The Re-Re-Improved Liberty National Returns...
/We architecture geeks will have no complaints this week, still high on The Country Club looking better than it has in years and Colorado Golf Club proving downright amazing to watch even if the Solheim Cup matches ended up a blowout. But reality sets in as the tour moves to the new, re-re-improved Liberty National for the Barclays.
Players will be on fine-watch for saying anything remotely critical after Commissioner Finchem buddy Paul Fireman sank even more millions beyond the initial $250 million he spent on this Bob Cupp-Tom Kite design that brought up the rear in Golf World's PGA Tour course ranking.
Still, it's good fun to go back and read the remarks from last time, including one of Tiger's all time best lines.
Brett Cyrgalis talks to the PGA Tour's Steve Wenzloff about the softening of features and shifting of the 18th green to give the Barclays corporate tent more room, not that anyone will miss the old finishing hole.
“The goal of the modification was really to help increase the overall receptiveness of the golf course,” said Steve Wenzloff, the PGA Tour’s vice president of design services and player liaison. “I say receptiveness as sort of a broad definition. Specially, two facets: the tee shots and the approach shots.”
So you're softening the tee shots and the approaches to the greens, which leaves? Nothing else.
The nuts and bolts of the re-do:
In total, five greens were entirely rebuilt, and an additional six were reconstructed; 13 landing areas were altered; and 11 tee boxes were expanded or moved. Some fairway bunkers were moved farther from the line of play, and the greens complexes generally were made flatter, allowing for more hole locations and less severe run-offs into deep chipping areas.
The 18th green was moved 20 yards down the fairway to allow for Barclays to have a larger corporate tent, and the hole stayed the same length by virtue of a rarely used back tee, 20 yards behind the one used in 2009.
That could be a first...a green moved for a corporate tent.