Compiled weekly by multiple-award-winning PGA Professional Brendon R. Elliott, PrimePutt’s Director of Instruction and Lead Writer.
If last week was about Augusta’s famous contour and chaos, this week gives us three very different green stories. Harbour Town asks players to hit into some of the smallest targets they will see all season. The Concession brings a more modern, muscular Florida test where angles and slopes matter as much as nerve. El Caballero offers bigger bentgrass targets on paper, but surrounds them with enough bunkering and seasonal nuance to keep things from feeling comfortable for long.
PGA TOUR: Harbour Town Golf Links
The first stop after Augusta always has a different rhythm, and Harbour Town makes sure of that in a hurry. Jonathan Wright’s crew brings newly rebuilt greens and bunkers into this year’s RBC Heritage, and the numbers alone tell you what matters most. At 3,700 square feet on average, these are tiny targets by modern PGA TOUR standards, and Harbour Town ranked second smallest among 2025 main-course TOUR stops. Add water in play on all 18 holes, and the greens become the center of the entire conversation.
These Poa trivialis overseeded surfaces do not need to be massive to be demanding. In fact, Harbour Town’s magic has always been that it makes players feel boxed in without ever looking overly dramatic. Sea Pines’ restoration language talked about preserving the course’s classic shot values while rebuilding the greens, bunkers and bulkheads, and that feels exactly right. This place still asks for placement first, discipline second and a very clear understanding of where a ball needs to finish before the putter ever comes out.
There is also a little extra edge to the setup this week. The lead-in has included colder-than-normal weather and periods of drought, which should only sharpen Harbour Town’s naturally exacting presentation. These greens are not here to overwhelm players with wild size or theatrical movement. They are here to make every approach, every leave and every mistake feel a touch more expensive than it did a week ago.
PGA TOUR Champions: The Concession Golf Club
The Senior PGA Championship shifts the focus to a very different kind of green test. The Concession’s TifEagle bermudagrass surfaces average 5,800 square feet, which is slightly above the PGA TOUR Champions season average to this point, but the real story is not size. It is what surrounds those greens and how they are approached. With 85 bunkers, water in play on 12 holes and a Nicklaus-Jacklin design DNA that prizes proper angles, this is a course built to make players think their way into scoring opportunities.
Official championship material describes The Concession as a place with sophisticated green complexes and that tracks. It is also explicit about something Nicklaus courses often demand: get to the correct side of the fairway or the work only gets harder from there. Once players are on these greens, slopes, runoff areas and hole locations take over. This is not the kind of week where just finding the putting surface feels like enough. It looks far more like a week where section control, patience and staying below the hole will decide who keeps momentum and who starts scrambling.
There is a broader story here, too. The course was renovated in 2022, lost 250 trees during Hurricane Ian later that year and now steps into this championship run with the Senior PGA Championship also booked here again in 2027 and 2028. So these greens are arriving not just as part of a major test, but as part of a venue still writing a bigger chapter for itself on the senior stage.
LPGA Tour: El Caballero Country Club
El Caballero might provide the most interesting contrast of the week. Its Pure Distinction bentgrass greens are listed at .100 and average 6,300 square feet, making them the largest of any U.S. LPGA venue played so far this season. On the surface, that sounds inviting. In practice, it is a little more layered than that, especially when the same course also brings the most bunkers of any U.S. LPGA stop to date this year. Bigger targets can still become demanding when players have to find the correct portions of them.
There is also a compelling course story surrounding those greens. El Cab’s Robert Trent Jones Sr. bones were updated by Rees Jones in 2021, and tournament materials note that the restoration improved playability and sustainability. Event materials say the work led to a 33% reduction in water usage, which is especially notable in Southern California. This is not just a polished tournament site. It is a modernized one, and that matters when talking about how these greens fit into the week’s identity.
This year’s seasonal setup adds another wrinkle. The area has seen an extremely warm winter and spring, and the bermudagrass never really went dormant, leaving the rough more robust than usual. That should frame the bentgrass greens differently than the size number alone suggests. El Cab may look more generous than Harbour Town and less severe than The Concession, but the test still feels substantial. These greens should reward players who hit into the right sections, not just players who hit the green and hope the work is done.
Three tours, three very different questions. Harbour Town shrinks the target and makes precision everything. The Concession complicates the target with slopes, angles and a major-championship frame. El Caballero gives players more room, then asks them to prove they know what to do with it. That is what makes this week’s greens so fascinating. None of them ask the same question, and all three should tell us something meaningful about touch, discipline and smart misses.
‘The Greens This Week’ drops every Wednesday and looks at the putting surfaces the best in the world from the PGA TOUR, LPGA Tour and DP World Tour will face in the coming week. Got a putting question or drill request? Drop us a line.
