Saturday At The Players
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I arrived at 6:30 a.m. (a stuffy 78 degrees!) to sit in on a course tour of the front nine setup as handled by John Mutch of the PGA Tour.
The setup is nicely balanced and as solid as can be, though the architecture limits the possibility of the more dramatic day-to-day changes we're coming to expect more and more.
The inevitable 17th hole photo, from the 16th hole.(click to enlarge)
Not that TPC Sawgrass needs much drama.
The conditioning is superb, however the design would benefit from a lot more mowing of rough and short grass areas around greens. Aesthetically, it's currently lacking some of the elegance a design so rich in texture deserves, much of which I attribute to the clump bermuda mix in the roughs. And the strategic benefits would be obvious: balls reaching hazards more easily, contours retaining even more of a presence and several approaches appearing more intimidating.
They think of everything! Lights in the tunnel from 17 green to 18 tee (click to enlarge)The current situation with so much rough around the greens limits shotmaking and frankly, looks ugly.
To clarify one issue regarding the rough. After being briefed by the tour, Golf Channel and NBC have reported that the fairway roughs are cut at 2-3 inches, last topped off mid-week. Greenside, the rough started in the same range but is now at 3-4 inches. However, because the severity of the surrounds requires the use of rotary mowers (that's a lawn mower) it has not been topped off all week while the fairway roughs have. The PGA Tour's tournament director, Mark Russell, says the situation will be different next year.
The obvious question for anyone who watched Saturday: why the higher scores?
Camilo Villegas tests the wind with the amazing video screen in the background. (Click on image to enlarge)
After all it's warm, greens are perfect and the wind never amounted to much. However, it's pretty simple, really. There is enough firmness in the greens combined with a relentless course that quickly wears the player down.
And that's why Alex Cejka's five-stroke lead over Tiger Woods appears so surmountable.
