Tom Kite isn’t exactly bitter, but he’s not entirely detached from that feeling, either.
Yesterday, the World Golf Hall of Famer came to the defense of Liberty National, the golf course he designed in Jersey City, where the Barclays tournament will start later this week. When the event was last played here, in 2009, the course was widely criticized for being unfair and overly penal.
Kite thinks the proliferated opinion was that of the minority, and he did not hesitate to point that out.
“There were a lot people that raved about the golf course, and there were a few people that were critical,” Kite told The Post behind the driving range at Liberty National, where the first tournament of the four-event FedEx Cup playoffs will begin. “We tried to address some of the issues that were a concern to some of the players, and at the same time build on all the really good things most of the players said. It wasn’t written about, but most of the players said really good things.
“It’s easy to write negative stuff,” Kite continued. “It’s more than that. When people say complimentary things about you, you all don’t write about it. There’s no question that that was the case.”
The one player whose comments made the most impact four years ago was — as could be expected — Tiger Woods. The best Woods could do in describing the golf course was calling it “interesting.” When pressed if that was good or bad, he tersely stuck with “interesting.”
“When [Woods] says something, it carries a lot more weight,” said Luke Donald, who played in the tournament four years ago and remembers the course fondly. “Aesthetically, it was really good to look at. Architecturally, it’s a big golf course with a lot of slope in the greens.”
Some of that slope was tempered with some major renovations done over the past year and a half. Along with the milder greens, some of the landing areas were widened and the tall fescue grass was pushed farther off the fairway.
Yet it was all done in the name of propriety, not a knee-jerk reaction to some comments by a select number of players, Kite said.
“Some of the things we did were probably necessary,” Kite said. “We’re trying to build a golf course to hold a major championship, or big events, and you’ve got some of the best players in the world that are going to play it, so you want to build some challenge in there, you want to make it a hard test. When you do that, you take the chance of maybe overdoing it a little bit, and maybe in some places, we did. We addressed those issues and got it better.”
Tour veteran Ben Crane played in the event last time, as well, and he had nothing but good things to reiterate about the golf course.
“I loved it,” Crane said. “I know a lot guys didn’t, but I did. First time I played it, I was like, ‘This is different than any course we play.’ You have to know your way around, and there are some little intricacies that can be completely unfair, or you can just stay away from them.
“Certainly the location is unbelievable. It’s a cool facility.”
So come Thursday, all the pros will tee it up in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, with the hulking Freedom Tower added to the skyline of downtown Manhattan. Now Kite just hopes the perceived perception is more positive this time around.
“There were some things that needed to be addressed, and we addressed those,” Kite said. “We think the golf course is good, and we hope the players like it this year.”