Players share the secrets behind The Broadmoor

text size

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- There's a secret to playing the East Course at The Broadmoor and the Champions Tour players are willing to let you in on it.

The Will Rogers Memorial Shrine of the Sun is an 80-foot observation tower that sits high on the side of Cheyenne Mountain. From the top of the tower, visitors can view all of Colorado Springs and look down upon The Broadmoor resort at the base of the mountain.

Named for the legendary cowboy comedian, the shrine actually contains the ashes of his friend Spencer Penrose, a Philadelphia mining magnate who purchased The Broadmoor Casino property in 1916 and turned it into a world-class resort. The shrine was built by Penrose and completed in 1937, two years before he passed away.

It's a great history lesson, no doubt, but what does this have to do with the U.S. Senior Open this week? When Penrose constructed the shrine, he also created a way for players to navigate some of the fastest, curviest and most unpredictable greens this side of the Mississippi.

"The main thing to know [is] the Will Rogers monument up there, and keeping the ball on the other side of the flagstick from the monument. And that's pretty simple logic," Tom Watson said. "It's right-on logic really."

Most putts break away from Cheyenne Mountain, but two greens are a tad bit tricky. R.W. Eaks said that, on the 17th green and one other -- he's not giving away all of his secrets -- putts actually break more into the mountain than away from it.

So the players have got the shrine part down and understand where the greens will slope, but that's not the only trick to conquering these poa annua greens. The large size of the greens, compounded with the slope and the effects from Cheyenne Mountain, can affect even the most seasoned of players.

"It's been a long time since we've played a course that has greens, A. this size; B. with this much contour; and C. with such an overpowering influence of the mountain," Hale Irwin said, adding that the players had seen all of those factors on courses before but not in such a combination.

Watson compared the greens to a racetrack, in that a player must sometimes go against their intuition and sight to putt the ball in a roundabout way into the hole.

"This golf course is kind of like NASCAR. You've got to go around loops. This is like a road track, some of these putts, but it's fun," Watson said. "It's fun to try to figure them out and the speed's important."

"These greens are some of the most severe and punishing that I have experienced anywhere in the world," Bernhard Langer added. "They're extremely slopey and quite fast."

Because of these factors, the tournament will likely be decided with the flatstick.

"Guys like Loren Roberts, Ben Crenshaw, guys that are having some imagination on these greens are going to play and they're going to putt very well on these greens. You'll be surprised," Eaks said.

The East Course was originally designed by Donald Ross in 1918 and, at the time, was the highest golf course in the U.S. at an elevation of 6,400 feet. Now, the course -- one of just two Ross layouts in Colorado -- has many of the original holes from Ross as well as several designed by Robert Trent Jones in 1965.

Due to the high altitude, players will also have to adjust their club selections. Most calculate that the ball will fly anywhere from five to 10 percent further in the thinner air. For that reason, Irwin thinks long, straight drivers like Tom Purtzer, Gil Morgan, Brad Bryant and Eaks will have an advantage for finding the fairway and gaining extra distance.

Watson has another opinion.

"It favors somebody who draws the ball from right-to-left, I think, but it favors somebody who hits the ball left-to-right with the irons," he explained.

It also favors a player who can keep the ball in the fairway, though a ball in the rough won't be as penal as in the past at USGA events.

While the USGA has always been known for their extremely thick rough, they've recently moved away from that towards a graduated rough policy. For the Champions Tour players, who've participated in countless U.S. Opens and U.S. Senior Opens, this is a welcome relief.

"They have an intermediate rough cut here on both sides, and that's welcome, for old guys who can't hit the ball out of the rough anymore. It's nice every now and then to go in the rough and just miss the fairway and not be in hay about like that high," Watson said, making a gesture with his hand demonstrating how tall the rough used to be.

"...I like (the new policy)," Watson continued. "Wish it was like that 30 years ago."

The move towards making the first cut of rough wider and slightly less thick is a positive change, said Irwin, but it also rewards players who hit such shots so off-line that the ball lands outside the ropes.

"That doesn't hurt anybody because that's where it's been trampled down. So actually the players like myself that hit the ball just off-line are more penalized than the guys that hit it way off-line. So it'll never affect that," Irwin said, though he quickly added, "But I do think it's good."

With the tough greens, changes in rough and higher elevation, the experienced 50-and-over players will again face another hard week at the national championship.

But don't worry, they're ready for it.

"The U.S. Open has always been the most important event for me to play in in professional golf," Watson said. "...I still feel the same way about the U.S. Senior Open here, and that says it all."