This week’s PGA TOUR and LPGA Tour stops offer two very different putting puzzles, with TPC San Antonio leaning on control and Shadow Creek inviting a bolder kind of touch.
Compiled weekly by Multiple-Award-Winning PGA Professional Brendon R. Elliott, PrimePutt’s Director of Instruction and Lead Writer
If you want a quick read on how a tournament might unfold, start with the greens.
That feels especially relevant this week as the PGA TOUR heads to TPC San Antonio for the Valero Texas Open and the LPGA Tour makes its way to Shadow Creek for the Aramco Championship. At first glance, both venues check the usual big-event boxes. They are polished, demanding and built to test elite players. But once you dig into the surfaces themselves, the differences become much more interesting.
One course looks like it will reward discipline, patience and smart positioning above all else. The other feels more dramatic, more visually intense and a bit more likely to put a player’s touch and nerve front and center.
Same week. Same spotlight. Very different green personalities.
TPC San Antonio Favors Precision Over Flash
TPC San Antonio’s Oaks Course is set up with Poa trivialis overseed greens mowed to .110, with collars at .220. The average green size this week is 6,400 square feet, which is almost exactly in line with the current PGA TOUR season average of 6,376. In other words, these are not greens that stand out because they are unusually massive or unusually small. Their challenge is likely to come from how they fit the broader character of the golf course.
That broader character matters. The Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio was designed by Greg Norman, with Sergio Garcia assisting as a player consultant, and it has long carried the feel of a course that wants players to think their way around it. The official tournament venue description points to narrow, tree-lined fairways and a layout that asks for strategy as much as execution. That usually puts extra attention on approach angles and on leaving the ball in the right part of the green, not just anywhere on it.
There is also an agronomic story here that deserves some respect. According to the GCSAA notes, the San Antonio area has dealt with record-breaking drought conditions over the past five years. The property also sits on the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone and operates under a notably strict environmental management plan in coordination with local water authorities. That tells you these surfaces are being prepared with both tournament quality and long-term stewardship in mind.
TPC San Antonio has 64 bunkers and only three holes where water is in play, so the greens do not need to be over-the-top to influence scoring. This looks like a week where the best putters may not be the ones who make the most highlight-reel bombs. It may be the players who leave themselves below the hole, avoid short-sided mistakes and keep stress off the card with smart placement.
Shadow Creek Looks Built for Tension
If TPC San Antonio feels measured and methodical, Shadow Creek feels like the more theatrical stop.
The LPGA Tour’s Aramco Championship is being played this week at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, and the venue alone brings a different level of presence. This is a Tom Fazio design that has long been known for visual drama, and the GCSAA notes make clear that the course will be played in its standard full-field routing this week rather than the altered setup used for prior match-play events.
The greens are T-1 bentgrass mowed to .115, with collars and approaches also in bentgrass at .225. They average 5,500 square feet, which is slightly smaller than the current LPGA U.S.-course average of 5,575. That alone is enough to catch your eye. These are not tiny by any stretch, but they are modestly smaller than the norm, and when you add in the rest of the setup, the test starts to come into focus.
Shadow Creek this week also brings 74 bunkers, eight water hazards and water in play on nine holes. That is a lot of visual pressure surrounding greens that are already a touch more compact than the LPGA average. When a course frames putting surfaces that way, first putts can start to feel longer and approach shots can feel narrower than the scorecard suggests.
The course notes add more context. A mild winter has conditions ahead of schedule. A bunker was added to the left rough on the 12th hole in 2024. Trees, including pines, have been planted to move the course back toward its original vision. And assistant superintendents Carlos Duran and Javier Michel have both been part of the operation for more than 25 years, which says plenty about the continuity behind the scenes.
There is also a useful statistical clue in the GCSAA comparison data. Based on 2025 LPGA U.S.-course rankings, Shadow Creek would have rated tied for the fourth-smallest greens while also sitting among the longer venues and higher bunker totals. That is a strong recipe for pressure. It suggests a week where committed reads and confident pace will matter, because tentative putting rarely holds up on a course that already has players feeling boxed in visually.
Two Tournaments, Two Very Different Putting Conversations
What makes this week so compelling is that both events could turn on the greens, just in very different ways.
At TPC San Antonio, the surfaces look likely to reward order, discipline and smart decision-making. The greens are close to tour average in size, but the course around them asks players to stay in position and think carefully about where misses leave them.
At Shadow Creek, the challenge feels more dramatic. Bentgrass greens, slightly smaller targets, more bunkers and more water in play should create a week where touch and conviction stand out. There may be beauty everywhere at Shadow Creek, but there should also be real tension.
That is what makes this a good week for anyone who appreciates the craft of putting surfaces.
You are not just getting two tournaments. You are getting two different lessons in how greens shape scoring, mindset and momentum before the leaderboard ever fully settles.
And that, as always, is what makes the greens worth watching first.
‘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.
