Phil Mickelson and Steve Stricker have led the criticism of this week’s venue for the BMW Championship – the third round of the end-of-season FedEx Cup play-off series.
Mickelson, who is 28/1 with bookmaker to be the first round leader at the tournament, and world number four Stricker are just two of the players to have made their feelings known about the alterations made to the course at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club by architect Rees Jones.
Jones was brought in with the aim of turning the Chicago venue into a course capable of staging the US Open, with many of the greens raised and the bunkers deepened, but Mickelson believes his changes have had the opposite effect.
He told pgatour.com: “I know we all wish that it had turned out differently.
“A great golf course is a golf course that’s challenging for the good player but playable for the average player, and I feel like this is the exact opposite. It’s playable; it’s fine for us … but the average guy just can’t play it.”
