Greens that fit the architectural and landscape environment of a golf course--now that's a novel idea. BB's greens are not anywhere similar to Friar's Head or NGLA. However, they are very much the best possible greens for the Black. When the course plays to normal conditions, the plain 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 16th greens become very tricky to both hit and hold, and then make putts. Every year in the NY Open the 2nd and 6th leave players perplexed about their misreads. This year there is an unbelievable chart of the greens that players are using and they still cannot seem to trust what the slope grades show--witness Phil's putt on 2 this evening and Tiger's putt on 6--both putts were spot on to the player's target. Incidentally, if the 2nd and 5th greens had more slope and contour, they would be much easier to hit approach shots close in normal conditions because the slopes would act as backstops. Hitting the 5th green in normal conditions requires a solidly struck shot that lands in the front third of the green. As for the 17th green, it is not just a simple 2 tier green. There are some intersting internal contours in the front left and back left portions of the green. Unfortunately, the wet conditions neutralized the interesting approach putts to the 3rd round pin, although, the only putt I sayw go in was by Trevor Murphy and his playing partner thought he had his only for it to break the other way at the hole.
Over the past few years, I have been a very harsh critic of how the course is becoming architecturaly diminished because of the new left bunker on 8, the fairway bunker on 9, the bottleneck narrowing of the fairway bunkers on 11, the left fairway bunkers on 13, and the hideous framing bunker and new back tier on 14. In spite of these architectural travesties, the course is still great, it just is not as great as Engineers, Firars Head, or GCGC anymore.