Y.E. YangEric Gay
MELBOURNE - South Korea's YE Yang laughed off Greg Norman's claims of "home ground" advantage at the Presidents Cup on Wednesday, saying Royal Melbourne's greens were "monstrous" and virtually "unfair" to play on.
Yang, Asia's first and only major winner, was gobsmacked and left to laugh incredulously as his putts returned to him repeatedly on the third hole of the Alister MacKenzie-designed layout on Melbourne's famed "sandbelt".
"I don't know what Royal Melbourne has done but these are probably the toughest greens I've ever played on," he told reporters through an interpreter.
"If you just lose your focus for a split second, you can make bogey or double or triple. You can three-putt easily.
"So I think the overall strategy of play in the golf course is quite fun, but the greens are just monstrous, really.
"I've never really played on greens like this before. So it's going to be very tricky, not just for me but for everyone playing here."
Norman took local players Robert Allenby and Aaron Baddeley as his two captain's picks for their intimate knowledge of the course, adding to automatic Australian qualifiers Jason Day, Adam Scott and Geoff Ogilvy.
Twenty-four year-old Day, however, played the course only as a junior prior to this week's practice, while South African International Retief Goosen also reported a torrid time around the greens.
"I want to say they are unfair, really," Yang said. "Just a few inches or a few feet away, it just comes like day and night."
Yang, who famously overhauled Tiger Woods to win the PGA Championship at Hazeltine three years ago, has been paired with countryman Kim Kyung-tae for the opening foursomes matches on Thursday.