|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 1, 2008Jim HylerCOLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO JIM HYLER: We know this golf course is very hard. We've had a lot of firming and drying of the golf course since Monday. This afternoon, the wind came up and it played very hard this afternoon. The wind just added to the difficulty of the greens. So it's probably more firm right now than it's been all week, and we will address that tonight in our directive ordering process. We like the way the golf course is. We don't want it to get any harder, and we will do everything possible to keep it from getting any firmer or any closer to the edge. We have said that we're into our third year of sort of a new concept with our course setup, and that is to try to keep the course basically the same all week; what they see on Monday is the same thing they play on Sunday afternoon. And by and large we've done that here, except that on Monday the course was too soft. And we dialed back the water, and given the environment here, it really dried it out. But we have it pretty much the way we want it today, and as I say, the wind picked up, and it added a great element of difficulty. So we have communicated this to the players in a memorandum that we are trying to keep it the same. So we are not going to speed up the greens any. We cut the grass every day, so try to keep it right where it is. Q. What do you make of the pin placements today? JIM HYLER: There were a couple of challenging hole locations, no question about it, Hole 4 and Hole 8 were very challenging. On Hole 8, we made an adjustment in our setup this morning to move the tee up and it played 153 yards and we intentionally moved the tee up 16 yards this morning to give them a shorter club to hit to a very hard hole location. On Monday, we actually softened that hole location. We made a decision to move it down the slope a couple paces on Monday. So we know that was hard. 8 is a tough green; no matter where you put it, it's hard. So we felt like it was some compensation this morning by moving the tee up 16 yards and giving them a much shorter club to hit. Q. So on Monday the greens were not quite up to the firmness standard? JIM HYLER: Yes, it was a little soft on Monday, and we worked with the superintendent to dial back the watering a little bit, and here it can firm very quickly, and so Tuesday was a different golf course than on Monday. What we had on Tuesday is what we are trying to keep for the week. Q. So the golf course tomorrow morning when the first group goes, do you want it what it was this morning or what it was this afternoon? JIM HYLER: You know, you can't -- this is an outdoor game. The early guys are going to get a little softer course because we've watered, and as play goes on and the wind picks up, it gets tougher. We are out there syringing. We watered yesterday and today between the waves, the morning and afternoon waves, we watered fairways. We turned the sprinklers on and ran the irrigation on the fairway, plus we had people out with hoses, syringing. We watered the greens between the waves, absolutely. And then today, yesterday and today, we had people out there watching the greens and when they see hot spots, we will suspend play, get the hose out there and give them a quick drink. So we have been very aggressive with our corrective watering program to keep water on all of these greens. Q. Didn't that used to be a faux paux to do that in the middle of the day? JIM HYLER: We've tried to -- to get back to what I said, we want the golf course as much as we possibly can to play the same on Sunday as it did on Monday, and keeping these greens watered throughout the day -- and plus here, the extreme heat that we are experiencing, the dryness, it adds a lot of pressure on these greens and stress to these greens, so you have to give them a drink of water. So we are aggressive about doing that. Q. So the Shinnecock factor is in play? JIM HYLER: Well, we're trying to give the players what we think is a hard golf course but fair, and today, there's no question, we had a couple hard hole locations, but they were well within our tolerances. When we measured the slope of the greens, we take levels out, measure slope, and both 4 and 8 were well within our tolerances. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|