[Mark Smolens]

TPC Stadium may be an easy course, and the greens easy to make putts on, but imo that's for the guys who have their names on their bags. I've played the Stadium a bunch of times, and while I'm no scratch player, I'm better than a hack, and if you don't keep your ball in play you can't score there (unless you're strong enough to hit a wedge from the rough and make it go 165 yards -- most of us just don't have that shot). I played the day after the Phoenix Open one year, and the greens were so fast it was other-worldy. It had been very dry, and the greens were running 15 on the stimpmeter -- fine for guys who play for a living, but I had 40 putts.

[Doug Siebert]

Patrick:

The Tour's standard for golf course set-up includes not putting the hole anywhere on the green that there is more than a 2.25% slope, and at least three paces away from anything steeper than that.  So, unless the greens are 15 on the Stimpmeter, that is going to result in a lot of birdies.

The modern courses tend to have flatter greens (to accommodate those fast green speeds), wider fairways, and fewer trees in play, all of which are primary factors that help produce very low scoring.

2.25%?  Sheesh, I think over half the holes on my home course wouldn't have a single pin position that qualified!  That's true of a lot of older courses that have a lot of slope, either back to front (like mine) or general movement.  Such greens would be unplayable if you ever got them up to a true tour speed.

If the tour really wants greens fast, they ought to get rid of the grass.  I'll bet they could get bare dirt stimping at around 19 if they rolled it

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