Royal Melbourne superintendent calling for "wind and warmth"

I can highly recommend PGA TOUR NEWS by Ron Mintz as a great source for news and opinion collated from sources around the world, with of course opinion from Ron himself. Here is an article from his site written in Sky News.com.au

Having spent two years giving Royal Melbourne a facelift, course superintendent Richard Forsyth is waiting on the weather to bring out its true character in the Presidents Cup.


Local knowledge proved handy when the event was previously at Royal Melbourne in 1998, as an International team including four Australians thrashed the United States, in what remains their only victory.

But the adverse effect of drought conditions that followed prompted the resurfacing of all fairways, greens, tees and surrounds in the two years leading up to the prestigious teams event, which starts on Thursday.

Forsyth said while the remedial work was not purely for the Presidents Cup, knowledge that it was coming added to the pressure.'We're dealing with fairly immature grasses, but overall we're reasonably happy with how it is,' Forsyth told AAP on Monday.

Now he wants wind and warmth - ideally a strong northerly - to speed up and add to the challenge on the greens, which were softened by recent wet weather.'It's starting to dry up now and firm up nicely, so I think by Thursday we should be having real Royal Melbourne conditions, I hope,' said Forsyth.

Repeatedly ranked among the best courses in the world, Royal Melbourne's 6,397m composite layout is short by modern standards and includes four par-fours that are 350m or less in length.

But Forsyth said the shorter holes could be the most interesting.

The 161m par three third, which has a severely sloping green and the 401m par four fourth, which has a dog-legged fairway and significant slope on the putting surface are the course's 'signature holes'.

But Forsyth's favourite is the shortest par four, the 285m sixth.'You probably can drive the green,' he said.'But if they miss the green, it's going to be very interesting in terms of recovery shots.'There's a very steep run-off and bunkers are quite deep and severe.'

The 304m par-four 11th poses a similar question of whether to gamble for glory, the matchplay-style Cup format adding drama to that dilemma.

Local knowledge should again help the International team, which contains five Australians plus non-playing captain Greg Norman.But the course was quickly winning over American first-timers.

Webb Simpson, the USA's youngest team member at 26, was only early in his practice round when he declared it 'my new favourite golf course'.

Veteran Steve Stricker, 44, was similarly complimentary, with both noting the tricky greens.'It's not an overly long course. It plays longer though at times because you can't hit a lot of drivers,' Stricker said.'It's great, it's probably one of the best courses I've played really.'Visually it looks good and it plays well too.'

Bryan Angus also on twitter@mummmbles