The sweltering heat and windy conditions weren’t the only difficult challenges for golfers at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in Frisco, Texas. The course setup at Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco has caused major consternation among many of the world’s top players.
Major winner Sophia Popov, who missed the cut after shooting 76-80 to go 12 over after the first two rounds, ripped the PGA’s setup on Instagram.
“… The @PGA set the golf course up to make us look silly and incapable the majority of the time there. Six-hour rounds in brutally windy conditions with pin placements that were mostly inaccessible. Playing 30-40 feet away from the pins all day is not enjoyable to us, nor to the spectators and viewers at home. Unfortunately, I barely missed my spots both days and it ended up being very costly.”
Several others sounded off on the course setup that had only one player—Charley Hull—break 70 in the second round. And a difficult setup led to slow play, which is always on the mind of Hull, who has been outspoken about slow play.
“Yeah, it was pretty crazy,” she said. “We were playing two balls this morning and took us three hours and 10 minutes to play nine holes, which is pretty crazy. We play a four-ball at home in like three hours, you know what I mean, with bogeys and stuff.
“It’s pretty crazy. At the end of the day, it’s a pretty tough golf course, it’s really windy, and the setup is kind of tricky. Can’t really expect it to be anything else.”
World No. 2 Jeeno Thitikul led the third major of the season after each of the first two rounds and Minjee Lee used a three-under 69 on moving day to take a four-shot lead into Sunday. Thitikul was four shots back after a four-over 76.
World No. 1 Nelly Korda also weighed in on the course setup, particularly hole locations.
“The hole locations are kind of in almost impossible positions where not many people are hitting the greens, so obviously it’s going to take a lot more time,” Korda told Golfweek.
Sam Hodde
Angel Yin had an interesting take, too, in that the course wasn’t that interesting.
“It definitely has its challenges. Honestly, it’s a really boring golf course,” Yin said earlier in the week. “The challenge is staying focused and staying in the game the entirety of four hours we’re out there. The rough is tough to get out of. It’s spongey so it sits down on it. When you hit out of it, it kind of top spins so you can’t really control the distance off it. Hitting fairways is huge and fairways are generally tight here. Every single hole looks the same. Mentally, you have to stay in it because everything looks the same. The front nine there’s more character to it.”
Count Stacy Lewis among those who weren’t impressed this week in Texas. She shot 78-76 and missed the cut.
“We had such a good run with this championship at very good golf courses and then we come here,” Lewis said to Golfweek. This championship has been at Sahalee, Baltuscrol, Congressional, Atlanta Athletic Club, Aronimink and Hazeltine the past six years.
“The issue of this all too is, make us look good. We’re trying to get more people to watch women’s golf, and to watch us play golf, and setups like this, they don’t help us. And this is when we have our biggest stages, network TV and all of that, and we’re making very good players look silly.”
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com