New Bentgrass, Old Links
Compiled weekly by multiple-award-winning PGA Professional Brendon R. Elliott, PrimePutt’s Director of Instruction and Lead Writer.
Some tournament weeks give the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour fields similar putting assignments. This is not one of them.
At Detroit Golf Club, the Rocket Classic will be played on bentgrass greens that have undergone a full renovation since last year’s tournament. The players may recognize the routing and Donald Ross framework, but they will be competing on rebuilt putting surfaces for the first time.
Across the Atlantic, the AIG Women’s Open returns to Royal Lytham & St Annes, where the putting challenge is less about unfamiliar construction and more about controlling the golf ball across exposed links surfaces. Long, narrow greens, subtle movement, severe bunkering and changing wind direction can make even a straightforward-looking putt feel different from one minute to the next.
One course will reward fast learning. The other will reward patience, positioning and the ability to accept that links putting rarely provides perfect information.
Detroit Golf Club Introduces a New Putting Test
The North Course at Detroit Golf Club underwent a full renovation immediately following last year’s Rocket Classic. The project included the greens, tees, bunkers and irrigation system, with architect Tyler Rae overseeing the latest chapter of a course originally designed by Donald Ross in 1916.
The tournament fact sheet confirms that the greens are bentgrass maintained at 0.100 inches. The collars and approaches are also bentgrass, creating a consistent turf transition around putting surfaces that average 6,703 square feet. The GCSAA material does not specify how substantially the internal green contours were altered, so the most responsible conclusion is also the most useful one: Players cannot assume that their putting notes from previous Rocket Classics will transfer perfectly to 2026.
That adjustment begins before a putter is ever pulled from the bag.
Detroit’s fairways average only 26 yards wide, and the North Course has 103 bunkers but no water hazards. That places a premium on finding the correct side of the fairway and approaching the greens from an angle that provides the largest usable landing area. A player who repeatedly hits into the wrong section may face long putts across unfamiliar slopes, even when the green-in-regulation percentage looks acceptable on the stat sheet.
The weather could add another variable. Thursday is currently forecast to be sunny and hot, followed by possible afternoon thunderstorms Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Temperatures are expected to remain in the 80s with increasing humidity. Any combination of rain, heat, drying and maintenance adjustments may cause the effective pace of the greens to shift during the tournament. Players who continue putting to Thursday’s speed on Saturday afternoon could quickly lose ground.
Detroit’s putting question is therefore straightforward: How quickly can a player replace expectation with observation?
Royal Lytham Makes Positioning Part of Putting
The 50th AIG Women’s Open will be the sixth played at Royal Lytham & St Annes. The championship course has produced winners including Annika Sörenstam, Catriona Matthew, Sherri Steinhauer and Georgia Hall, who won the most recent edition there in 2018.
Royal Lytham does not rely on one repeated green style. Its putting surfaces change character throughout the round.
The opening par-3 has a relatively flat green, but five bunkers leave little margin for an inaccurate first swing. The second green slopes from left to right. The seventh is long and thin, dropping from front to back, while the eighth is elevated behind a line of bunkers. The 11th features a slightly raised, undulating green, and the 13th combines a long, narrow target with subtle movement that the official course guide specifically identifies as a three-putt concern. The 18th is the longest green on the course and arrives after one of golf’s most demanding closing stretches.
Those descriptions reveal the real putting story. Royal Lytham does not merely ask players to read greens well. It asks them to control where their first putt begins.
On a broad, exposed links property, wind can influence balance, stroke rhythm and the rate at which surfaces dry. Current reporting from Royal Lytham describes the course as fast and dry heading into the championship. The forecast calls for wind and possible showers Thursday, breezy conditions Friday and Saturday, then somewhat calmer weather Sunday. Even without a dramatic change in measured green speed, a putt into the wind may feel entirely different from one played downwind 20 minutes later.
The player who leaves herself on the widest, most accessible section of a green can putt defensively when necessary and attack when the opportunity is earned. The player who chases every flag may spend four days putting across narrow surfaces, over subtle ridges or toward edges guarded by deep bunkers.
What the Greens Are Asking
Detroit and Royal Lytham present different visual and agronomic tests, but the best response is similar: Build the putting plan from the approach shot backward.
At Detroit, that means learning the rebuilt surfaces quickly and avoiding assumptions based on previous editions. Players must pay attention to early putts, especially those that finish well short or run farther than expected. Those are not mistakes to forget. They are information to use.
At Royal Lytham, the calculation begins with wind direction, green shape and the safest landing section. The shortest birdie putt is not always the best target if missing that target brings a bunker or severe recovery into play.
This week will favor players who understand that proximity is only part of approach performance. The location and direction of the first putt matter just as much.
The PrimePutt Read
Watch how the contenders react during the first six holes of each round.
Do they repeatedly leave comeback putts after racing the ball past the hole? Are they comfortable putting from the edges of Detroit’s rebuilt greens? At Royal Lytham, are they using slopes to feed approaches toward safer sections, or are they short-siding themselves while hunting pins?
The leaderboard will provide the result. Those smaller decisions will explain how the players got there.
The PrimePutt Drill: The Surface Switch Challenge
Most golfers practice distance control by hitting several putts from the same spot. That can create rhythm, but it does not replicate the constant recalibration required during a round.
Set up two putts between 20 and 30 feet. Make one noticeably faster than the other by choosing an uphill and downhill putt, or putts played into and down the prevailing wind.
Hit one ball from the slower location, then immediately move to the faster location. Continue alternating until you have hit six putts from each spot.
Score the drill this way:
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2 points: Ball finishes within 18 inches of the hole.
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1 point: Ball finishes between 18 inches and 3 feet.
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0 points: Ball finishes outside 3 feet.
Your target is 16 points out of a possible 24. More importantly, track whether your second, fourth and sixth attempts improve. That tells you whether you are truly recalibrating or simply repeating the same stroke.
On a PrimePutt mat, alternate between two stopping distances rather than rolling several balls toward one target. The surface remains consistent, but the rapid change in required energy still trains the adjustment process.
PrimePutt Takeaway of the Week
Good putting is not simply the ability to read slope and start the ball online. It is the ability to understand what the surface is giving you that day, on that hole and in that moment.
Detroit will test whether players can let go of old information and learn rebuilt bentgrass greens in real time. Royal Lytham will test whether they can blend speed, wind, architecture and approach strategy into one decision.
The golfers who adjust fastest may not make every putt. They will simply leave themselves fewer difficult ones.
