"It's a tough a shot as you want, just to get it on the surface there is a major achievement."

So I asked Tom Watson about the size of the greens at Pebble and whether he thinks they are large enough. I'm guessing he thought I was fishing for a rationale to explain the bumpiness, when it was an architectural question.

Q. You were talking about the golf course and some of the changes. The greens have always been small, but they're playing very, very small. Do you like that about this course, or do you think they've almost gotten to the point where there's not quite enough hole locations for a championship like this?

TOM WATSON: No, there's plenty of hole locations. These greens are -- how old are you? Were you around in 1972 when we played this golf course?

Q. I was one.

TOM WATSON: You were one? These greens were dead on Tuesday. They were dead. Black and blue. They were harder than they are now in 1972.

They haven't changed. They haven't changed these. The only hole they've changed is No. 5. They've redone No. 7, I think, once since '72. But the greens are the same size as they've always been. You can't hit a shot and land it on 12th green and stop it, unless you play the short tee like you did today. That's what they didn't do in 1972. And the rough off to the side of the fairways, it was like that (indicating) rather than the graduated rough that Mike Davis has put in.

But, no, this golf course -- the greens aren't any different. They're hard greens to putt, especially in the afternoon. But you have poa annua grass. In the afternoon there's certain parts of that poa annua gross faster than the other parts, you have the bentgrass in there.

Yet a few moments later after I had rudely left, he was asked about the 17th green. This time he got it.

Q. How do you play 17 now?

TOM WATSON: Not well. 17 is -- I can't hit the ball high enough as I used to, to have it come down soft. When I won here in '82, I put that ball straight up in the air and I made three birdies on the hole, obviously the chip in, and that wasn't a very good shot when I hit it in there.

I hit the shots, I hit it high and softly to that green. And I could do that. 2-irons and 3-irons. And I birdied the hole when it was on the right-hand side. I birdied it once on the left. I made mother par there, and I chipped it in.

But back in those days I could hit that ball up there, like Ryo and Rory did the same thing, hit the ball way up in the air. That's what you have to do. I was watching the guys in front of me. They're playing these 4-irons, they're launching at this attitude, right here (indicating)and mine's about right there (indicating). It just doesn't come down soft enough to hold the green.

That's the smallest green to hit that length of shot that we play in -- well, I have to say any golf. I mean that green is much smaller than the postage stamp at Troon, much smaller than that green. It's a tine, tiny little bowl thing, like this. You land it short, you hit it on the downslope and it goes right on over the bowl. And it's a tough a shot as you want, just to get it on the surface there is a major achievement.