By Michael Arkush
SAUCIER, Miss. -- Steve Pate, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour, is quite familiar with Fallen Oak Golf Club.
He teed it up there on six occasions from 2012 through 2017, when the course, about 20 miles outside Biloxi, hosted the PGA Tour Champions' Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic.
Only once, however, was he able to crack the top 40 — a tie for sixth in 2014.
No wonder the 64-year-old issued what amounts to a warning for The PRO Tour field, which will take on Fallen Oak next week.
"Don't hit in the fairway bunkers," he said of the course designed by Tom Fazio, one of the best in the business. "You won't have much fun. If you're not playing well, you are going to get punished."
And yet it could have been worse.
A course renovation seven years ago eliminated 24 of the course's 89 bunkers, and the ones that remained, golf professional Maury Hodgens said, "were softened quite a bit, the height lowered."
Even so, "this is going to challenge our golfers to the nth degree," PRO Tour commissioner John Smoltz said, suggesting there will be "some scores that won't be very pretty."
Given what has transpired so far this season, however, it is unlikely that any of those scores will be recorded by Tyler Clippard.
Clippard, a former relief pitcher who played for 10 teams during a 16-year major-league career, captured The PRO Tour's first two events, both in playoffs.
On Dec. 11 of last year, he outdueled another ex-major leaguer, Aaron Hicks, with a birdie on the second extra hole at the Grand Cypress Golf Course in Orlando, Fla. Two months later, on Feb. 19 at Indian Wells Country Club in Palm Springs, Calif., he took three holes to prevail over the ex-hockey great Joe Pavelski.
Heading into the par-5 18th hole, Clippard trailed Pavelski by three points (The PRO Tour uses the Modified Stableford scoring system). In need of no worse than a birdie, Clippard pulled off one of the best shots of his life, an 8-iron out of the rough from about 180 yards out that landed 15 feet from the hole and ultimately helped Clippard force the playoff.
"I don't see any reason why I can't go out there and keep winning," Clippard, 41, said in a recent interview. "That's my goal every time."
He is far from alone.
Other contenders who have stood out so far and are likely to make a strong run for the title at Fallen Oak include Hicks, Mardy Fish, Mark Mulder and Taylor Twellman.
Hicks had a chance to win at Indian Wells but his putter didn't come through down the stretch. He wound up third, seven points behind Clippard and Pavelski. Fish, meanwhile, tied for sixth in Orlando and was fourth in Palm Springs. Mulder and Twellman have each posted two top 10s.
In addition to the bunkers, water will come into play on seven holes at Fallen Oak. The toughest hole, Hodgens said, is No. 18, a par 4 that measures 470 yards from the championship tees and features eight fairway bunkers and water on the left.
For all its difficulties, Fallen Oak is a fair test.
"You can shoot a score if you are playing well," Pate said, "which, to me, is a good golf course."
Who knows? Maybe someone will pull off a shot similar to the one Nick Price, a three-time major winner, executed on No. 14 in 2014.
With the par-3 hole playing 152 yards in the final round, Price made sure he would need only one shot to find the bottom of the cup.
"Perfect 9-iron, right at the flag," Price said. "Four feet short of the hole and it went in just like a putt."