With play in round 4 now under way at the Valero Texas Open, the course, the Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio is the story so far.
Heck, it is playing so tough that Ben Curtis had 2 doubles in his first 9 yesterday, shot +1 73 -9 and extended his lead to 3 shots !! Just 19 of the 81 players that made the cut broke par.
The par 72 played to an average score of 74+, the toughest so far on tour this year, with Augusta National a distant second.
Matt Every +1 73 -6, is alone in second. John Huh's -5 67 ( low score of the day with Matt Kuchar) was good for a share of third place -4, 212, along with Charlie Wi (71) and Seung-yul Noh (68).
The problems begin with the par4 first, 454 yards, which has been the toughest against par of any opening hole the past two years. In 2011, it played at 4.462 strokes on average during the final round, yielding only three birdies and 34 bogeys or worse. "Unapologetically Texan" is the event's slogan.
The Greg Norman designed course has had accusations that several greens are too severely sloped and penal, and the fairways are lined with trees and bushes that provide many unplayables and worse. We saw that repeatedly yesterday, at one point Freddie Jacobsen was so stymied he had to play a shot 125 yards back towards the tee. on his way to a double bogey.
Richard Oliver of the San Antonio Express reports that last year, Brendan Steele won with a 280 total which was the highest winning score in the events history. A survey of 81 players earlier this year ranked it 50th among the 52 courses that host PGA Tour competitions.
Kyle Stanley who is not playing this week was quoted saying "To be honest, I didn't think it was fair, Hitting a 5-iron into the wind at those green complexes?” he said. “It's just silly.”
Silly or not, Curtis, who hasn't won since 2006, and has been playing on the European tour on the strength of his 2003 Open Championship, will happily shoot 73 again if it's good enough to win, and it may well be..
live scoring click here http://www.pgatour.com/leaderboards/current/r041/
Bryan Angus also on twitter@mummmbles and at www.isr1050.com
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