We’ve come so far in presenting outstanding playing conditions for tournaments – particularly televised Tour events – that perfection has become the norm.
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That’s why it came as quite a shock to see the greens at the Byron Nelson at TPC Los Colinas this past weekend. To put it delicately, they weren’t pretty. I won’t reprint all the quotes from various Tour players about how the greens putted, but the boys weren’t happy about the challenge of occasionally facing thin or completely bare spots. Rich Beem, as always, spoke his mind: “Some of the guys have been sugarcoating it,” Beem said. “They’ve said, ‘Well, they’re not that bad.’ No, they’re terrible. They’re not how they should be, and it’s disappointing. We should not have greens like this at a PGA Tour event.”
Other players were kinder, saying they were better than last year or that they putted better than they looked on TV. But, for the average schmuck tuning in on CBS, the lasting impression was that the greens looked dead.
By all accounts, this was a perfect storm situation. Between a change in ownership (which led to a change in agronomy staff), an ongoing back-and-forth remodeling program, a change in dates, and weather-driven problems with transitioning, many factors led to conditions that didn’t make anyone happy. I feel for new superintendent John Cunningham, CGCS, and his staff. You know they broke their backs to make things as good as they could be, but sometimes the perfect storm just can’t be avoided.
The 2007 Nelson was a reminder that, sometimes, superintendents face insurmountable odds and even the best and best-funded will struggle. This is an imperfect science in a business that demands perfection. Like it or not, this will happen when a perfect storm strikes.