by Lucas Glover, the US Open 2009 winner who is not afraid to share his thoughts, was not a big fan of the Golf Club Host Caves Valley during the BMW championship last week. The six -time winner PGA Tour organized a new episode of his radio program Siriusxm PGA Tour this week and said: “I’m sorry for the members who have to play this now, because it is practically unplayable.”
Caves Valley outside Baltimore was designed by Tom Fazio and opened in 1991. It was classified by Golfweek Best as a private club n ° 6 in Maryland. The PGA Tour played the disposition of the BMW 2021 championship as part of the Fedex Cup qualifiers, and Patrick Cantlay and Bryson Dechambeau were 27 years under the same year with Cantlay who won the qualifiers. The soft conditions of this week favored a small score.
Fazio and Consultant Buddy Marucci, a former American amateur champion, led a renovation of the route in 2023 in order to harden the course before the tour this year. The Fairways have been narrowed, the route was stretched at 7,601 yards, all the Greens were rebuilt and an aerial precision system was installed under the Greens to help create more firm conditions. The course has played harder this year, with Scottie Scheffler, world n ° 1, winning at 15 years.
But at what price? The route has always played gentle, said Glover, because it is the middle of summer and the Greens with folded grass must generally be kept damp in hot weather. GLOVER – which equaled to 40th at 5 years in Caves Valley and failed to qualify for the Tour of this week championship – had many reflections, as we can see in the extracts of its program Siriusxm below:
In order not to have appeared as sour grapes here, but I have never heard the consensus for 21 years on the ground which is not satisfied with the golf course. Usually it is divided. You know, if it is not great, you will have half of the field (say), “it’s not bad”, and the other half “it sucks” or something else. But I think it was almost everyone really liked the Valley cellars. And it’s a shame because it’s a hell of a place. …
It is a shame that because the tournament in 2021 was in August in Baltimore, and it is hot and it was soft, and 20 something under (by) played, that they decided to do it just to make it more difficult for the PGA Tour. And more difficult doesn’t always mean better, it’s the best way to say. And it seemed to be a very lazy renovation. He just changed a few by 5 in by 4, added 500 to 600 yards and changed most of the Greens and made them crazy, literally crazy. And it’s a shame, because it’s a great place, such a great experience. And I am left there disconcerted and I felt very sorry for their membership, because it is sad that it is what people think to be a good golf course and a good design of golf course now. …
And I will give you an excellent example. This Scottie shot did the 17th (a Birdie de Pitch), which was an incredible blow. If he is wrong, he could have gone into the water. B, he could have left green on the left. C, why do we play the hole there? (It’s) 215 yards, there are three other t-shirts in front of him, and the spindle is 3 on the right on a side slope of 4% because there was nowhere else to put the spit. We had already used the other three. This green is thousands of square feet, and we had three and a half holes. Does that make it a good green? No, it’s terrible. …
And we had a tour there, and that did not shock me that the best player in the world won, because he is obviously mentally the best and physically the best, and he could manage it and face it. But there were just crazy, crazy and crazy things they did on this golf course. And it’s a shame, because an incredible experience, a good food, an excellent staff, an excellent locker room, a great everything. And from the point of view of the tour player, he did not do justice in place of having to play in this way.
