I heard that Phil stopped by for a round at Pine Valley as a warm-up for the PGA touney.  I am interested if any other players made the effort to play the world's #1 ranked course while they were in the Garden State....or if he said anything about the course in general.

Has he ever played it before?

He has gotten into the habit of practicing off-site on the Wednesday of a major week. I think this is the case here and he was just using their practice facility to hit balls and such.

Cancel that, just spoke with a friend who happened to play directly behind Phil on Wednesday at PV. No real contribution to this thread, sorry.

I heard Colin Montgomerie made a visit to PV as well.

I met Colin at the 1998 US Open at Olympic Club and we talked about Pine Valley and the 1985 Walker Cup which he played.   He said it was his favorite course, unlike anything he has ever seen or played.   I'm not surprised he would go and play it.

Phil has good taste in practice facilities.

Early on during Thursday's TBS telecast, Gary Koch reported that Phil had spent Wednesday, as he has the day before competition begins in the past several majors, offsite practicing.  This time, however, it happened to be at the #1 course in the world.  
Without giving any explanation, he did continue to say that one of the reasons was that the speed of the greens at Baltusrol for the practice rounds was expected to be slower than for the tournament proper and that Pine Valley provided Phil with a practice environment he considered to be appropriate for the next four days.  
Remember, I'm just the messenger...