[ad_1]
Wicked, brutal and bad.
Three witches from Eastwick? The ill-advised phone card of a law firm? The amazing identity of a heavy metal band?
Nah, these are just a few of the words that immediately came out of players’ mouths when they were asked to describe the jagged edges of the Southern Course at Torrey Pines in San Diego, home of the 121st US Open.
Yes, these and similar words are used annually when players are asked to give their accounts about the high turf in the National Championship, but that doesn’t make listening to how the contenders handle it any less interesting.
The rough, after all, is where many scorecards die.
“It’s phenomenal. The yards have to be really in their game because around the greens you can take some shots five feet from the edge of the green and you have to really look hard to find your ball,” said Jordan Spieth, the 2015 US Open champion. There are grooved holes in some of the holes, and even the first cut (in the aisle) at 12 and like 14 are the two that come to mind, even the first cut is cut at you.
“So, there’s not much you can do. You don’t really come forward with more than 7 irons for a lot of those lies, just trying to bring them down the right path.”
US Open
Raw at the 121st US Open in Tory Pines. (Photo: David Dusek-Gulfweek)
But back to the rough green side for a moment. As Spith said, the coarse grass around the greens will swallow golf balls whole. Well, add a foot. A video shown on the Golf Channel showed Victor Hovland working from some rough material near a green area with grass stretching to his legs.
Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters champion who won the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in January, is one of the best players in the game around the Greens. But his hands will be full this week.
“It’s disgusting,” he said. “In hole 9, I threw two balls down, and they both fell about the same place. One jumped into the bump, and one kind of got into the kikuyu and sat down because it was so thick that I felt like I could almost hit the driver. The other one was about three feet away from him and he sank in bottom.
The story continues
“I could give the guy who sank down maybe six inches in front of me. I’ve seen some guys go under some golf balls this week already.
“Now it will keep growing, keep getting longer and longer. So, it will be a real test around the green, but it will be a fun test.”
List
Check out the Yardage Book: US Open Torrey Pines South Stadium
Fun? Well, if you say so, Mr. Reed. South Field will play as one of the tallest in the tournament’s history, coming in at around 7,600 yards to level 71. The rough will make it play longer because most players prefer accuracy over length and try to keep the ball in play for a shorter period. Clubs from a tee.
And there will be many, if not all, players doing some prayer.
“In general, if you look at raw, it’s kind of choppy,” said world number six Xander Shaveli. “You can get a really bad lie or not a bad lie, almost a lie, which is kind of hard to judge as well.
“I’m not an agronomist, but there are probably three to six different types of grass on the property, and depending on where you’re missing it, you can either be really lucky or really unlucky.”
The roughness is so severe that 2019 US Open champion Gary Woodland is hoping to hit the sand if he misses the fairways.
“It’s brutal,” he said. “They cut it a little bit since Sunday because you’ve been losing balls around the greens. But it’s tough. We don’t usually see as tough as this.
This makes driving the golf ball down the fairway even more important.
“I think you’ll be more aggressive in handling the greens. Driving a golf ball down the fairway is a huge thing this week. I’ll try to miss in the bunkers in the fairway because you can at least advance with it.”
Last year at Winged Foot in New York, Bryson DeChambeau worked his way up to the US Open title, choosing to let the big dog eat despite his vicious, brutal and ruthless cruelty. His way of thinking was that you’re going to miss the roads anyway, so why not be as close to the greens as possible. With his strength and his shorter clubs in the Greens, DeChambeau missed those insisting on accuracy rules at the US Open as he lost nearly half of his lanes in regulation yet won by six shots and was the only player to finish the match on equal footing.
“I would say the raw is a little different, so it wouldn’t be as easy to get to, I think, with the wedge here in Torrey Pines than with the winged foot,” DeChambeau said. “But having said that, I think it would be the same kind of strategy. If I can keep hitting it at the front of the Greens, twice when I’m in trouble, I’ll give myself a big shot this week.
“When I hit it in the fairway, I have to take advantage of those holes, and I have to take advantage of 5 peers here. If I can do those two things, I feel like I have a great opportunity to compete.
“I don’t really know if bunkers or rough materials are better, but just as close as possible to the green would definitely be my strategy.”
John Wood, longtime lobbers for Matt Kuchar and Hunter Mahan, will put up a microphone this week in place of a golf bag as an NBC analyst. He wonders what the tough future holds for the US Open.
“It’s a pickle now. If Bryson had to do something similar to what he did last year, I think there would be a lot of head scratching,” Wood said. “Usually, the US Open would have been Tom Kate or Curtis Strange — get the ball in Correct lane, move it to the middle of the green, get your reward and move on.
“It has changed a lot in the past few years. Longtime hitters have a huge advantage.” And if DeChambeau or other matches bomb his way to victory, Woods believes the American Golf Association will have “a long, long talk about what to do in the future,” when setting up the courses. Thicker, longer jagged? Less rough?
Whatever happens, disagreement will be a point of discussion every year.
[ad_2]
Picture Credit!