Open at Pebble is a skinny, narrow cutting green that is surrounded by bunkers. The green on what is usually a par-4 for men during the latest U.S. Rouillard calls out the 509-yard par-5 second hole as an example of this exercise. "The players that can be students of the greens and really study them will play well."įor Rouillard, fitting the pieces of the Pebble puzzle began with those tricky greens, working backwards from there and asking what kind of shots each green was meant to receive and how that would lend itself to the women's game, then through the fairway and back to the tee box. "There's more slope to these greens than people realize," Rouillard said. "You don't know what kind of first bounce you're going to get, so just making sure that you're taking your time over every shot, being very diligent with your routine." "You have to really concentrate out here, especially with the bouncy poa," Korda said. Short putts are tougher than usual and lag putts are crucial. As many players have pointed out, the poa annua grass on the greens makes for tricky putts, more break and bumpier surfaces as the day goes on. Once on those small greens, the journey is far from over. "I think the ballstriking is going to be really important, especially tee to green." "I do love it that the greens are small," defending U.S. I think every part of your game really has to click." "Probably the smallest greens I've ever seen," said Nelly Korda, who added that the weather has cut 7-10 yards from her distance. Throughout the bag, women are normally shorter than men but they are usually far more accurate, and as several of them will tell you, Pebble's miniscule greens will require every bit of that accuracy. Part of the intrigue this week lies in the different ways women will play a course the men play every year. I would say it puts a premium on your iron shots, and of course if the wind picks up here you need to be able to keep the ball low, have a little more ball control." "Around the greens there's some really nasty lies, especially around the bunker edges," Annika Sorenstam said. Open to try and figure it out, while a few other players said they also took to YouTube to watch Tiger Woods' historic win in 2000. 3 Lydia Ko said they watched highlights of that U.S.
"We wanted to provide a similar presentation for the women as the men have had," Rouillard said, noting that fairway lines and the rough around the bunkers were prioritized to be as similar as possible to what the men dealt with in 2019.īoth world No. Rouillard had no choice but to use other avenues (such as a talking to a 40-year Pebble caddie) as well as look at the data that men have produced, primarily at the most recent Open in 2019, to try and glean what she could for the women's setup. As Rouillard explained, there's no statistics telling her how the best women in the world play Pebble's famous par-5 6th hole, or any hole at the course for that matter. On a practical level, that means no data to use as a starting point. The challenge in the work can be traced as far back as golf's history ("Courses generally aren't designed for an elite female player," Rouillard pointed out) and as recent as the game's present, where the reality is that it has taken far too long for women to play at the same venues men have for quite some time. Rouillard's task was not a straightforward one. "We're trying to marry the architecture with the skill level and presenting a USGA test of golf that's going to test all aspects of their games along with really showcasing the golf course as well." "It's really important for us to play at the cathedrals of the game," Rouillard said. The USGA's senior director of championships was the lead figure in transforming Pebble Beach from a course Harigae has seemingly known her whole life to something new, and most importantly, something that will test the best female players in the world starting Thursday. That observation is music to Shannon Rouillard's ears.
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"It was actually funny, in the practice round the last couple days it's actually easier to pick targets because there's more TV towers, grandstands," Harigae said on Tuesday.
And yet what she has seen so far this week and will continue to see throughout the week will be something different, in more ways than one. Of the 156 players in this year's field, Harigae has perhaps the most knowledge of the course. Women's Open runner-up was born in Monterey, California, attended the nearby Stevenson School and has played the course over 50 times. Mina Harigae has never seen Pebble Beach like this. How Pebble Beach plays differently for a women's major
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