a 787-yard, par-6 is to play but disbelief was the over-riding emotion coming through in tweets from Paul Dunne and Gavin Moynihan ahead of the World Amateur Team Championships in Japan.

The third member of Ireland's Eisenhower Trophy team, Gary Hurley, has yet to make his feelings known on the 18th on the Oshitate Course at the Robert Trent Jones II designed Karuizawa 72 Golf East so we're taking it as given that he was left speechless.

The Iriyama Course is also being used for the biggest team event in amateur golf but when a hole on the course takes up two pages of a yardage book (I'm told) this is now bordering on orienteering.

The Eisenhower Trophy begins on Tuesday but one wonders if journeyman Carl Cooper could come close to driving the green? This is the yarn about his 787-yard drive in the 1992 Texas Open:

On the par-4, 456-yard third hole, Cooper launched his drive at the 1992 Texas Open. On the fly, the ball hit a downward-running concrete cart path and took off.
The ball rolled past the fifth green. Then it passed the sixth tee. It eventually left the cart path and veered onto an unpaved maintenance road. And finally it came to a stop behind the No. 12 green. At many points along its route it could have rolled out of bounds, but the ball somehow stayed on the course.
Everyone on site agreed it was a minimum of 750 yards from the No. 3 tee box; some thought it was more than 800. The figure of 787 yards is the one most cited because that's the yardage that was determined by Cooper's caddie.
Where the ball was sitting, Cooper had around 300 yards just to get back to the correct green. He hit a 4-iron, then an 8-iron, then a chip shot to get back to the No. 3 green. He wound up with a double bogey.