Pinehurst’s rustic rough presents unique challenge

PINEHURST, N.C. – Golf has always been more than a physical pursuit. In no sport does serendipity play a larger role, and coping with that unpredictability is a crucial trait shared by the game’s greats.

It will be especially important this week at Pinehurst No. 2, where luck may play a large role than normal. The player who can respond with aplomb to the inevitable bad breaks found among the wiregrass and weeds off of the course’s fairways will have an advantage over his competition.

This was a skill that the World Golf Hall of Famer Walter Hagen possessed and one that Bobby Jones highlighted in his writings about the game. In “Bobby Jones on Golf,” Jones shared an anecdote about Hagen encountering an especially difficult shot. When a fan remarked about Hagen’s bad luck, the 11-time major winner simply smiled and said, “Well, here it is and from here I have to play it.”

Jones used this anecdote to illustrate the importance of not complaining or cursing the fates for a bad lie. Instead, it is better to focus on the task at hand. Ruminating on the past is of no benefit.

A similar attitude will be as important as deft iron play in this year’s U.S. Open.

Players who cannot muster this comportment could be in for an especially long week. That’s because Pinehurst No. 2 does not present a traditional challenge for players who miss its fairways. Instead of thick rough, the fairways are lined by the sort of soil and vegetation that you would have confronted before Donald Ross started digging here more than a century ago. The fairways give way to sandy areas that are intentionally unkempt. That means that any ball that misses the short grass is subject to a wider array of potential outcomes.

Players could be left with a clear shot to the green, facing something akin to a lie they’d find in a fairway bunker, to a ball that is ensconced in the wiregrass or other weeds.

“There is some luck involved in missing the fairways here,” said Viktor Hovland. “Sometimes you might have a good lie, and sometimes it's just a hack-out.”

Pinehurst wasn’t always this way. It was framed by Bermudagrass rough when it hosted its first two U.S. Opens, in 1999 and 2005. But a renovation before its next U.S. Open, in 2014, restored the rustic look. The native areas were beefed up before this year’s tournament, as well, with additional wiregrass planted in the landing areas, adding to the potential penalty for players who miss the fairway, as well as the anxiety a player will feel as his ball strays off-line.

“What's all in there is what Donald Ross called 'the perfect rough.' Why? Because when a player hits a shot into those sandy natural areas, it's a walk up that fairway of a bit of anxiety, a bit of emotion, because they don't know what they're going to get,” said John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s Chief Championships Officer. “The randomness of that, it's not just five-inch green lush rough. It can be something gnarly, wire grass, or it can be a perfect sandy lie.”

Xander Schauffele hit driver on almost every hole in one of his practice rounds because he wanted to test the limits of what Pinehurst would allow. Not one of his balls ended up in the wiregrass. He knows that is atypical, though. A similar strategy could result in a handful of shots that are almost unplayable, he said.

“It depends on your strategy,” he said.

On several of the holes, the fairways grow narrower the farther a player gets from the tee. It was Ross’ way of requiring players to assess their risk tolerance. The benefit of hitting driver is being able to hit higher-lofted clubs into Pinehurst’s greens, which resemble upside-down bowls.

The last U.S. Open here displayed an interesting disparity that illustrates just how hard it is to hit the greens at Pinehurst No. 2. Pinehurst had the fourth-easiest fairways to hit on TOUR in 2014 (70%), but the third-hardest greens to hit (56%). It’s because the steep slopes on the edges make the putting surfaces play much smaller than they appear, sending shots that miss their target by even a matter of inches rolling off of the green.

“I think the best players play aggressively off the tee and conservatively into the greens,” Hovland said. “I think this course is basically that strategy, just on steroids.”

Players who hit driver, however, will be tested in a different way, forced to confront the whims of the wiregrass and wild vegetation, if they miss the fairway.

“By cultivating the habit of accepting difficult lies as part of the game,” wrote Jones, “we can derive for ourselves more pleasure from the playing of it.”

The player who does that well will have an advantage this week.