Player thoughts on Bethpage, Wednesday afternoon

Photo by Adam Slick

I had a great first day out here at the Barclays. Got to meet some of the guys on the crew, watched a little golf, and even snuck in a few player interviews before I left.

As always, these are 1-on-1 interviews, directly from player’s lips to my voice recorder to the blog. As you’ll see, comments were a little bit all over with the firmness, the greens, etc., but one thing everyone agreed on is that the course, overall, is looking great. “Great” and “good” are the two most popular words in this post. (The word “enchilada” is sadly never used.)

Adam Scott
“It’s playing good, actually, it’s nice to see it dry for a change (laughs). It’s looking really good. Everything is in really good shape, it should be a good week, weather permitting.

Superintendent Andy Wilson stimps a green late Wednesday.

It’s good that there are courses like this available to the public. Great golf course, great design, visually, lovely bunkering… it’s a shame that there aren’t more facilities like this available to the public, not just the Black Course but all five are fantastic… a fantastic venue.”

Chad Campbell
“It’s good. It’s in good shape, a little faster than what it was for the U.S. Open, which is nice. Still pretty soft yesterday, when I played. The rough is down just a little bit where you can try to get balls up around the green. There are some lies where you can’t move it, but there are some lies where you can give it a shot on the green. The greens are tough. Quite a bit of undulation on some of the greens on the back nine. Tough to get it close, the greens are pretty firm — they were when I played it yesterday.

It’s in great shape, the crew does a great job. It’s cool to play a course where the general public can come out and play any time of the week.”

Louis Oosthuizen
“It’s certainly long, you have to hit it well off the tee… I thought the greens would be better. This afternoon, they’ve gone through a lot of feet from the morning pro-am, the afternoon pro-am… it’s understandable in the last hour or so. They’ll look after them. If it gets really firm it’s going to be difficult, because there’s some rough around the greens. It’s going to be tough if the greens get really firm. Look, the course is in great condition — fairways, the rough is fair. It’s probably going to grow during the week, so it’ll be tough Saturday/Sunday… the greens to me, I felt uncomfortable. But it’s a proper golf course, you have to hit the ball really well.” 

Dustin Johnson
“The course is playing good. It’s drying out a little bit, yesterday it was really wet. Today it was getting a little drier, greens getting a little firmer. The course is in great shape. I think it’s in really good shape, comparable to the U.S. Open… it’s very similar. They’re doing a great job.”