The Quail Deal

Anyone remember the condition of Quail Hollow last year at this time?  Bueller?  It was so bad we were treated to this installment of "These Guys Are Good™:

And they really are...Jeff Shain files this report on the state of Quail Hollow at PGATour.com:

As fate would have it, an unseasonably cool summer greeted Quail Hollow Club’s conversion to bermudagrass greens. 

“It was a great bentgrass summer,” superintendent Chris Deariso deadpanned. 

Bentgrass, you’ll recall, was the old strain taken out after weather extremes left the greens on life support at last year’s Wells Fargo Championship. Who says Mother Nature doesn’t have a sense of humor? 

Alas, the new MiniVerde Ultradwarf putting surfaces aren’t quite as mature as officials would have hoped for this week’s event. But it’s a dilemma Deariso and his staff are better equipped to handle as the PGA TOUR makes its annual stop.

I once dated a MiniVerde Ultradwarf in college, but that's not important now.

It's not only the greens that are new, as Steve DiMeglio reports:

But the biggest difference can be seen at the lengthened and toughened Green Mile, the three closing holes that got its nickname from the 1999 prison movie starring Tom Hanks. While there is no last walk death-row inmates take, the 1,222-yard stretch from the 16th tee through the 18th green is an exacting march that will test the players' mettle. 

"I can't think of three holes in golf, including majors, where there are tougher finishing holes than these," local resident, Quail member and former U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson said.

Well, they are as tough as they have ever been – and longer than they have ever been. Last year, the par-4 16th, par-3 17th and par-4 18th played out to 1,175 yards. This year, the 16th can be stretched to 508 yards, the 17th to 221 yards and the 18th to 493 yards, making the stretch 1,222 yards of nasty.

When did they pass the law requiring every golf course to have a finishing stretch of backbreaking holes with a cutesy nickname?  Enough already, no?

I understand why a golf course in Charlotte needs to have bermuda greens and also why the PGA Tour has an event in Charlotte.  What escapes me is why you'd take a PGA Championship there.

Here's Webb Simpson's (a member at Quail Hollow) assessment of the new 17th:

At the 17th, with the new tee, the angle of the tee shot has been changed. In the past, the angles came from the right and the left; now it's a straightforward shot to the green that slopes toward the water. 

"No. 17 is extremely long," Simpson said. "I've been hitting 4‑iron or hybrid it seems like every day. … If we play it back, the tournament's going to need to hire someone permanently to stand on the tee and every time somebody hits just yell, 'Fore,' because people will go right of the green. I just think that (back) tee is so long for such a hard hole that you just have to have the right conditions to put the tees all the way back there. So it definitely favors the guys who hit it longer and higher."

This is in addition to the greens being much firmer, sounds like a bit much.  Simpson predicted a score in single-digits under par, but then we've heard that before, haven't we?