Is there such a thing as too green a golf course? You bet, as seen at Cognizant Classic

Posted by author February 28, 2025 Golf

Spread the love

It’s been 11 years since the USGA promoted “Brown is beautiful” at the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst. Clearly that sentiment has been lost on the PGA Tour for the Florida swing, which opened Thursday at PGA National with the first round of the Cognizant Classic. The once-feared layout has seen all its beautiful brown Bermuda grass buried in a sea of bright green and sticky rye grass.

Golfers love to discuss the challenges of playing on Bermuda grass, variations of which create the base surface for most courses in the Southeast. But come winter at many of Florida’s top courses, all the Bermuda grass gets buried under a carpet of rye grass. One Orlando-area pro once described his club’s seasonal overseeding of rye as “putting the wig on it,” because the rye grows fast and hides any imperfections in the dormant Bermuda surfaces.

Sounds great, and it has useful applications, especially in Florida where winter is peak season. Applied in autumn, the cool-season rye can help protect dormant Bermuda grass in high-traffic areas, especially spots where the ubiquitous golf carts might turn dormant turf into muddy slop. Rye also quickly covers divots, preventing gathering areas from becoming a mess of chunked turf.

But rye’s biggest task is aesthetic. Rye presents as luscious green, and too many visiting golfers demand such Augusta National-like appearances, especially when paying peak seasonal green fees. For televised PGA Tour events, in particular, green is perceived as looking better than dormant brown. The rye tends to die out in warmer weather come March or April most years, about the same time Snowbird golfers return north and the Tour moves on from the Florida Swing.

Rye comes with problems, too. It requires a lot of water on warmer days, and the grass holds onto that water, making a course play soft and sticky for golf balls. And all that water can produce mud balls in fairways even on days when it doesn’t rain. And for better or worse, depending on your preferences, rye grass negates much of the effects of the dormant Bermuda below, covering the Bermuda’s temperamental grain and making it easier to hit crisp pitches and chip shots. Balls also don’t roll as far on damp rye, making a course play longer for recreational players – that’s not a problem for Tour pros, who pack plenty of power.

Jordan Spieth addressed the rye at PGA National’s Champion Course on Thursday after opening with a round of 6-under 65, alluding to how the sticky grass prevents golf balls from rolling very far and into the layout’s seemingly everywhere water hazards.

“I didn’t realize that it was overseeded, and the fairways being overseeded changes it a lot because it’ll make the fairways softer which makes them wider, and then around the greens it’s significantly easier than the dormant Bermuda,” Spieth said. “You’re looking at easily a stroke a round on just the change in the grass types in the fairway.”

Jake Knapp certainly took advantage of the conditions, shooting a course-record 59. Hats off to him, because pros are supposed to adjust to whatever conditions are presented and post their lowest number on the scoreboard. Take a soft golf course and little wind, as seen on Thursday, and PGA Tour pros will beat up any layout. And they did.

PGA National is supposed to be fearsome, but early at the Cognizant Classic, the Champion – ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 7 public-access course in Florida – never bared its teeth. Balls stuck where they landed like lawn darts falling from on high. Even on the TifEagle bermuda greens, balls wouldn’t release very far.

Don’t blame the agronomy team at PGA National, either. They have presented a perfect blanket of rye grass, which was their assignment – if anything, they’re too good at their jobs. While Tour players used to complain that PGA National used to cross the line into too-tough territory, especially on windy days, the rye grass makes it play too easy. It’s largely up to the Tour to decide on which side of that line a course should be positioned. Is it really the Bear Trap if there’s no bearishness to it?

The pity is that dormant Bermuda grass is a fantastic playing surface. It can be kept firm, and balls tend to bounce and roll a lot. Short-game options are more varied on dormant Bermuda, with everything from a putter to a lob wedge in play on many shots. There’s a reason a putt from off a green is often called a “Texas wedge,” because Lone Star State courses usually feature dry Bermuda grass and afford such short-game tactics.

It’s just more fun to play a fast course than a soft layout, and for the pros, it’s more difficult as well because they must control the ball on the ground as well as in the air. Dry and dormant Bermuda can play almost like a links course, and in the opinion of many well-traveled players, that’s the best kind of golf. Not so much for the Tour, apparently, where easy green has replaced bouncy brown as beautiful.