The Greens at Bellerive for the PGA Championship May Be an Issue This Week

The PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri gets underway on Thursday and already people are talking about the condition of the greens.

While this isn’t the U.S. Open and these greens won’t be “tricked out” to run at ridiculous speeds, it appears that the summer has baked out portions around the edges which could possibly cause a few issues.

Here are a few pictures via Geoff Shackelford and Joel Beall.

To add to that, they are extremely soft and the recent rains haven’t helped them firm up.

Tiger Woods’s caddie, Joe LaCava, told Golf Digest that this isn’t surprising.

"“With this heat, it’s not surprising,” Joe LaCava, caddie for Tiger Woods, told Golf Digest. “That’s the Midwest. It’s a shame it looks like this. But what can you do?”"

It doesn’t appear that the interior of most of the greens, which Bellerive has more than 10,000 square feet of according to PGA of America’s Kerry Haigh, appear to be affected except for the softness, but the putting from fringe onto the green should be quite interesting this week.

Dustin Johnson hinted during his Wednesday meeting with the media that it’s not a big deal and that the rough will be what penalizes players this week.

"“The first time I saw the golf course was yesterday. The golf course, I feel like it’s in very good condition. The greens are a little soft, but it’s still there’s a lot of quadrants in all the greens, so it’s going to be fairly difficult to get at the flags. You definitely got to hit the fairways because the rough’s very penal, I feel like. But I feel like the course sets up well for me. I really liked it yesterday when I played it. I feel like the game’s in pretty good form coming into this week.”"

For the sake of good golf, lets hope this isn’t any part of the storyline this week.