World number one Tiger Woods, seeking his ninth win in 10 tournament starts, said he was unimpressed with the greens at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill course.
Organisers have faced a struggle to get the greens ready for the Arnold Palmer Invitational after they were struck with roundworms.
“They are not very good. It’s going to be an interesting week on them. You’re going to see a lot of guys hit good putts and they are going to go weird ways, unfortunately,” Woods told reporters after the Pro/Am competition on Wednesday.
“But, hey, we’ve all got to deal with it, we’ve all got to putt on them and you just have to accept hitting good putts and that they may not go in. But hopefully we hit enough good ones where they do go in.
“It is what it is. You just have to deal with it. I don’t know if it makes a worse putter better or a better putter worse.
“You’ve just got to go up there and be committed to what you’re doing and hit the good putts and hopefully they will somehow fall,” added Woods.
Earlier Palmer had said that after scientists and turf experts had looked at the greens and the nematode (roundworm) problem, enough work had been done to make the greens good for tournament play.
“I feel that we are in good shape. The greens are not, let’s say the top, top of the board, but they are very puttable, very good and… and they will be very smooth. They will be very playable and I don’t see a problem,” said Palmer…
