Barring Seaview, where the ShopRite is held, and Locust Hill, where I've attended the Wegmans event the last several years, Grey Silo is the only LPGA venue I know from personal experience. Unfortunately for this post, I've spent a lot more time on its front 9 than its back. Part of that's due to routing issues, as there's no way for spectators following a group to leave the 11th green, be barred from the bridge the players take to get to the 12th tee, cut across the 18th fairway just past the tee box (often waiting for another group to tee off), pass behind the 18th tee, and wait for the 15th tee to clear so they can backtrack on 15 and curl around the 14th green in time to watch them putt. At least I haven't had the time. So I've usually ended up heading back to the 3rd green or 4th tee after leaving a group that's just hit their drives on 10 instead of dealing with the frustration of logjams, or going from the 10th green backwards up the 18th fairway and backtracking from the 16th green to find a group I wanted to follow. But part of the reason is that I really like the stretch from the 3rd through the 9th holes. Bottom line is, I know 13 through 18 pretty well, but the 3 birdie holes that start the back, not so much. So take this continuation of my earlier scouting report with a grain of salt, check what I've written against what you see on Golf Channel, and feel free to write me corrections in comments!
#10 (par 4, 342 yards): Like #1, this has a fairly intimidating tee shot visually, what with the wetlands in all your sightlines right and just in front of you and little of the fairway to see except what's right near a huge bunker, but this straightaway par 4 with a fairway tilted from from 7 o'clock to 1 o'clock actually gives you plenty of room to the left and all you need to do is not hit it too far. Only thing is, the closer you cut it to the junk on the right, the better your angle to the green, the 1st one without a single bunker near it since the 2nd hole. Don't take it for granted, though, as mounds at 8 o'clock and 1 o'clock help define a tier that tilts away from the players in the back-left third of the green and there's another little mound at about 5 o'clock, as well. So far the pins have been toward the back of the green, Friday's tucked well back left and Saturday's very close to the 1 o'clock ridge. If Mike Davis were setting up the course Sunday, you'd see the players moved up to the front tee and the pin put in the front right of the green to encourage some bombers to take the risk of trying to drive the green.
#11 (par 4, 355 yards): There's a cluster of bunkers to the right that extends all the way to the green, but the fairway bulges out a little to the left to help you avoid them off the tee, which also gives you a good angle into the green, although no matter what angle you're coming in from you need to avoid the deep front-left bunker and make sure you carry the mound that helps make what's already an uphill slope to the green a severe elevation on its left side. They already used the front left pin position that's in a little valley defined by that mound and the ridge that runs from roughly 5 o'clock to roughly 10 o'clock that shoots balls back toward the mound, but otherwise kept it back near another severely sloping mound that's a great backstop. So I'm thinking the Sunday pin is likely to be front right, near a little false-front type depression and severe dropoff to the closest rightward trap to the green. This is another one that could move up from the back of the tips if they wanted to make the longer players think about drawing one over the traps and trying to run it up to the green, but maybe the course would have to build a more forward tee box.
#12 (par 3, 154 yards): Haven't seen it in person or on tv, so tell me all about it in comments. The big bunker on the left can't be the only difficulty on this short par 3, right?
#13 (par 4, 414 yards): This is the 1st tough hole on the back in my book, but since the wind tends to be with the players on it, it's possible for even the shorter hitters on tour to bomb it out there. I saw Ai Miyazato play it twice; on Thursday she was 150 out, which I thought was a long drive for her, until I caught up with her on Friday afternoon, when she almost reached cart path that's just over 100 yards from the green. Suffice to say that there's a downslope in the landing area! Of course, if you tend to pull it when you try to bomb it, watch out, as there's water way left from about 160 yards from the tee all the way to the green. And the green is protected by a huge trap with an island mound of grass inside it that runs all along the left side and even curls around the back, plus there are 2 tiny bunkers right of it. Oh, and you have to hit it to the right tier, which, although not as severe as the one on 15, can be very difficult when the pin is tucked on the back one, as it was on Saturday. I'm thinking we'll see it front left Sunday to bring the left trap more into play....
#14 (par 4, 402 yards): They're not playing the tips on this one, although they probably should, as the back measures only 3,082 yards (that's what having the shortest par 3 and the shortest par 5 on the course will do to you. Sure, the wind is usually against the players, but why not force the longer players to thread the needle (to the extent that phrase makes sense at Grey Silo) between the shorter left-side fairway bunker and the longer right-side fairway bunker while at least allowing the shorter players, who will have to deal with a longer shot in, not to worry about that right-side bunker? Be that as it may, the fairway goes uphill after those traps, although there's a shallow valley in it from about 120 out to about 40 out, when it climbs slightly uphill again. The back half of the green pitches sharply left to right, there's a ridge that defines 2 tiers running roughly from 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock, and there are mounds at 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock that complicate things yet further, but no bunkers! That won't happen again until the final hole....
#15 (par 4, 378 yards): A huge bunker on the left guards the direct approach to the green off the tee and is long enough to protect its front left quadrant, but the fairway is cut to produce a slight right-to-left dogleg effect, the more so the shorter the tee box used. The LPGA would do well to use every one of them, but I wouldn't know whether they have, as I've never made it back to that corner of the course near the 12th green (as explained above). All I know is that the wetlands creek behind and to the right of the 17th green never seem to both the players, who have generally hit the fairway. That's good for them, as the green features the most severe tiering on the course, with a huge slop separating the front and back tiers. It would be neat to see either a front right or back right pin on Sunday. The former would bring the back trap into play, but they've already used the back tier twice, so my bet is the front right quadrant, as it brings what look like (from the course map) a pair of tiny pot bunkers into play (although I don't recall them from the few times I've been back near that green).
#16 (par 4, 383 yards): The players are basically hitting into an island fairway here, as there's wetlands all the way up the right and circling around on the left all the way to a creek that cuts off the fairway about 100 yards from the green. Even though it's a very wide island, I've seen Stacy Lewis flirt with huge trouble left on Thursday and Maude-Aimee Leblanc right on Saturday. Most players, though, have no trouble hitting it and giving themselves a short or mid-iron to the green, which is guarded by a tiny pot bunker short right and surrounded by a kind of apron-like fairway that extends well to the right for very little reason I can see. But hey, it allowed the tournament organizers to set up grandstands there. What would make it an even more exciting hole than usual would be if they moved the tees Sunday way up from their usual next-to-back tee box to tempt the longer hitters to challenge the creek and go for the green. (Of course, if they couldn't do this for every hole on the back for which this is possible and if they had to pick just one, I'd say 10 is the better bet for a Sunday in terms of crowd reaction, although this one would be great for tv and come at an even more dramatic time in the action.) In any case, there's a kind of crescent moon-shaped tier on the left side of the green, so there's plenty of chances for backstop action with just about any pin. But don't miss left! After pushing her tee shot between the cart path and the hazard line on Saturday (something I didn't think was even possible) and not getting relief, Leblanc pulled her approach just past pin-high to a front-left tucked pin (hey, better that than duffing it right into the creek, which was entirely possible), played a great lob from deep rough, and sank a 10-footer for the 2nd-best par save I witnessed all week. But that's the exception that proves the rule....
#17 (par 3, 183 yards): This is #9's mean older sister. There have probably been more double bogeys on this hole than all the rest combined. Right is death! Don't be fooled by the small bunker that looks like a catcher's mitt: it's counteracted by the ball magnet that's been placed deep in the wetlands right of the green. And, oh, by the way, don't go long, either. Did I mention this is the narrowest/shortest green on the course? Just fade one in off the left trap, do what it takes to use the crescent-shaped backstop on the left side of the green. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT flirt with any pin to the right of the left-center of the green. You won't win a tournament here, but you can lose one. Or you can miss the cut by doubling it in the dark, as Hannah Yun did. Guess where her tee shot went....
#18 (par 5, 471 yards): This hole would be even more fun if the bombers didn't have to lay up off the tee, thanks to a silly creek/wetlands area that cuts across the fairway and adds nothing to the hole, unless you somehow find the right trap, as Danah Bordner did on Saturday, and then it's a risky shot to try to carry it (hers made it by about 10 feet), or get into trouble with the mounds and rough to the left of the fairway, as Stacy Lewis did on Thursday when she duffed one into it from a particularly gnarly sidehill-downhill lie. OK, so maybe the creek is a good idea. But it wouldn't hurt to build another tee further back and to the right (out of danger from the 15th tee while still keeping the 11th green safe) to bring the right bunker more into play and force some to fade it off the tee. That and not put a beer tent right by this tee. And build a spectator bridge from the 11th green to the 12th tee so that players and fans don't have to get in each other's hair all the time. Anyway, the drive isn't really the big deal on this hole; the 2nd shot is. Everyone goes for it, and anything can happen. Numa Gulyanamitta's approach was swallowed by the bleachers to the far right of the green, and the far-left ones are too close to the green for my comfort. Speaking of the green, the back-left quadrant of it is like the Bermuda Triangle. I've never seen so many short putts missed as back there, and there's no clear explanation for why it's so hard to read right. It's funny, because I've also seen great 60-foot lags from the front-right to the back-left.... That said, I'd love to see an easy front-right pin position here to open up the possibility of a walkoff eagle winning the tournament!
So that's it for my take on Grey Silo. It's a great change of pace from Locust Hill, even though it's not my cup of tea as a player. I'm sure I'm missing all kinds of nuances, as playing the course is infinitely different from walking it outside the ropes, and I've heard from various golfers this week that the variability of green speeds and firmnesses takes some getting used to. But as a general rule of thumb, it seems the higher the green is, the firmer and faster it is. Except going up the 1st 1/3 of #4. Everything there is fast except for that, as Ai Miyazato found when she left a 30-foot putt 11 feet short seconds before play was suspended on Thursday.
If tournament organizers wanted to make the course longer, they could certainly use the back tee boxes on #4 and #7, in addition to the one on #14 I mentioned above. They could also let thr rough grow out more in certain places that would increase the penalty for errant shots when it mattered, like to the right of #5, among the left traps on #8, behind #9 and #17, and to the left of #16. But it's not the length of the course or the wideness of the fairways or the depth of the rough that's the issue; it's how relatively quiet the wind was on Saturday. If we get it howling on Sunday, anything can happen, including an early leader in the clubhouse putting pressure on the last few groups. Sure, nobody's putted better than Inbee Park or Hee Kyung Seo, and only Brittany Lang, Karin Sjodin, and Mi Jung Hur have joined them with 3 rounds under 70, but if someone like Suzann Pettersen, Paula Creamer, Sun Young Yoo, or Amy Yang gets their putter going on the front 9, watch out! And if we get weather delays, all bets are off....
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