The Card
- Venue: East Lake Golf Club
- Where: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
- Architect: Tom Bendelow
- Scorecard: Par 70, 7,440 yards
- Fairways: Zoysia
- Rough: Bermuda, 3.5 inches
- Greens: Bermuda, running 12 on the stimp
This is the par 70, 7,440-yard configuration, in use from 2014 through 2026. The tour also ran a par 71, 7,490-yard version of East Lake in 2024, which is why the record book treats the two setups separately.
The read: Same address, different card, so lean on the par 70 history rather than blending every East Lake result together.
What Kind Of Test This Is
The measured profile here comes from a single running inside the 2024-2026 window, so treat it as indicative rather than settled. With that caveat, the numbers point in one direction: East Lake was not a difficult scoring test. Bogey-or-worse rate sat at 12.6%, ranking 171st hardest of 189 courses, and birdie-or-better came in at 26.1%, ranking 174th.
The one place the course pushed back was the punishment for a wayward drive. The penalty for missing the fairway measured 0.40, 53rd hardest of the 189 venues on record, which is what 3.5 inches of Bermuda will do. Everything else clustered at or below tour average.
The counter-argument is real: winning scores at this venue have run deep into the teens, and the field is small and elite, which drags the difficulty read lower than the architecture alone would suggest. But nothing in the data says East Lake defends par.
The read: Price this as a birdie-fest with one trap door, and prioritise players who make a lot of them over players who avoid mistakes.
The Holes
The mix is 4 par 3s, 12 par 4s and 2 par 5s. The par 3s average 226 yards, which is long, and the par 4s average 452 yards across a spread that runs from 390 to 530. Seven of the par 4s measure between 360 and 450 yards, so the two-shotters split into a cluster of short-iron holes and a handful of brutes.
Those brutes are where the card gets away. Hole 1, a 510-yard par 4, played 0.138 over par, and the 530-yard 14th played 0.130 over. The 465-yard 4th rounded out the toughest stretch at 0.097 over par.
The give-back is concentrated in the two par 5s, which average 555 yards. Hole 6 at 525 yards played 0.478 under par and the 585-yard closer at 18 played 0.410 under. Only one par 4 offered real relief: the 415-yard 3rd, at 0.165 under.
The read: With just two par 5s and both of them scoring holes, par-5 conversion is a smaller pool than usual and therefore a sharper separator.
Where Strokes Are Won And Lost
Off the tee. Driving accuracy ran at 66.7%, ranking 156th hardest of 189, and the penalty for a lack of distance was 0.11, 149th. Fairways were findable and short hitters were not squeezed. What did cost players was the miss itself, at 0.40 and 53rd hardest, so the tee shot is a low-frequency, high-consequence decision.
Approach. Greens in regulation sat at 68.4% (116th) with proximity at 36.2 (120th). Both are close enough to tour average to call the iron test ordinary in difficulty, which does not mean it is unimportant given how many mid-length par 4s sit on this card.
Around the green. The penalty for missing the green measured 0.74, 95th hardest and squarely average, while scrambling ran at 64.6%, 174th. Short-side trouble exists but the recovery rate says most players got up and down.
Putting. This is the outlier. Putts made inside 10 feet hit 90.5%, the easiest mark of all 189 courses on record, and putts outside 10 feet went in at 20.2%, 176th. Bermuda at 12 on the stimp rolled true.
The read: When everyone holes the short ones, the edge moves to the players who create more looks and to the hot putter from range.
Courses It Resembles
| Course | Similarity | Card |
|---|---|---|
| TPC River Highlands | 88.7% | Par 70, 6,844 yards |
| TPC Craig Ranch | 86.8% | Par 71, 7,385 yards |
| Panther Creek Country Club | 86.4% | Par 71, 7,258 yards |
| PGA West (Nicklaus) | 85.9% | Par 72, 6,924 yards |
| Sherwood Country Club | 85.3% | Par 72, 7,073 yards |
The common thread is scoring, not shape. These are venues where the field goes low and the leaderboard compresses, and most of them play to a higher par than East Lake while all of them play shorter. The comp list is built on measured profile rather than reputation, which is why a 6,844-yard par 70 like TPC River Highlands lands at the top.
The read: Course-history models are thin here given the field size, so form at the birdie-heavy comps is a more useful input than East Lake reps alone.
What It Took To Win
Across the champions on record, the summary of strongest area breaks down as putting 5, off the tee 4, around the green 1 and approach 1. That is a venue that has been won from two directions, and both directions have produced multiple champions.
The putting weeks have been extreme. Xander Schauffele gained 2.125 on the greens in 2020, Tommy Fleetwood gained 2.037 in 2025, Jordan Spieth 1.729 in 2015 and Rory McIlroy 1.654 in 2022. Fleetwood won at -18 while losing 0.263 off the tee and 0.117 around the green, which tells you how much a hot week with the flat stick covers.
The driving weeks look different in texture. McIlroy gained 1.651 off the tee in 2016 and 1.329 in 2019, Schauffele 1.152 in 2017, and Viktor Hovland posted 1.204 off the tee alongside 1.204 on approach in 2023. Collin Morikawa's -22 in 2024 came on the other setup and was carried by 0.875 around the green with positive numbers in every category.
Patrick Cantlay's 2021 win at -11 is the outlier on the approach side, and it came in the highest-scoring year on this list. The pattern the numbers suggest: when the course plays soft and scores run to -17 or better, the putter decides it.
The read: Build around elite Bermuda putters with a positive baseline off the tee, and accept that the winning profile here has been streaky rather than balanced.