"I think guys are tired of using the same tee box for all four rounds"

Steve Elling reports on David Toms' course setup/slow play related comments following an opening 67 at the Wachovia. Why didn't I get this rant when I talked to him for my Golf World story on setup?

"The issue came up this time about golf course setup, and why does it have to be so difficult?" said David Toms, a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, the governing body of the circuit. "I mean, golf-course setup is why you see pro golfers, the best in the world, a guy shoot 67 and then another guy shoot 79, is because there is such a fine line there.

"You get on the wrong side, and it just takes a while (time-wise). So I think we can do a combination of things. Obviously if you ask the field staff, they would tell you there are way too many people playing, and you can't get them around that fast."

Au contraire, Toms said.

"Golf course setup, I think, is a big deal," said Toms, the first-round leader at the Wachovia Championship. "If you saw pins in the middle of the greens like you do for the pro am, I think we'd get along a lot quicker. All of it goes hand in hand, and we'll see.

This is interesting...

"I think they looked at last week. J.J. Henry made the comment, 'Listen, I worked on that golf course, and you guys didn't use the multiple tees that we built to make holes play different, and it doesn't always have to be all the way back on every hole and the pins, two, three, four (yards) from the edge on a day when it's blowing 25 or 30 mph.' So all those things might help."

Henry was a player consultant on the revamped Nelson course in Dallas. Was it coincidence, then, that players noted a slightly less toothy Quail Hollow setup in the first round?

The testy course's two toughest par-3 holes were softened considerably Thursday, a welcome development for players. The tee on the sixth hole was moved from 250 up to 236 yards and the markers on the brutal, water-choked 17th were moved from 217 to 175.

"I think guys are tired of using the same tee box for all four rounds," veteran Tag Ridings said. "Especially on the par-3s. They obviously made a quick change on that already."