Quail Hollow Gets Mixed Reviews

DURING second-round coverage of the US PGA Championship, Rich Beem described Quail Hollow as one of the most beautiful, perfectly-manicured course on the planet. Not everybody would agree.

For starters, Ludvig Aberg, Patrick Cantlay, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth and Will Zalatoris, who all missed the cut.

Rory McIlroy, looking to follow his Masters victory with a third PGA success, found the course to be very different from the one on which he had won four times.

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Before a ball had ben struck, Hunter Mahan said that Quail Hollow lacked both soul and character and likened it to the Kardashian family.

Phil Mickelson certainly isn’t a fan. One of the best bunker players ever to grace the game took four shots to escape a greenside bunker on his way to an eight.

And then there were the mud balls. Early in the week a huge amount of rain fell on the course. The greenkeepers did an incredible job getting the course fit for play but the US PGA decided that, this being a major, there would be no preferred lies. It was both a mistake and the wrong decision. Just ask world number one Scottie Scheffler and defending champion Xander Schauffele.

At the 16th hole during the opening round, both players hit their approach shots into the water and ended up with double-bogeys. And both blamed mud on their golf balls.

And both had plenty to say on the subject.

Scheffler said: "It's frustrating to hit the ball in the middle of the fairway and get mud on it and have no idea where it's going to go.

"I understand it's part of the game, but there's nothing more frustrating for a player. You spend your whole life trying to learn how to control a golf ball, and due to a rules decision all of a sudden you have absolutely no control over where that golf ball goes. But I don't make the rules. I just have to deal with the consequences of those rules. I did a good job of battling back today and not letting a bad break like that, which cost me a couple shots, get to me. Did a good job battling after that and posting a decent score.”

Schauffele added: "It is unfortunate to be hitting good shots and to pay them off that way. It's kind of stupid. I wouldn't want to go in the locker room because I'm sure a lot of guys aren't super happy with sort of the conditions there.

“The grass is so good, there is no real advantage to cleaning your ball in the fairway. It sucks that you're kind of 50/50 once you hit the fairway.”

And then there were Shane Lowry and Tyrrell Hatton. Oh dear!

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

Lowry slammed his club into the turf and loudly swore about "this place" after being denied relief for an embedded ball on the eighth hole and then duffing his second shot into a greenside bunker. He flipped his middle finger at the hole as he tapped in for a bogey five and went on to shoot 71 and miss the halfway cut by a single shot.

Although his outburst did him few favours, his frustration was understandable. His tee shot had pitched on the fairway and bounced sideways into a divot left by another player, which meant he was not allowed relief for an embedded ball that would have applied had it been in his own pitch mark.

He said: "You hit a lovely tee shot, you're not expecting that. I was obviously very annoyed because I felt like I had quite a bit of momentum going in the round, and standing there with 40 or 50 yards to the pin off the fairway it's an easy pitch shot for me - and I walk away making bogey."

Hatton, who started on the 10th, was within a shot of the lead after covering his first eight holes in two under par before a meltdown that led to a triple bogey. After pulling his tee shot on the par-four 18th - the most difficult hole on the course - into the creek, which runs the length of the hole, he swore at his driver. As you do!

After a penalty drop, he wound up with a seven before covering the front nine in 36 to complete a 73, which left him one under par.

He said: "It wasn't my finest moment on the course but I mean, yeah, running hot in the moment - I'm pretty good at sometimes saying the wrong thing. So yeah, I'll leave it at that.”

Both players are likely to be fined for their outbursts, witnessed around the world by a huge global TV audience.

Of course, this is not the first time Hatton has thrown a temper tantrum. He is a serial offender who was described as a "terrible influence" by Sky Sports commentator Ewen Murray after snapping a club and complaining about course conditions during the DP World Tour Championship in November.

And it is fair to say that Scheffler will now be prepared to forgive and forget.