"There's no way Jack Nicklaus designed these greens. They are mental."

Thanks to The Constructivist over at Mostly Harmless for catching these comments from Laura Davies on Grand Cypress, home to this week's LPGA Tour Championship. I would have caught these were it not the fourth most interesting event this week!

Q. Tell us about the course. It's pretty challenging. What do you think of it?

LAURA DAVIES: This one? It's my favorite course in Florida. We played here years ago in the late 90s and 2000. It's always been my favorite course in Florida. I like the grass here. It's better. It's not so--the weird grass that Florida has. I don't know the difference between them but it's much spongier and I like it. The layout is fantastic, but the grass is good, too. I don't know what they did with the greens. Someone went mental on the greens. I don't know what happened there. Someone said Jack Nicklaus did it, but I don't believe that. Someone said Jack changed it; well, he must have been having a very bad day. (Laughter).

Q. Someone said that he had to oversee it for it to remain a Nicklaus design.

LAURA DAVIES: Well, he might have been in a helicopter above (laughter) or flown over and said "that will do" or something. There's no way Jack Nicklaus designed these greens. They are mental.

Clearly Laura needs to get out to Sherwood to see some of Jack's finest greens. She'd retract those comments in a heartbeat!

Comments

[The Constructivist]

Well played, sir! Wait till you see what I got for Elling coming out at midnight....

[The Constructivist]

As promised:

http://mlyhlss.blogspot.com/2010/12/paging-steve-elling.html

[TheBigdad]

Laura would be right. Nice routing, good condition most of the year but calling the greens mental might actually be underestimating the weirdness of them all. Played there a few times and each time I am reminded why I don't want to play there again. You know, I feel that way about most Nicklaus courses. goofy greens with severe undulations and these various "tables" to play to. If you miss by 30 feet you can't two put and ..ugh. Enough said. When playing mini tour events I avoid any Nicklaus course. I 'd rather go to the dentist or burn the roof of my mouth than subject myself to most of his stuff. Renegade at Desert Mountain is an exception as is Harbour Town. Must be some others but mostly I remember the ones I don't like and Grand Cypress heads the list.

[digsouth]

Flintrock Falls, the sister coutse to the Hills, has phycho greens. The 'shelving' 3 putt setup is not fun and only lacking a windmill.

[digsouth]

BTW, Laura ia a hoot. One of my favorite golfers of all time!

To see her whack the ball with both feet off the ground is a site to behold.

[jjshaka]

The Bigdad-
I chuckled at your description of Nicklaus greens since I recently played Eagle Ridge in Gilroy , CA, an atrocity " designed" by Johnny Miller.
Millers greens inspiration had to have either been MC Escher or the nearby minature golf course- worse nonsense I've ever seen.

[F. X. Flinn]

jj -- that's the course I was describing in my post about Miller a week or so ago! I don't remember the greens being that much of a problem, but that might have been because getting to them was impossible, and once on, you were fine. Haven't been there for 8 years, so who knows. Does the clubhouse still feature the artist renditions of what the holes would look like?