Riviera Among Cadillacs Of Courses
The players don’t expect much. Just chiffon fairways, and greens that are neither fast, slow nor bumpy. Just a roomy courtesy car with a driver who knows the short cuts. Just invisible photographers, and fans whose pockets carry silent coins.
That’s all.
Bill Baker cannot control the human elements at the PGA Championship that begins Thursday. But he is busy enough. He is Riviera’s course superintendent, the enforcer of the lawn. This is his major championship, too.
Today, if a player says, “This course is in the best shape we’ve ever seen it,” he will be talking about Baker.
On Saturday, if a player says, “You get some uneven lies out there, and the greens are spiking up horribly,” he also will be talking about Baker.
“It’s a challenge,” said Baker, downing a muffin in the Riviera employees’ cafeteria, last Friday at 8 a.m. He was a couple of hours into his workday.
“I came here (eight months ago, from La Quinta) partially because I knew we had this tournament, and they have the PGA Tour event every February, and in 1998 they’ll have the Senior Open (as the tour event moves temporarily to another, unspecified course). But this one is 90 percent more complex than anything we’ve had before. Everybody will be watching us.”
No matter how smooth Riviera looks - and it never looks bad - Baker’s name will be taken in vain. He is the King of Kikuyu (cuckoo-ya), the scraggly little strain of grass that was brought from southern Africa 100 years ago to stop flooding. As grasses do, it took over the place.
“They used to just let the kikuyu grow here,” Baker said, “but now we water and cultivate it. We embrace the kikuyu.”
Kikuyu fairways are wonderful. The ball basically grows legs and stands there.
Kikuyu rough is brutal. It embraces your ball, like an octopus.
It’s odd to play a major championship at a regular tour-stop course. It has only happened during a few Tour Championships, at Pebble Beach and Harbour Town Golf Links, and those events only have 30 contestants. It happened here at the PGA 12 years ago, when Hal Sutton beat Jack Nicklaus. Baker promises August’s course will differ greatly from February’s. More wind, narrower fairways, the possibility of dry heat.
“The greens will be much faster, 2 feet faster than they are in February,” said Baker, referring to the Stimpmeter readings. Augusta National’s rocket greens are supposed to be 12 feet, but nobody there will say. Riviera is 9 in the winter and should be 11 this week.
This could be an extraordinary opportunity to watch real live golfers, because the PGA is only trying to sell 22,000 tickets a day and, at last report, failing miserably.
Granted, they have not made it easy to obtain tickets. Doing so requires a high credit card ceiling, infinite patience with a PGA information line that was apparently borrowed from Sarajevo. But none of that is a real excuse.
This has been called the best field in tournament golf history. Presumably, someone in L.A. will realize Thursday morning that John Daly is in town with two major titles, and he can drive the par-4 10th hole. The ‘96 PGA, at Louisville’s Valhalla Club, is sold out already.