Bellerive plays 7,448 yards at par 70, and the par 3s got longer

Bellerive Country Club is a par 72 for its members. This week it is a par 70 measuring 7,448 yards, after the PGA Tour converted two par 5s into par 4s for the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs. That is 132 yards more than the 7,316 the same ground played for the 2018 PGA Championship, and the way those yards were distributed matters more than the total.

Where did the extra 132 yards go?

Not where you would guess. Fourteen holes are longer, two are marginally shorter, and the 15th and 16th are untouched. Just over half the change lands on three holes.

The third is the hole to study. It moved from 148 yards to 170, a 14.9 percent increase and the biggest proportional change anywhere on the property. Across all four par 3s the average length rose from 194.5 yards to 202.25. A course described as 132 yards longer sounds like a driving test; the scorecard says it is a longer-iron test.

What else has changed since 2018?

The greens, completely. Rees Jones rebuilt every one of them in T-1 bentgrass in the interim, which means any player carrying notes from the last championship here is carrying notes on surfaces that no longer exist. Those greens have now fully established, so unlike the young putting surfaces at Detroit Golf Club that gave up three rounds of 61 this season, these should run firm and fast.

Most of the field has no notes to lose anyway. Seventeen of the 50 players competed in the 2018 PGA Championship at Bellerive; the other 33 have never seen the course in competition.

Will it play hard?

Harder than 2018, probably. That championship produced the second-easiest scoring average of any PGA Championship venue of its decade, but it was played through storms on a soft golf course. August firmness, Zoysia fairways, a 75.0 course rating and a 144 slope from the championship tees point a different direction, as does the water on the redesigned second hole.

This is also the fourth consecutive week of par-70 competition on the PGA Tour, which is worth remembering before anyone reads the winning score as evidence of anything. Converting two par 5s to par 4s changes the number next to the score, not the difficulty of the golf.