Bellerive's sprawling bentgrass greens and Royal Mayfair's rain-tested Poa annua-bentgrass mix will reward players who treat every putting surface as a collection of neighborhoods.
Compiled weekly by multiple-award-winning PGA Professional Brendon R. Elliott, PrimePutt's Director of Instruction and Lead Writer.
The scorecard says a player hit the green. The putting surface may tell a very different story.
Bellerive Country Club and Royal Mayfair Golf Club will both make location matter this week. Bellerive's T-1 bentgrass greens average 8,000 square feet and contain shelves, swales and ridges that can turn a regulation green into a demanding two-putt. Royal Mayfair's Poa annua-bentgrass mix averages 6,000 square feet, but several complexes run away, narrow or divide into preferred sections.
The common question is not simply whether the approach reaches the green. It is whether the ball finishes in the same neighborhood as the hole.
Bellerive: Big Greens, Complicated Addresses
The BMW Championship returns to Bellerive for the second event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The par-70 course is listed at 7,448 yards, and the GCSAA tournament fact sheet identifies T-1 bentgrass greens maintained between 0.100 and 0.110 inches.
The average green size of 8,000 square feet is the attention-grabber. Large greens can improve the raw greens-in-regulation number without producing comfortable birdie putts. Bellerive's own hole descriptions make that distinction clear. The ninth is described as the course's most complicated green. The 13th contains slopes and ridges that can make a routine two-putt a tall assignment when the hole is cut back-center or right. The 18th includes a middle-left swale that can feed a well-positioned approach toward the cup.
Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed the course, which opened in 1960. A Rees Jones-led renovation took place in 2005-06. Six championship tee boxes were altered in 2025 at Nos. 2, 5, 6, 9, 12 and 17 to add distance and strategic choices for this championship. Longer or less predictable approach clubs can make the correct green section harder to find.
Director of agronomy Nick White, CGCS, is preparing Bellerive with a staff of 48 and 64 tournament volunteers. The forecast calls for the possibility of thundershowers Thursday and another thunderstorm Saturday, with drier conditions projected Friday and Sunday. If rain arrives, receptiveness and putting pace may change. That is a projection, not a promised condition, and players will need to keep recalibrating.
Royal Mayfair: Moisture Is Part of the Story
The CPKC Women's Open returns to Royal Mayfair for the first time since Lydia Ko won there as a 15-year-old amateur in 2013. The tournament course will play to par 70 and 6,452 yards, with the nines reversed for championship play.
According to the GCSAA fact sheet, the greens are a Poa annua-bentgrass mix maintained at 0.100 inches. The collars and approaches use the same turf mix, which can make the visual transition into the putting surface appear more continuous than a sharply contrasting collar. The greens average 6,000 square feet and were built to USGA specifications.
The most important agronomy note is water. Royal Mayfair experienced its wettest June and July since 1901, and the course relies on surface drainage. Winter ice also damaged low points in fairways where standing water collected over frozen ground. Superintendent Wade Peckham, a 25-year GCSAA member, is preparing for his fifth professional event with 45 agronomy employees and 40 tournament volunteers.
None of that gives us permission to declare the greens slow or soft before competition begins. It does tell us that moisture management has been central to the preparation. Edmonton's forecast includes possible afternoon showers Thursday and a wetter Sunday outlook, with pleasant conditions expected in between.
Stanley Thompson's 1922 design, renovated by Les Furber in 1990, asks players to pay attention to more than the center of the green. The third green runs away toward the back. The fourth requires the correct portion for a realistic birdie chance. At the finishing hole, one of the largest greens on the course, the hole location can change the approach club by three or four clubs.
What the Greens Are Asking
Bellerive asks for section control on a large scale. A player can be 45 feet away without having made a terrible swing, then face a putt that crosses a ridge, drops into a swale or requires defensive speed. The strongest putters will identify the final section first and work backward to the starting pace.
Royal Mayfair asks for pace calibration with a moisture story in the background. Players should resist stereotypes about Poa annua and bentgrass and watch what the ball actually does. The first few rolls each day, and the first putts after any weather change, will provide better information than a prewritten opinion about the turf.
The PrimePutt Read
If I were preparing a player for either course, I would map the green before discussing the hole. Where is the easiest section from which to putt? Where is the ridge, run-away slope or shallow angle that turns a good-looking approach into a defensive first putt?
Proximity is useful, but proximity without context can lie. Twenty-eight feet from the correct shelf may be a better result than 16 feet across one.
The PrimePutt Drill: Section-to-Section Two-Putt Test
What you need: One ball, your putter, six tees and three putts between 30 and 45 feet. Choose putts that cross a ridge, move through a swale or change speed noticeably. Use the tees to create a 3-foot circle around the hole.
Play one ball from each station and hole the second putt before moving on. Complete two circuits, changing the hole or starting angle for the second trip. Do not roll rehearsal balls. The entire point is to solve a new section with the first look.
Scoring:
• 3 points for a two-putt after the first ball finishes inside 3 feet.
• 2 points for a two-putt after the first ball finishes inside 5 feet.
• 1 point for any other two-putt.
• 0 points for a three-putt.
The maximum score is 18. A score of 14 or better shows useful section-to-section speed control. On a PrimePutt mat, use three starting distances and create an 18-inch finish band near the far end. Roll one ball from each distance, then change the band location for the second circuit.
PrimePutt Takeaway of the Week
A green is not one target. It is a collection of smaller destinations connected by slope.
This week, watch where the approach finishes before judging the putt. At Bellerive, a ball on the wrong shelf can create a long, defensive roll across a large bentgrass surface. At Royal Mayfair, a missed section can leave a delicate pace problem on a mixed surface shaped by an unusually wet summer.
The player who sees those neighborhoods early will not make every putt. That player should, however, spend far less time putting from the wrong address.
