1995 / 77th PGA RIVIERA : Crenshaw Feeling Blue Over Disappointing Greens at Riviera : Golf: Masters champion admits course is too soft and fears sub-par scores after his failed restoration.

Ben Crenshaw, Masters champion, sounded more like a guy with a Master’s trying to explain DNA.

He spoke of sodding, seeding, mixtures, rooting.

The bottom line, after a lot of head-scratching and discourse about agronomy, was that Crenshaw had come to say he was sorry.

This week’s 77th PGA Championship at Riviera was supposed to be a crowning moment, not for Crenshaw the golfer, but for Crenshaw the golf course engineer.

Two years ago, Crenshaw and Bill Coore were hired by Riviera to restore the greens to the contours architect George Thomas had originally laid out when he built the course in 1926.

Sixty-six years of wear and tear had taken a toll. Encroaching kikuyu grass and flying sand had changed the shape of many greens.

After restoring the course, the greens were re-sodded with a grass called Crenshaw bent, named in honor of the golfer with the famous putting touch.

Crenshaw was hoping to show off his work this week at one of golf’s four major tournaments. Instead, he has had to explain what went wrong.

“It’s easy to cast blame on something, but the bottom line is that the greens are not what they should be,” Crenshaw said.

Instead of being a formidable test for the world’s best players, Crenshaw fears Riviera is a sitting duck for sub-par scores.

The new greens, he said, are entirely too soft. Instead of being re-seeded after the reclamation project, the greens were re-sodded and have never taken hold.

“It’s difficult for me, it is,” Crenshaw said Tuesday. “Because I love this place so much. I’ve spent so much time here. So naturally it is. But it’s a very fair assessment. I wish things were different, but they’re not.”

Fast greens and prevailing sea breezes have long set Riviera apart as a tough course, making up for the lack of man-made obstacles such as lakes.

Crenshaw fears that the present green situation diminishes the test deserving of a major championship.

“An errant shot doesn’t go that far off line if the greens are soft,” Crenshaw said. “We’ve had every expert in the country, every expert known to man, out here trying to figure it out. Obviously, it weighs heavily on my mind, as well as [on] all the other people who were involved here.

“This is a major championship and you want fast, firm greens, and we’re just not able to present them that way because they’re just not strong enough.”

As if Crenshaw didn’t have enough to worry about.

While it’s true Riviera has long been one of his favorite courses, he has never won a tournament here. He came close in 1987, when he lost the L.A. Open to T.C. Chen in a playoff.

Since winning his second Masters championship last April--an emotional effort inspired by the memory of his mentor, Harvey Penick, who died the previous week at 90--Crenshaw’s game has gone south.

In nine tournaments since, Crenshaw has missed the cut three times. His best finish was a fifth-place tie at the Memorial in early June.

Crenshaw acknowledged that there may have been an emotional letdown after his victory at Augusta. Penick, the famed golf instructor, had tutored Crenshaw since childhood.

Crenshaw flew to Texas for the funeral that Wednesday, returning to Georgia determined that fate would see him through at the Masters. After holing his putt on No. 18 to win on Sunday, Crenshaw wept and almost collapsed.

“It was very emotional,” Crenshaw said, reflecting on the moment. “At times I’ve played pretty well [since]. But the consistency is certainly not there, and I really have not struck the ball that well or put my game together where I’d like to.

“But, in all honesty, I never know when I’ll play well.”

In fact, his Masters victory aside, this has been a rather mediocre year for one of golf’s best. Before Augusta, Crenshaw had missed the cut in three tournaments and had only one top-10 finish, a third at the Phoenix Open in January. Crenshaw has always been a streak player, and has no idea how he’ll fare this week at Riviera.

“If I start out well, gain some confidence, I may be there in the end, but I don’t have any assurances that it’s coming,” he said.

In some ways, it has already been a bad week.

The greens have made him blue.

“It’s not quite the same Riviera,” he said.