Rough Questions For The R&A
I know that course setup talk has most writers longing for a return to the cricket beat, but the excessive role of Turnberry's rough deserves more scrutiny. And since several scribblers have access to the R&A's Peter Dawson the Monday following, we can only hope they'll probe about the course preparations that he is so much a part of.
On American TV we heard consistently about the "thick undergrowth" of "overseeded rye and bent" grasses. Native grasses on a links are traditionally fescue with other grasses mixed in, but I sensed that the repeated use of "overseeded rye and bent" was a subtle message from Curtis Strange, Tom Weiskopf and Paul Azinger that they found the dense undergrowth situation peculiar. And certainly the R&A's pre-tournament implication was that "nature" created this situation.
But lost ball rough next to a par-3 green? That is not the product of nature.
Some will argue that the course having been closed for so many months leading up to the championship led to such a situation. No traffic certainly is a legitimate explanation but there was also evidence of irrigation overspray in some of the more penal roughs. If it's a wet spring, why is irrigation necessary?
I'm no agronomist, but there are ways to thin excessive rough if you deem it excessive (they're called sheep). It's also worth asking if a special overseed took place either for aesthetic or resistance to scoring purposes.
Another lesser issue is the lack of width. It's no secret that the R&A drove changes to Turnberry, including over 200 yards of length and 21 new bunkers. The R&A contends that the course was not narrowed since 1994 and the slivers of fairways surrounded by lost ball rough are all merely a product of nature. But as we saw, with firm conditions and a typical 20 m.p.h. wind, things can get a bit goofy.
Dawson, who supervised the changes, defends the fairway widths as merely working around the bunkering. But as you may have noticed, nearly all of the new bunkers tightened the course and were designed to put the player on the defensive. So yes, the bunkers dictate the width, but then that means the R&A is using bunkers to narrow the course. Why?
And is this really the essence of links golf, or still ultimately about reducing the number of times players can hit drivers and reveal just how far they can drive it with today's equipment?
Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 07:04 PM
Reader Comments (20)
Players had to play the wind. If you were in the junk, you hadn't done that successfully.
By-the-way, sheep don't thin grasses, they mow it down. If they introduced sheep, they would have eaten it down to nothing, that's why the grasses in sheep fields are always so short.
If what we're suggesting around here about juiced up rough is true, then I think the R & A got lucky last week. The dry & windy conditions seemed to make driver optional, which seemingly lead to avoidance of the worst of the rough. At least, that was what I saw during the broadcast.
some of the criticisms. The fairways were NOT too narrow, they were actually generous in my mind, just don't miss them. The rough was not "juiced"!!!! It was the result of nature and lack of play prior to the championship.
As for tough pins, I saw one that was uncalled for in my opinion, that was the 15th on Saturday, and only because it was about 6 feet too far right and on a bit of a slope.
Let me address this complaining about pins once and for all:
THE BALL!!!!!
The players have chosen a ball with a LOW spin rate that enables them to hit it further. That same ball does not allow them to spin the ball to hold it against a wind or spin it to stop to the ball in the event of a tight pin.
Todays players lay up off the tees more so than players of yesteryear, so they leave themselves longer shots into the "bad pins". PULEEZ
If they are so talented, lets see them not layup and hit it further down the fairway (which were plenty wide) and give themselves shorter shots into the greens, and THEN they would not have a problem hitting into the "bad pins"!!!!!
Everything in life and golf is a tradeoff, play safe off the tee, face a more difficult second shot, or vice-versa.
But please, stop the complaining!!!!
I'm thinking when Strange became eligible for the Champions tour, he and ABC parted ways as their contract was about up.
Now that his Champions tour venture didn't go anywhere, I guess he is now edging back into broadcasting, unfortunately.
Agree that Weiskopf is good. Reminds me somewhat of Oosterhuis in that they set the scene well and then know to zip it.
Somewhere I read the complaint of a steady diet of pin positions on the upwind sides of holes, where the wind made it impossible to get close. As it happens, I kept track of the pin positions (don’t ask why). They were available from the official Open website. I did a very simplistic, one-dimensional analysis of the 12 pins on "main axis" holes (the other 6 lie at various angles) with respect to the wind on Friday and Saturday. For simplicity I assumed the crosswind on Friday and Saturday was perpendicular to the main axis, straight off the sea. The pin positions on main-axis holes I called “penal” with regard to wind direction if they were right-side pins on 1,3,13,15-17; and left-side pins on 2, 4-8. Note that this discounts all other hazards, e.g. proximity to bunkers. As I said, it is a one-dimensional analysis. It is true that on 16 the pin was near the burn all 4 days, thrice on right and once left-front.
Friday pins--3 out of 12 I counted as penal from the wind (3,7,17).
Saturday pins: 4 out of 12 I counted as penal from wind (1,13,15,16).
This obviously ignores a lot, like 1/3 of the golf course. But FWIW it does NOT suggest a steady diet of pins that were impossible to get at due to the wind.
A couple of things.
First I know the difference between natives hit with a lot of rain and natives hit with irrigation. You can see the circular shape in the greenery. Not hard to spot, even for a fool like me. Having worked on a prairie golf course now, it's a huge issue.
As for the announcers, do keep in mind they are more careful about what they say these days and generally go through briefings, quite often with the course staff, tournament officials, etc... these days. I'm not saying that happened here, but it's entirely possible. They were quite consistent in their paraphrasing.
Also, the winds experienced were no more or less than normal for the area, or for many championship locations in the US.
The point is that - apart from its length - Turnberry was set up in the same fashion as all links courses in Britain and Ireland are for their members and visitors on a normal round.
I think what offends western hemisphere golfers is that the penalty for landing in the rough is potentially so much greater than for, say, landing in a water hazard. Once you find your ball your problems are just starting. As we saw often during the Open it can take several shots to re-establish yourself on short grass. The lesson - banal but true - don't hit the ball into the hay!
Well done, Mr. Cink, a great finish under pressure. It's regrettable that'll the 2009 Open will always be remembered for Mr. Watson's quite extraordinary physical and mental effort - one which I, being older than he, regard as scarcely credible.
Also if you drive down any country road in Scotland at this time of year and look at the hedgerows you will see grass which is exactly the same length and thickness as the rough on links courses, this happens entirely through nature.
It is the overseeding comment which I find particularly laughable, coming from people who spend around five days of the year in the UK and clearly have no clue. I appreciate what Geoff says about tv announcers being briefed and doing their homework, however I refuse to believe that any tournament official or any member of the Turnberry greenstaff ever uttered the word "overseeding". Since the controversy of Carnoustie in 1999 and allegations of fertilisation the Open organisers have been very sensitive towards any accusations of rough enhancements by artificial means.