NORTON, Mass. — Memo from the FedEx Cup field to budding golf course architect Brad Faxon and renowned golf course architect Gil Hanse, who worked together over the last year to make major renovations to the TPC Boston layout: “Love what you’ve done with the place.”

Originally designed by Arnold Palmer, the course has had more face-lifts than Joan Collins since first hosting the Deutsche Bank tournament in 2003.

Like Hanse, who has built a considerable reputation for maintaining a traditional feel while updating older courses, Faxon prefers classic designs to modern innovations. Their emphasis at TPC Boston was to give the course more of a New England look, while also making it a test worthy of the FedEx Cup — the PGA Tour’s new, championship tourney series.

“They’ve changed the golf course several times,” said Tiger Woods, who has played in all five Tour events held at TPC Boston, “and this time they’ve really done, I think, just a heck of a job.

“They’ve made it much more natural to the surroundings,” Woods said. “They also made it probably slightly more difficult. The greens are a little faster now, the fairways are giving it up a little bit, and you really have to make sure you manage your game.

“Before, in some of the years we’ve played, we just had to make a bunch of birdies — go super-low. It’s more difficult to do that this year.”

Woods had difficulty in Friday’s opening round at one of the holes totally redesigned by Hanse and Faxon — the short, par-4 fourth. Because the hole has been shortened to 298 yards, it now is within reach of big hitters off the tee.

Tiger, like playing partner Phil Mickelson, drove the ball into a bunker in front of the green. But, while Mickelson holed out his sand shot for an eagle-2, Woods hit his sand wedge under the lip of the bunker and needed three shots to get his ball on the green, finally two-putting for a double-bogey six.

“I’ve always thought,” Woods said Thursday, in what proved to be a prescient statement, “that it’s a neat attribute to a golf course if you have one par-4 you can drive. But, generally, if you don’t play it well, you’re going to probably make bogey, or even double.

“You think you ought to just blow in the bunker up there (off the tee.) But that’s one of the harder bunker shots, too. You’ve got to make sure you know what you’re doing, and where the pin is. It’s a little more strategic than you’d think.

“It’s very similar to number 10 at Riviera (longtime site of the L.A. Open,)” Woods said. “You think: ‘Oh, this is no big deal — driver down there, and up-and-down, easy.’ But we see a lot of bogeys for some reason on that hole when guys take a run at it.”

Like many successful golfers, Faxon decided several years ago to try his hand at course design.

But, as no less an authority than Jack Nicklaus pointed out this week, it can be a lot easier for a Tour player to play courses than design them.

The subject came up when the Golden Bear was asked about the course Woods is working on in Dubai.

“He’ll go through the same process as the rest of us if he’s truly interested in design, and learn the business,” Nicklaus said. “I started (designing courses) in 1967, so I’ve been doing it for 40 years. I would say there’s a lot of golf courses that I did in a lot of my early years that I’d like to back and redo.

“He certainly can’t go out and do a design himself,” Nicklaus said of Tiger. “He wouldn’t understand all the things that can happen with it. It takes time to learn that. If you work at it full-time, you learn a lot faster. I was playing golf, and doing other things, and trying to learn.

“When I first started, I could do a golf course one way. Now, I could do a golf course 20 different ways.”

Faxon designed the Bay Course in Mattapoisett, Mass., and now is working with another native Rhode Islander, Stan Abrams, on a project in Wells, Maine — the private, Maine National Country Club.

Whereas Faxon worked with Hanse in making significant changes to TPC Boston, he’s teaming with award-winning golf course architect Brad Booth on the Maine National design.

“We feel we’ve created a design that will complement the outstanding terrain, and we can’t wait to see it come alive,” Faxon said. “We believe the golf experience (at Maine National) could be something exceptionally distinctive.”

Faxon and Hanse have done an exceptional job at TPC Boston.

“To me,” Brett Quigley said, “the bunkers look like they’ve been there for 50 years. The changes that they did make the golf course so much better visually. It’s a lot better for the players.”

jdonalds@projo.com