Source: The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.)
The last time LPGA golfers played the Canyons Course at Bighorn Golf Club, Annika Sorenstam putted a ball completely off a green and Karrie Webb hit a 20-foot putt that finished 60 feet on the other side of the hole.
Sorenstam, Webb and the other 18 golfers in this week's Samsung World Championship should face a kinder, gentler course setup than the beast that faced those two players in the 2001 Battle at Bighorn.
"There have been a few changes to the course, some that might date back to the last Battle and a few since then," said Warren Smith, general manager at Bighorn. "But with the exception of the fifth and sixth holes, it's really the same golf course."
Sorenstam and Webb played the Canyons Course in August 2001 in the primetime Battle with partners Tiger Woods and David Duval, respectively. Faced with the challenging of setting up a course that was a fair test for all four players, organizers of the Battle stretched the course to 6,943 yards with fast greens and firm fairways.
What organizers didn't figure on was a hot August wind that dried out the greens and sabotaged the meticulous yardage decisions on holes. All four players struggled with the wind and the baked Bermuda greens. Greens expected to hold balls well and roll to a speed of about 10 feet on the stimpmeter instead saw approach shots take huge bounces and greens roll to a speed of about 13 feet.
Conditions should be much different this week, with cooler temperatures and more receptive Bermuda greens that won't be overseeded with wintertime rye grass until after the Samsung event. The course will play to 6,462 yards, about 100 yards shorter than LPGA's other course in the desert, the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club for the Kraft Nabisco Championships. But the Canyons Courses has far more elevation changes and generally smaller greens than the Shore Course.
Most of the players in the field are getting their first live look at the course this week, though Michelle Wie remembers watching Sorenstam hit out of a bush left-handed while watching the 2001 Battle at Bighorn on television.
"The course is in great condition," Wie said after a practice round Tuesday. "The greens are rolling perfectly. I'm really looking forward to it."
Like the Battle setup, the nines of the Canyons Course will be flopped for the Samsung. That means the beautiful and demanding stretch of holes that members play as the 14th through 18th holes will instead play as the fifth through ninth holes. Included in that stretch are two demanding par-3s, the 147-yard hole that will play as No. 6 this week, and the 162-yard downhill hole that will play as No. 8.
This week's ninth hole, at 416-yards, requires a drive hit down to a fairway some 80 feet below the tee, with bunkers and mountains threatening on the right and more desert on the left. A drive too far down the fairway could roll into a dry creek.
The nature of architect Tom Fazio's design, using the mountainous terrain in south Palm Desert, is radically different from courses the Samsung event had visited before.
"Last year we were at The Woodland in Houston. So this is a little different area," said Craig Umland, vice president in charge of North American Golf events for IMG, the producers of the Samsung event. "This is mountainous, a lot of undulation. It will be played to 6,400 yards and then some. So the players are going to have to adjust to many different things."
This week's front nine is more mountainous than the back nine, but the final nine holes also have plenty of character. The back nine also includes the two holes that have changed the most since 2002 when the Battle was last played, the par-5 15th and the par-3 16th.
"On the (15th) hole, we added a new championship tee, we built a lake and a new green," Smith said. "So that was a very, very easy par-5, and now it's a very challenging par-5. It's a little longer. It's protected by a lake, and the green is not very deep. You'll have to hit a real high shot there."
The 16th also has a new tee, making the hole play to 165 yards over a dry wash to an elevated green.
"Fazio always intended it to play as it plays today. It's a short par-3, but the (tee) area that had been used in the past was certainly longer," Smith said. "We had to wait for some infrastructure construction before we could build the new tee. But the green was designed and everything on the hole was designed to be played the way it is now being played."
