It would never happen in a ‘genuine’ Major Championship.
The so-called fifth Major still has three greens at TPC Sawgrass out-of-bounds to this week’s Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
Players are not allowed to hit shots into the fourth, 11th and 12th greens, and they will remain closed for a third official day practice in the PGA Tour’s showcase $US 10m event.
PGA Tour Commissioner, Tim Finchem ‘praying’ three greens at TPC Sawgrass will be fit for play on Thursday. (Photo – www.golffile.ie)
The problem arises firstly in moving the event from it’s March date and two weeks before the Masters and in 2007 to the present day in the second week of May and four weeks after Augusta.
TPC Sawgrass greens staff have been working overtime to get all putting surfaces in shape ahead of former World No. 1 Lee Westwood teeing off first at 7.15am local time Thursday.
PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem visited the Media Center on Tuesday and for much of the official 8-page transcript found himself on the back foot and right from the very first question from the ‘floor’.
“We have struggled with the greens since we came to this date in ’07, with being able to get the course ready,” he confessed.
“A lot of things have happened. We started closing the golf course for three solid weeks before the tournament. We put heaters under the greens. We’ve done an awful lot of things even reducing play in the winter.
“We are virtually at a point where we will commit ourselves to TifEagle on the Valley Course.
“But we are concerned on both fronts, and what’s happened in the last seven years is we’ve had atypically cold winters three of those years, and then this year we had an atypical cold winter, but also a very wet winter.
“We are talking about a perennial problem of three greens, three or four greens, which have been stubborn most years since ’07.
“These are small greens. We can make bigger greens and probably not have a problem. But we are trying to maintain the heritage of what these greens mean, historically, so you don’t want to do that.
“We’d probably go to that first, though before we switch dates, because we love the date.
“So, one way or another, I think moving the date is unlikely.”
So will the 4th, 11th and 12th greens be out-of-play on Thursday? All we can say, is what this space.
