DUBLIN, OHIO Result of Jack's drive for perfection will be tested on redesigned No. 17

The new hole at Muirfield Village makes its debut next week at the Memorial.
DUBLIN (AP) -- The 17th at Muirfield Village Golf Club has always been a good hole -- it just wasn't good enough for Jack Nicklaus.
A superlative test for average golfers but never a subject of postcards at one of America's premier courses, the 437-yard, par-4 hole effectively met an abrupt end last August.
"I've sort of felt like it's been a little bit of a blah," said Nicklaus, the course designer and winner of 18 major championships. "There's nothing wrong with the hole, but it's not very hard. I don't think there's as much excitement in it."
Starting over
Nicklaus destroyed it with bulldozers and earthmovers, almost on the spur of the moment. Muirfield greens superintendent Mike McBride said Nicklaus had been talking about starting over on 17 for the past few years -- then tore up the existing hole in an eight-hour span late last summer.
Before the 2002 Memorial Tournament, Nicklaus said he was considering dramatic changes to the hole. He grinned as he said it all depended "on what my mood is next week."
In its place he created a 478-yard, par-4 that bears little resemblance to its predecessor. The new 17th will make its debut before an international field next week at the Memorial Tournament.
Nicklaus doesn't deny that he's a perfectionist. He is constantly tinkering with Muirfield Village and the almost 300 other courses he and his design group have drawn up over the years. Seldom do the changes take on the scope of this, however, particularly in a year in which every green was reseeded and 10 of the 18 were torn up and recontoured.
Workers moved 20,000 cubic yards of dirt, laid 12 acres of bluegrass sod, created a gently flowing brook where the water used to pass through a subterranean pipe and completely moved and reconfigured the green and the bunkers surrounding it.
Boss knows best
Not everyone at Muirfield Village has the same vision as Nicklaus.
"He'll see something and he'll make a change. You're kind of going, 'Nah. I don't quite understand that,' " Muirfield Village pro Larry Dornisch said. "Then when it's done, you'll go, 'Wow. That's just worked out great.' "
The hole previously known as 17 had a waste bunker that hugged the left side of the fairway for more than 200 yards. The landing area fell away to a valley. On the other side of the valley was a docile, sloping green protected by deep bunkers.
Nicklaus said risk wasn't a factor on the old 17.
"I don't have any problem with birdies," Nicklaus said. "But there's not really a gamble of any kind there. It's a pretty good-sized fairway and the green is fairly benign. If you miss the green, you end up in one of the bunkers and then it's a pretty easy up and down."