TPC Potomac masquerades as major

Players expect thick rough will lead to high scores

BETHESDA, MD. Defending champion Billy Hurley didn’t mince words.

“There are no low scores here,” he said of TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm, host for this year’s Quicken Loans National.

Justin Thomas got right to the point, too.

“You could 100% host a U. S. Open here starting tomorrow,” he said. “I mean, you really could.”

The two know of what they speak. Everyone you ask on the range said the same thing — the greens are firm, the course is long and it’s rimmed by the meanest rough you never want to meet. It will provide a supreme challenge for the players, most who saw the course for the first time this week.

“The rough is definitely going to be penal this week, more so this week than other weeks on tour,” Hurley said. “I’ll sign for 10 under and sit in the clubhouse for four days.”

Hurley was sitting pretty in the Quicken Loans last year, when he won his first PGA Tour title by holding off a couple of World Golf Hall of Fame members — Vijay Singh and Ernie Els — and young stars Jon Rahm and Bill Haas.

The tournament, however, was held at historic Congressional Country Club right next door. The event moves in odd- numbered years, and this is TPC Potomac’s first hosting duties. While Hurley wishes he were defending at Congressional — he also has finished fourth and eighth there — he is familiar with TPC Potomac. He plays the course and does much of his practice here.

“So it’s a hard, hard golf course,” he said. “The key out here more than anywhere else, there’s a lot of tee shots where you’ve got to be in the fairway.”

TPC Potomac can be stretched to 7,139 yards and plays to a par of 70. Once an annual stop on the PGA Tour schedule, the original 1986 design was extensively renovated, with major changes to 15 holes, after the 2006 Booz Allen Classic, the last Tour event staged here. Since the renovations, the course hosted to complimentary reviews the 2010 Senior Players Championship and two Web. com Tour events.

Players have praised the condition of the course — from immaculate greens to perfect fairways to a pleasing route through this former cattle ranch. But the difficultly presented is what was foremost on their minds.

“It’s not very often we play greens this firm on tour other than majors,” said Thomas, knowing full well the course will get firmer if the forecast calling for temperatures in the 90s holds. “You’ll occasionally get a weekend where they’re firm, but I mean, on Tuesday and Wednesday, you don’t get them where 8- irons are rolling 5 to 8 yards or bouncing 5 to 8 yards out like here. ...

“The rough is thick, and there’s times where you’re just going to have to chip out. Like I said, it’s very major- like. It’s very U. S. Open- like. ... You really have to golf your ball this week to play well.”

Patrick Reed agreed. He said his first look at the front nine didn’t alarm him. His first look at the back nine did. When he arrived at the 10th tee, his mind- set changed suddenly as the inward nine became a maze of fairways going in all directions, out- of-bounds areas and long hazards pinching fairways and sight lines that play tricks on the mind.

“It’s one of those courses that if you hit in the fairways and you have control with your irons, you can attack the golf course,” Reed said. “But at the same time, the greens are really firm and there are some slopes in the greens where even if you hit a drive down the fairway, you have to pay attention, because you can hit iron shots that you think are going to be pretty good end up on the wrong side of the slope. Next thing you know you have 30, 35 feet to the hole, and you might have only missed your spot by a yard. ...

“It’s just going to take a lot of patience and a lot of good golf shots to go out and shoot a low number.”

STAN BADZ, PGA TOUR “The rough is definitely going to be penal this week, more so this week than other weeks on tour,” said Quicken Loans National defending champ Billy Hurley, who played in the pro- am.