As U.S. Senior Open begins, the greens are the center of attention

The Broadmoor’s famous greens are living up to their reputation

By Jim Bebbington

It took just a few days of practice rounds for the 156 PGA Tour Champions competitors at this week’s U.S. Senior Open to come to the same conclusion that thousands of players before them also reached.

“The Broadmoor may have the toughest greens anywhere,” said Bernhard Langer, the winningest player in PGA Tour Champions history, after his Wednesday practice round. “Tougher than Augusta, tougher than just about anywhere we play. There’s so much breaks and undulation on these greens. You hit a putt two-inches shorter than you should and it ends up six feet away, and you hit it two inches further than you should and it ends up six feet on the other side.”

The greens – designed by either Donald Ross or Robert Trent Jones Sr. – are maintained in perfect shape. They slope internally with rolls and contours. But they also famously break in ways that elude the eye – sloping quietly away from the Cheyenne Mountain peaks to their west.

Brandt Jobe, who grew up in Colorado, said during his Monday practice round a player in his group had a two-foot putt and ended up rolling the ball 20 yards off the green.

Stewart Cink, a PGA Tour major winner and at age 52 one of the younger players in the field, is devoting himself to the PGA Tour Champions almost exclusively this year. He said he is optimistic because players who can drive the ball longer will have the chance to be hitting into the greens with higher trajectories and have a chance to stop their shots close to the pins.

“The greens are very unrelenting, they’re fast,” he said. “There’s an amazing push from the mountain towards the valley here that sometimes just defies your eyesight. But you have to trust what you know to be right and you can feel it in your feet when you’re out there.”

Padraig Harrington, who won three majors on the PGA Tour, summed up The Broadmoor’s greens in one word: ‘treacherous.’

“The greens are very old-school, treacherous, with the speeds we’ll play them at these days and with the slopes,” he said. “(The key is) knowing where to hit it, knowing where the right place is to miss.”

Harrington said the winner this week will need to be patient.

“It’s going to be just a relentless week of taking it on the chin and just, if it runs five-feet by not complaining just get up there and hit your best putt and get on with it.

“You’re going to hit some good shots and they’re going to go over the back of the greens. You’re going to spin the odd-one off the greens. You’re going to have to accept that and be patient.”

The course is lush, having received nearly daily rains with the wet spring the state has received. The USGA is known for allowing rough to grow to six inches or more at its championships, but the majority here has been trimmed to about five inches – deep enough, but not cruel.

The competition kicks off Thursday morning in the 2025 U.S. Senior Open, with Colorado National Golf Club Head Pro Matt Schalk scheduled to be in the first group teeing off No. 1 at 7 a.m.

The weather has already been a factor and its hard to predict how much it will play a role for the rest of the week. Tuesday and Wednesday’s forecasts did not call for storms but both practice rounds were cut short by early afternoon thunder rolling down from the mountains. Tuesday’s brought a hail storm that blanketed the fairways with white pellets, but did not affect the greens significantly.

U.S. Drive, Chip and Putt holds local qualifier at the U.S. Senior Open

Local qualifiers are going on all summer throughout Colorado for the 2026 Drive, Chip and Putt championships to be held at Augusta National next April, and the U.S. Senior Open on Wednesday was among the qualifiers.

Children between the ages of 7 and 15 compete, and receive points in skills competitions around driving, chipping and putting.

Results for Wednesday’s qualifier are here.

Other Colorado qualifier sites include:

Jim Bebbington is the Director of Content at Colorado AvidGolfer and can be reached at [email protected]

Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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