So simple yet so complex!

[Mark_Fine]

I admit I have only played Riviera five or six times so I am no expert on the course but what it is about these greens that make them so complexing to the best players in the world (let alone the rest of us)?  They are “mildly” undulating by Golf Club Atlas standards, but they are anything but boring and are so much fun to play (not so much when they are rolling at 12)

Why are they sooo good?

I just emailed Shackelford to see what he has to say.

[JMEvensky]

I've never played Riviera,but it seems every time a PGAT tournament is played on poa greens,the TV coverage talks about how subtle the greens must be because  the leaders are making few putts.

How much of the sublety is just a case of poa in the afternoon rather than greens design?

[Mark_Fine]

The greens are pretty much perfect from a condition standpoint.  Much less grain and bumps on poa/bent greens vs Bermuda especially at the speeds they have them at.  Poa is actually a great putting surface especially if you suppress the seed heads.   

[Joe Zucker]

I would love to hear how these greens compare to Pinehurst #2 from someone who has played both.  A lot of good shots were running off the edges and into the rough, just like the classic Ross course.  From the TV, it looked like the balls do not roll as far off the green when they catch a slope at Riviera as they do at Pinehurst.  Is that true? 

Also, did Thomas have rough in mind to defend the greens or did he imagine something closer to the Pinehurst we saw at the US Open?   I've never seen Riviera but I know this is the right group to ask.

[Joe Hancock]

Mark,

As one who likes to play those other types of greens, I would respond by saying I wouldn't want a steady diet of mildly perplexing greens. Sometimes, I want the bold, yet obvious, shot to stare me in the face. If I misread putts 20-30 times per round, I'm not enjoying the brilliance of the rest of the course.

Joe

EDIT: I do enjoy watching them play at Riviera. I'm sure I would love the place through and through.

[Tom_Doak]

Riviera is a difficult site to read.  The holes are all down in the canyon with the steep walls on either side, so you tend not to account for the natural fall of the land from #1 green to #6 tee.  Plus, Thomas did some pretty large earth movement there and there are a couple of holes where he built greens up enough to tilt back against the grain.  That's enough to confuse most people!

[Mark_Fine]

Joe Z,
The greens at Pinehurst #2 might be the toughest I have ever played.  I did not say best, I said toughest.  I know Bill and Ben couldn't touch them during the restoration but I bet they would have liked to.  At U.S. Open speeds they boarder if not cross being over the top because they are soooo domed.  I never felt that way with the greens at Riviera.

Joe H,
I like those "other" greens too.  Most of my favorite courses in the world are links courses and we both know what kinds of greens many of them have.  I have also never been bored by subtle greens.  Furthermore, I can't ever remember playing wild greens that were simple to read.  Also by definition, undulating greens are always going to lead to most every putt having breaks that have to be read - some might be obvious, some not.

Tom,
I agree with you, the way the course sits in the valley coupled with some greens set above grade makes for putting confusion.  I wonder if Thomas realized that this would add complexity to his green surfaces?

[BCowan]

The greens are pretty much perfect from a condition standpoint.  Much less grain and bumps on poa/bent greens vs Bermuda especially at the speeds they have them at.  Poa is actually a great putting surface especially if you suppress the seed heads.  

I disagree with this, for the record I haven't played the course.  I'll take hybrid bermuda any day over poa/bent, possibly over just mostly pure bent.  Hybrid bermuda stays much firmer.  Firmness was never mentioned.  

[Philip Hensley]

Agreed. Courses in my area are changing from soft, overwatered bent greens to hybrid Bermudas and the most unexpected change all of them have is how much firmer the greens are. Even after a couple years when they have softened up a little. It changes the way you have to play approach shots and all the around the greens. The only unfortunate effect is that some greens that were on the smaller side have had to eliminate some pin positions because it's not possible to stop the ball in certain areas.

It's been interesting watching the younger upper-level amateurs that have had to stop flying all greensidenshots to the hole and they now have to adjust to playing more along the ground.

[Mark_Fine]

I hope this does not digress into a grass discussion.  I am a Northeast U.S. guy that plays cool season grasses all the time.  I also play all over the world but in my opinion there is nothing better than a "properly maintained" poa/bent green! 

I am going to go out on a limb (a very strong limb) and say that it is not the type of grass on Riviera's greens that makes them special. 

[Philip Hensley]

The announcers kept referring to it as a "ball strikers" course instead of a strategy course or a shot makers course. Perhaps a question of semantics but it bothered me.

I also got annoyed at the insistence of them to refer to "good shots" that ended up in bad places. Sure, some bad bounces happened (Ryan Moore twice). But to hit it left of a tucked-left pin and then claim you weren't "rewarded" is ridiculous. Hitting a shot to a distance number is not indicative of the quality of a shot.

[Wade Whitehead]

Are the greens at least a foot too fast this week?

WW

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

I was fortunate to be a member there from 1977 until 1997 when my intermediate membership severely spiked in price by 900%. Having  played well over 2000 rounds there, I can state that the difficulty comes from how the greens interact with the sloping of the canyon down to the ocean.  On the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, back of 7th and 8th there are putts that seem to break uphill. You can stand over a putt in these parts of the greens and know from experience what the ball will do, and somehow you still bail out on the correct read.  Most importantly, all the greens have beautiful subtle internal contours tat really come alive when the greens roll at fairly good speeds.  AND like Oakmont, the clubs always had blazing green speed. 

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

One of the best features about the greens is that aside from the front of the 9th green and a few of the fall offs, there is very little severity to be found on the green surfaces.  Instead, the player will often face multiple breaks in putts as short as 15 feet.  With down valley flow of the land, it is a difficult process of figuring out how the different slopes will affect the putts.