How Fast Are The Greens At St Andrews For The AIG Women's Open?

With the wind whipping across the Old Course at St Andrews, R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers says precautions have been taken to ensure the greens remain playable at the AIG Women's Open.

The world's best female golfers are tackling the home of golf this week, and are getting the full St Andrews experience due to the blustery conditions.

Consistent wind will be a problem all week, but with strong gusts of up to 45mph also cropping up, there was the prospect of golf balls being moved on the putting surfaces - which could cause a stoppage in play.

But R&A officials have been keen to avoid that, so took the decision before the opening round teed off to leave a bit of length on the greens to avoid the wind blowing golf balls.

And the plans seemed to have worked according to former champion Georgia Hall after completing her first round.

"I was a bit worried a few times but I think the R&A are very clever with letting the greens be a bit slower so the balls weren’t rolling,2 said Hall "I think if they cut them to a certain length, we would have to stop. So credit to the R&A for that."

After the greens were rolling at just 9'7 on the stimpmeter on Wednesday, Slumbers explained their plans for the tournament due to the weather.

"We have slowed the golf course down quite a bit," Slumbers said ahead of the first round. 

"We've raised the height of cut on the greens. We've put a bit of water on them to help them grow a little bit. We've got some pretty good ideas about where we can put the pins to actually protect it as much as we possibly can.

"Most importantly, we will set it up in a way that the players can play. The good news is the wind is forecast all four days to come from pretty much the same quadrant, so we know where we can put the pins to give them some room.

"I think the best players in the world want a bit of a hard challenge. I just hope it doesn't blow so hard that we can't play. I think some of you will well remember 2015. The wind was making the balls move on 13 at that point. The exposed greens are out at 11, 12, 13. It would be balls moving and therefore that we can't play.

"The rules of golf that we changed in 2019 are going to help an awful lot here because once the ball is marked on the green, that's its position. That's the big fear."

Slumbers did add, though, that they would keep an eye on the weather and if the wind subsided they would think about speeding the greens up again.

“We can speed them up quite quickly," he added. "These are great greens. We know how to speed them up.”

There's also the rare sight of split tees in operation at St Andrews, which Slumbers explained was due to the later date of the AIG Women's Open this year.

"So the reason we went to split tees was driven by the fact that this championship is two weeks later than we would ideally have had it," said Slumbers.

"Everyone has just come back from the Olympics, so we have less daylight, so we start later and we finish earlier than we would have done, and the two tees is the lowest rink way of getting round in the light that we're going to have through Sunday. 

"So it was a daylight issue, and I'm pleased we're doing it given what we're going to face."