Mount Juliet greens superintendent Aidan O'Hara is not afraid of Tiger Woods.

And to prove it the green-fingered magician has hardly changed a thing at the Jack Nicklaus -designed course for the World Golf Championships American Express tournament.

With an overall length of 7,246 yards, the beautiful Kilkenny course will be little over 100 yards longer than when Nick Faldo won the Irish Open there in 1993.

Instead of adding excessive length, O'Hara has decided to make the greens super -fast for Tiger and Co.

"I want Tiger Woods, and the other top players in the world, to be walking out of here thinking these are the best putting surfaces they have ever played on," he said.

All 18 greens were re-sodded last year with a revolutionary, new grass called Creeping Bent Penn A4.

Now O'Hara and his staff can shave the greens so tight that they could easily get them up above 14 on the Stimpmeter.

But for the American Express event he has decided to 'go easy' on the boys and limit them to around 12, just slightly slower than Augusta.

"We redid most green complexes and we completely renovate all bunkers, just cleaned them out, removed all the old sand and checked all drainage, put back fresh sand," he revealed.

"We also consulted Nicklaus himself as our design which was basically 13-14 years old and on his recommendation we added an extra 50 feet for the par fours and par fives on nine holes.

"At first he was saying that the course was fine but he then thought more about it his recommendation was to extend nine holes, so we have put in nine new tees."

The first, second, fifth, seventh, eighth, 10th, 12th, 16th and 17th have all be lengthened slightly and lime, beech, oak and pine trees have been planted in strategic places on the ninth (left side), 10th (right side of landing area) and on both sides of the 16th.

The fairways have also been narrowed by around ten yards and O'Hara is just hoping that the players will be impressed with the hard work of his crew over the past decade especially the greens.

"For the first 11 years of Mount Juliet we had Pencross creeping bent grass but we saw the opportunity for this tournament to change to a genetically modified version of that called Penn A4.

"We have the perfect climate for growing grass here. Let's see if we can impress these guys."

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© Brian Keogh 2003

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