I hope, looking back, that Derek Ernst will be the story and not the quality of the greens. I was there, and they were terrible. Shane Ryan sums it up nicely:
> And Quail Hollow? The greens on the beautiful course were in terrifying shape. A new course superintendent, an upcoming shift to Bermuda grass, or poor maintenance due to “top-dressing” the greens with sand may have been responsible. Two of the greens were so bad that they had to be re-sodded just before the tournament, an extraordinary measure for a PGA stop. The rest looked like they’d come down with some sort of splotchy rash, and the discoloration was not purely cosmetic — rolls were uneven, putts were affected, players complained. But regardless of who or what was to blame, the poor conditions resulted in nine withdrawals in the week leading up to the tournament. The golfers all had their own excuses, but the circumstances went beyond “suspicious.” As CBS’s Kyle Porter reported, Ian Poulter actually tweeted about the horrid state of the greens, flew to Charlotte to check them out firsthand, and then flew back home citing “personal reasons.”
They better get that fixed before next year.