“I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you can get so sore at yourself that you forget to hate your enemies.” — Will Rogers
COLORADO SPRINGS — In 1937, gold mining tycoon and local philanthropist Spencer Penrose built the Cheyenne Mountain tomb that would receive his ashes two years later. Curiously, Penrose named it the “Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun” in honor of the homespun humorist. Rogers was a close friend of Penrose and died while the tomb was being constructed.
Rogers and Penrose can giggle together from the heavens as players making their way around The Broadmoor’s East Course, even those in the U.S. Senior Open, try to figure out those confounded greens.
Here’s a hint: Everything breaks away from the shrine.
“Jack Nicklaus once said of this place, ‘You can hit 17 greens out here and still end up shooting 82 all day long,’ ” said Senior Open qualifier Dave Delich, a former Colorado College hockey star who has played Broadmoor East since 1975 and still finds the greens a challenge.
“With a normal 25-footer, you think ‘automatic two-putt.’ But there are no automatics here.”
Tilted putting surfaces are Broadmoor East’s principal line of defense. Always have been. Legendary golf course architect Donald Ross designed nine of the holes in 1917, and those greens remain some of the most treacherous.
Delich was taking a group of reporters around the course recently when he stopped and looked north. “The best place to read these greens is from somewhere near the Air Force Academy as you’re driving down,” Delich said.
The academy is about 15 miles from The Broadmoor, but Delich wasn’t kidding.
“If you look at Cheyenne Mountain from the academy, you’ll see this long, sloping ridge,” he explained. “It’s always the same degree of drop coming off the mountain until it disappears into the city. There’s a very continuous drop. Gravity takes everything that way.”
Golf course construction was rather primitive in Ross’ time. Workers moved much of the dirt by hand.
“You were lucky to have use of a steam shovel in those days,” said Fred Dickman, The Broadmoor’s director of course maintenance. “They could only move so much dirt. So the greens and fairways followed the natural contour of the land.
“When you’re talking about this piece of property, that means a slope from west to east. People come in all mad after a round and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t supposed to be Augusta!’ We kind of take that as a positive.”
Complicating matters is the traditional green design that slopes back to front. Back in the day, that facilitated drainage. A putt from above the cup means a quick downhiller that may pick up speed as it goes while also sliding west to east.
“You have to play your putt outside the cup,” Delich said. “There are very few putts that you’ll play inside the cup. That’s just the way it is. Even 2- and 3-footers will test you every time.”
Only two greens do not hold to the “mountain effect” — No. 3, a 601-yard par 5, and No. 17, a 545-yarder that plays to a par 5 for resort players but will be a par 4 during the Senior Open. The east side of those two greens was built up to become level with the west side. On every other hole, the west side of the green is higher than the east side.
“What really makes the greens difficult for the typical player is the speed change from hole to hole,” Delich said. “When you’re above the hole, they’re just fast. When you’re below the hole, they can be slow going up the slope. To make that muscle-memory change from that fast to that slow is difficult. And there are situations out here where the player can’t even see the difference.
“Speed is everything. You’ll see resort players running their first putt 15 feet by the cup and then leaving their next putt 8 feet short. They’re forever flustered.”
The rule of thumb at Broadmoor East is to keep the pin between you and the mountain.
“You’d much rather have a 20-foot uphill putt than an 8-foot downhill putt,” said Russ Miller, The Broadmoor’s director of golf.
Dickman actually has slowed some greens a tad for the Senior Open. That’s so the USGA can use certain strategic pin positions that would be unfair under normal conditions. Most greens will register 10.5 to 11.0 on the Stimpmeter, a ball-rolling measuring device used for decades by golf organizations to determine the speed of putts.
“We don’t want uphill putts rolling back to a guy’s feet,” Dickman said.
Miller expects to see dozens of three-putts and maybe a few four-putts this week, mostly during the Thursday and Friday rounds by regional qualifiers not accustomed to Champions Tour playing conditions.
“I think the regular tour players will figure them out pretty quickly,” Miller said. “But they’d better not hit their approach shots to a bad spot.”
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
Broadmoor East greens
Grass composition: Poa annua
Size: Mostly rounded and averaging about 6,000 square feet. The smallest green, at the par-5 No. 3, is about 5,200 square feet. The largest, at the par-5 No. 9, is almost 8,000 square feet.
Speed: From 10.5 to 11 on the Stimpmeter, about the same as for the 2005 U.S. Women’s Open at Cherry Hills and during The International at Castle Pines.
General characteristics: Slopes from back to front and from west to east.
Collars around putting greens: 3/8 to 7/16 inches.
Three toughest greens (according to director of golf Russ Miller): par-3 No. 4 (severe slope back to front and west to east); par-4 No. 6 (severe downslope and side break); par-3 No. 8 (shelf on left side).
Miller’s two easiest greens: par-4 No. 14 (fairly flat); par-4 No. 17 (two-tiered but no rolls or bumps).
Tom Kensler
U.S. Senior Open at The Broadmoor
Schedule
Gates open daily at 6:30 a.m.
Today: Practice round
Wednesday: Practice round
Thursday: First round, 7:15 a.m., first and 1oth tees
Friday: Second round, 7:15 a.m., first and 1oth tees
Saturday: Third round, 7:15 a.m.
Sunday: Final round, 7:15 a.m.
4:30 p.m. trophy presentation
Tickets
Available at King Soopers, , or by calling 1-877-281-OPEN
Practice rounds: $20
Rounds 1-3: $40; Final round: $45; Fore pack: Four tickets, good any day of the championship, $135; Season pass: One ticket for each day of the championship (Monday-Sunday), $155; Trophy club: One ticket for each day of the championship plus access to an air-conditioned villa on the course, $250
More information, directions:
