With next week’s PGA Championship looming just over the horizon, Tiger Woods took some time out to visit Oak Hill – and he wasn’t exactly thrilled with what he saw. “The greens are spotty, and it’ll be interesting to see what they do because they were running just under 9 on the Stimp,” Woods said. “They don’t have much thatch to them, so it’ll be interesting to see what they do for the tournament and how much they’re able to speed them up with kind of a lack of grass.”
Oh boy. Let the drama begin. To be fair, Woods was just giving his honest opinion – and it’s not as if his comments were unfounded or libelous. He did, however, go on to say that he’s confident the crew at Oak Hill will get the greens in a condition befitting a major championship. “And I’m sure by Monday they’ll get them up to speed. They’re looking to get them at around 12 and 13, but you don’t want to do it for two weeks with how they are right now. Just save them for the week of the tournament.”
Jeff Corcoran, the superintendent at Oak Hill, agreed with Woods’ assessment. “In regards to Tiger’s latter comments, he hit it right on the head. We were trying to give the greens a rest before we head into a very stressful week,” Corcoran said. “When he was here [Tuesday], we were playing defense. We didn’t mow that day, didn’t roll [the greens] that day. We’ve had an extremely tough summer.”
I hope that Woods doesn’t catch to much grief for his comments. He was asked a question and answered it accordingly. It’s not as if he took to the airwaves to espouse unsolicited criticism of the golf course. The bottom line is that in any tournament there are always golfers that aren’t happy with the how the golf course is set up, for one reason or another. In the end, however, the players get a course worthy of hosting a professional tournament much more often than not.
Carl Conrad is the Senior Golf Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter or add him to your network on Google.
