The Senior PGA Championship wrapped up play yesterday at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course – a Pete Dye design. The Ocean Course will host another major – the PGA Championship – in 2012. The Ocean Course is known for its difficulty and the 1991 Ryder Cup – the so-called “War by the Shore”. A few of the senior players also have course design credits to their name and have weighed in on the design through the week. Below are their comments.
Ben Crenshaw (Crenshaw suffered a triple bogey on Friday at the 17th hole after skulling it out of a bunker and into a water hazard when he was near the lead.)
Q. With this course’s obvious penchant for the, or the obvious possibilities of disasters like this, does that make it more interesting on a Sunday if you’re say four or five shots behind and you know that something like what happened to you could happen to the guys up ahead?
BEN CRENSHAW: I think that’s the nature of the course. It has always been — I was telling Bill Fields there yesterday, this was meant to be a punishing golf course. And Pete Dye attempted and brought it off. It is a punishing course. Very, very exacting golf course.
You can see certainly 17 would be the hole that you would see a big swing on. You could, somebody could make a big number one 16 probably, if the wind really gets up. Because you got two guy and the hazards out there on the right and there’s one on the left of the green.
Yeah, you could see some swings, no question. So a player has to disregard all that and just play.Q. You mentioned that this was meant to be a punishing golf course. Have you ever had anyone ask you to design a punishing golf course?
BEN CRENSHAW: No, I really haven’t. That’s a good question. Because I really haven’t. You know, not for — I — my partner and I haven’t built many courses for professional play, really. There’s one thing to design one for a TOUR stop, but there’s another thing to build a place where they’re going to have the Ryder Cup, and all these Major tournaments. And it’s, you have to — Pete is quite accomplished. He does some unbelievable courses, he’s had an incredible career. It’s an unbelievable venue. It’s gorgeous, really, really a beautiful place. It’s a tough golf course.
D.A. Weibring (Friday)
Q. After having played it now a couple of days, what are you looking forward — what have you learned going into the weekend?
D.A. WEIBRING: Well, I’ve learned that this really isn’t what I should say though, but the golf course in the conditions that you played yesterday, being a links type golf course, really doesn’t allow you to bounce the ball on the green. And that was frustrating to me. I really was looking forward to playing the golf course and I think there’s some good looking stuff out there. But I don’t really understand why the front of the greens are jacked up in the air. And so when you stand out, when you play links type golf, then you always have the option of putting the ball on the ground and chasing it in. It was disappointing that we couldn’t do that here.
So, but today we did get some reasonable conditions and if you hit the ball solidly, you could score out there.
You need to make your hay on the downwind holes, because you turn, you’re going to turn back against it and coming back into it, it’s pretty tough. But the greens are very challenging. The wind affects them a good bit. They have got a bit of slope to them so you got to be careful. But hopefully tomorrow I can go out maybe a little earlier and put a good score up there and sneak back.
D.A. Weibring (Saturday)
Q. You mentioned that shot out there. Put your architect’s hat on and I wonder why things are done the way they are and what are the things you see?
D.A. WEIBRING: Well, I have got a lot of respect for Pete. I think he’s very creative. The strategy, the angles, I would have loved to have seen the property before he started it. I know he’s kind of reworked it a couple times. It’s a beautiful setting.
The disappointing thing to me is that they made a choice to keep the — I’m not sure they’re always like that those faces. They made a choice to have those faces soft and therefore there’s also a choice that the bottoms are hard. Pete also made a choice that he wasn’t going to allow us to bounce the ball into the greens. That’s probably the most disappointing thing.
Now, I heard that there was feedback if wind comes up we can water the whole time. I think that’s a great idea. But that has to affect the fact that you’re going to get 30 to 40 miles an hour wind here. That’s the beauty of links golf when you play overseas, is that you always have the option to put the ball on the ground and chase it in. And that’s what I love about design and that’s what we try to create in the golf courses that we do is to leave the choices up to the players, don’t have the architect make all the choices.
And, I mean, obviously, with the 14th green elevated, and the third green and there are some beautiful holes. I can step back and look at what he’s created and what he’s done and it’s remarkable. The tree selection, what he’s left and how he’s put things in. And the angles. And I appreciate all that. I’m just disappointed that there aren’t some more greens down on the ground that you could chase the ball into. And I know it’s a choice.
Now, this is really the first time we played stroke play here. But the Ryder Cup was here and the UBS Cup and that those are all match play events. This is a stroke play event. And maybe that’s perfect for match play to have all these disasters. But it’s another thing when you look at what happened to Ben Crenshaw, he was 6-under par, he hits it in that bunker. And we looked at it all week of, how do you get it on, how do you get it out of that thing there. I mean, I’m not sure it’s doable.
Maybe that was part of his plan, I don’t know. That’s what I would like to have seen I would like to have seen those faces done differently. And I think there has to be a little sand in the bottom of the things. So you can play, so. Anyway.
Q. How emotionally draining is this golf course compared to some of the others in this country. I mean, it just seems that, especially when the wind blows, that it’s almost incomparable.
TOM KITE: It beats the living day lights out of you. It really does. You hear nothing but praise for the golf course. Everybody just sits there and says, it’s fantastic. There’s a lot of — Pete built a lot of flexibility into this golf course in terms of the set up. And what the rules guys can do. And I commend Kerry Haigh, I think that he does such a great job in setting up Major Championships when he gets a golf course like this or like what he did at Whistling Straights for the PGA a couple of years ago.
You don’t have to — the golf course stands on its own. And what were there six scores under par through two rounds? And then — and quite honestly he didn’t set the golf course up quite nearly as difficult as he could have. And yet it was still holding its own.
So the golf course is fantastic, everybody is raving about it, Pete just did a fantastic job here, a marvelous design, but, it’s a hard, whatever adjective you want to put on it.
(Laughter.)
Q. You talked about how wonderful this golf course is and how punishing it is, how often should a tournament be played here? I mean how often would you like to comeback to this place to play a tournament?
TOM KITE: I would come back any time they want me to. I love this golf course. Quite honestly, this year we have got the, for our five Major Championships on the Champions Tour, we have got the best rotation of anybody. The PGA TOUR would 20 times rather be playing the rotation that we have than the ones they have, I can assure you. Not to knock what they have coming up, at Oakmont, but when you catch Whistling Straights and Muirfield and Sun River and Baltimore Country Club and Kiawah, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than that. So it’s a nice rotation. We are very blessed this year.Q. You had talked about this course, is it possible that there may be too many variables here, I mean they’re going to bring the PGA Championship here in a few years, is it possible that there’s so many variables here that the week could go horribly wrong?
TOM KITE: Oh, it will go horribly wrong for some. I can guarantee that. Any time you play a golf course like this — but you know, the thing you have to understand is that a golf course like this separates the field. We play a lot of golf courses with big greens, everybody shoots low. Big wide fairways, everybody shoots low. Nobody separates themselves. I mean it’s whoever makes a couple of putts.
Here, you have a chance to really, if you put up a good score like what I shot today, or what Eduardo has had the first couple of days, you have a chance to really separate yourself from the field. And you’re unbelievably rewarded for being able to negotiate and get around that golf course, maneuver around that golf course and not have any disasters happen.
I think with all — well, we would most of us would 20 times rather play a golf course like that, that separates the field than to play one that’s just you know where everybody can shoot a good score. You’ll have some that will disagree with me, but quite honestly, I can assure you that the top players on our TOUR welcome golf courses like this.
When you look — look at the leaderboard. Those are the names you want up there. You want to see Eduardo, you want to scenic price, you want to see Crenshaw, you want to see the top players playing well in a tournament like this.Q. What I was somewhat referring to previously was the potential of this course to have wind at that that’s nearly unplayable, balls plugging in bunkers and people taking unplayable lies, wind blowing some sand out of bunkers?
TOM KITE: Well, yeah, it’s going to do that. If the wind blows, I mean you’re going to get some strange occurrences here. It’s stuff that we see a lot of times over at the British Open. It’s just stuff that you don’t see very often here.
Especially during Major Championship season. In the summertime everything is usually benign, if anything you get a thunder storm, it softens up the golf course and makes it play easier. This is a welcome change of pace.
Whistling Straights. You hope that the field staff does a great job and like I said, I think Kerry Haigh does as fine a job as anybody in the business in terms of setting up the golf course fairly. He challenges us, but he doesn’t go over the edge. And some would probably say that Kerry may set it up a little too easy in some cases. I’m sure some people didn’t want to see any red numbers here at Kiawah this week. And so the fact that there were six people shooting under par and maybe a few more today because the wind is down a little bit, you know, that probably ticks a few people off.
But I think that Kerry does a great job and yeah, you can criticize the bunkers, if there’s one criticism to this golf course it’s not the design of the bunkers, but the maintenance of the bunkers, that soft sandy face. That can be tough. If the ball sticks up in there, obviously it’s an unplayable lie then. That’s just bad luck.
But, you know, in America it seems like we keep trying to take luck out of the game. And this is, you know, they fill in the creek in front of 13 at Augusta. So you never have the opportunity like Curtis Strange had when his ball went in there and he had a chance to play it out, he got it on the sandbar and he was able to play it out. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. That’s part of the game. They fill it in, they take all the luck out, takes all the fun out of the game. There’s nothing more exciting in my mind than a shot that hits and starts trickling either coming back away from the hole or going toward the hole, and the shot seems to take a minute and a half before from the time you strike it until it finally stops rolling. Man, that’s exciting. Everybody’s on the edge of their seat, waiting to see where it’s going to finish. I personally like that stuff. I consequently I like Pete Dye as an architect, because he builds it in. Not everybody will agree with me. And that’s their opinion.
Q. With what Ben did out of that 17th bunker, did that help you?
FUZZY ZOELLER: There’s no sand in that bunker. That’s harder than that damn road we drove in on. It’s just one of those things. They say these things are a hazard and, boy, they are, there’s no doubt about it.Q. Talk about the environment out there, Major Championship?
FUZZY ZOELLER: Are you still working for the Golf Channel.Q. I am.
FUZZY ZOELLER: Just goes to show you anybody can work down there. I’m telling you.
I had a good time. Last two days been very, very good.
You’ve got two classy guys that go about the game a little bit differently, but they appreciate it. And that’s what’s fun about it.
No matter what we shoot, we’re still out there as friends and laughing, giggling and talking all the way around there.Q. How did it play out here relative to yesterday?
FUZZY ZOELLER: The wind’s probably about 20, 25, it’s about two, two and a half club wind. Yesterday it was three, three and a half clubs. So that’s the difference. It’s not quite as hard as it was yesterday. We’re not getting sandblasted like we did the last four holes yesterday. But that’s it. It’s beautiful. I’m going to have a vodka tonic. Thank you.
Just wanted to see if you made it all the way to the end.