When the pros start comparing notes in the locker room about the must-miss short shots, something unusual is happening on the greens.
That seems to be the case at this week’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic.
Ask Patrick Reed.
Reed is the leader going into the weekend after a second-round 66 moved him to nine-under, one stroke clear of England’s Andy Sullivan on the Majlis Course at Emirates Golf Club. But climbing the table has not been easy.
“The way the golf course was playing yesterday with how hard and fast the greens were, you just couldn’t deal with the rough,” Reed said Friday. “And I seemed to do that every time I bogeyed. I missed a couple.” short shots.
In the second round, Reed found his touch on greens that confused large sections of the field.
“I heard a lot of guys talking in the locker room, missing a good amount of short shots that we’re not used to missing,” he said.
The greens, he noted, were unusual in their look and feel.
“Yesterday, they had like a silver lining to them,” he said. “Whenever the wind blows, it just dries them out and it’s kind of hard to see the grain. Sometimes the ball slides instead of turning. You don’t know if it’s going to break or stay straight.”
The Majlis course, the first true grass course in the Middle East, opened in 1988 and has hosted the Hero Dubai Desert Classic since the tour’s inception in 1989. The course was renovated after the 2021 event, with enlarged greens to provide additional hole locations and resurfaced with TifDwarf-Bermuda-permuda-performante.
It’s hard to say exactly what Reed was seeing, according to Dan Cutler, superintendent at FireRock Country Club in Fountain Hills, Ariz. “The silver color,” he said, could be associated with wheat, the pattern of grass growth direction. A change in color can also be caused by stress, as the blades remain dormant in self-defense. It is not unusual, for example, for bentgrass greens to take on what appears to be a bluish tinge as a tournament week progresses.
But greens so fast that shots will “slide” instead of roll? “I’ve never heard of that,” he said. “It would suggest almost no resistance, like throwing a bowling ball across an ice rink.”
However, breakage is a function of speed and contour. When the greens are lightning fast and the holes open on slippery surfaces, even the best players in the world can have attacks.
Reed was not alone in his assessment of the challenge. Rory McIlroya four-time winner of the event, also said the putting surfaces have been particularly difficult.
“A lot of shots that looked like they were going in, but they weren’t,” McIlroy said.
Bundle up for the weekend. The greens won’t get any easier.
