Ryder Cup diary Hazeltine WON’T favour the USA

By Steve Chappell (@CentenaryHGK)

First of all, contrary to what some may believe I don’t think this course is going to favour the Americans as it stands at the moment.

The fairways are generous – which I believe is standard here at Hazeltine – and they don’t have the run-off areas that we did at Gleneagles. The rough is tighter in to the putting surfaces but it’s not thick, long rough.

I’ve said it in the past that I think it’s very difficult nowadays to set-up a course to favour a particular side because a lot of the players from Europe spend a lot of time in the States. Other than green speed, I don’t think there’s much you can do.

It’s in amazing condition and because of the trueness of the surfaces, width of the fairways, I think it’ll be a good scoring course. In a matchplay situation, players will really be able to take advantage of that.

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Thinking back to Gleneagles, Paul was involved with us right up until the Sunday before the event then, under the captain’s agreement, he stepped away.

We first met with him after the ‘Year Out’ event but walked the golf course with him for the first time in April 2014. He gave us ideas as to what he was looking for, such as the width of the fairways at specific yardage points and also run-offs around the greens.

Once we processed that information, we then started mowing lines and he came back at the end of May to review where we were. Then he came back again in August and that was us until two weeks before the event. But we did have visits from the European Tour agronomy team on a regular basis – every two or three weeks – but they always seemed happy with where we were at.

As far as I know, Davis has been in similar communication with Chris , although a lot has been done through Kerry Haigh of the PGA of America, who looks after course set-up.

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As you can imagine, it’s long days for us this week, but time goes very quickly when you’re getting through stuff.

At the start of last week, we were getting in at 5am but, due to some bad weather, we started coming in at 6.30am. However, the guys were still staying through until around 7pm.

There’s a crew of 150 working on the course to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Hazeltine itself has a crew of around 50 guys and there are 100 volunteers. Not all of them are on shift every day but they’re doing a variety of shifts and are all super-intendents or greenkeepers from various clubs across the USA.

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