Bay Hill Greens "Shaggy" Before Getting Re-grassed...

Golfweek's Alex Miceli reports that players arriving at Bay Hill Monday for the Arnold Palmer Invitational found the putting surfaces "not up to tour standards."

Considering how slick and borderline excessive the greens have been speed-wise this year, maybe this will be a welcomed relief. Then again, with the Masters in three weeks, this is not the time to be getting time in on combovers...

Last week at the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, officials posted a letter in the Innisbrook Resort locker room that advised players of the conditions at Bay Hill. The notice included a copy of the news release announcing the change from Emerald Dwarf to TifEagle.

“It looks like a combover,” one player who spoke on the condition of anonymity said after a practice round Monday, describing the shaggy conditions.

Bay Hill Club and Lodge announced via press release Monday their planned changes to the lodge property, including some touch up work to the course that will be unveiled at this week's Arnold Palmer Invitational.

From the release...

What’s new for the TOUR players as well as the average golf vacationer?  A more open, beautifully landscaped Championship golf course, the result of a maintenance plan implemented last July.  Bay Hill turned its focus on three projects to designed to enhance the playability aspects of the course for all levels of play, including an upgrade to the bunker sand – 1,700 tons of G-Angle sand that is preferred by the PGA TOUR, plus 5 more acres of fairway expansions that reflect the original course design intent, and an aggressive tree cutting program, taking out limbs that had grown into the line of play.  And did these changes include the stamp of approval from Arnold Palmer?  You bet.

Sounds like blinding new bunker sand, some tree removal and wider fairways. We'll see Thursday...