Course setup to reign in bomb and gouge

[tommyhaka]

I don't believe a course should set up to thwart one particular style or person, that is unethical. If a certain individual is better than others, he should win the tournament. I sensed they were trying to do this against Tiger when he was in his hayday, but that's a matter of opinion. The reason Bryson was so successful was that he could gouge as you term it, where the other golfers didn't have the same strength or position to do so. Bryson has worked extremely hard to become the individual he is and should not worked against by course layout.

 

[Scorp]

Since THP wasn't around in 2000 when TW won by 100 strokes, was everybody wringing their hands or just congratulating GREAT golf??

Are you kidding? The world was coming to an end!

 

[RayG]

I've mentioned this before- particularly about the Black Course at Bethpage. Pre-2002, The course, in my opinion, was markedly more difficult. While the fairways were a bit wider, if you were off them, you were screwed. There was a first cut at the usual 1-2", 2nd cut was nearly 6" and beyond that was thick fescue that was knee high. Maintenance money was limited so that stuff was let to grow wild. And that went all the way to the woods or until it came across the second cut of a nearby hole. If you landed in the fescue, tee up another one, because you were not going to find it. IF you did manage to find it, getting back to the fairway was going to be a real struggle.
When the course got the 2002 open, they dumped millions into upkeep and conditioning. They also needed to make it easier for spectators to get around. So they cut down and thinned out the fescue and essentially removed it a few yards off the fairway. You can't have thousands of people wandering around in a tick infested wasteland. It was also a fire hazard if a smoker happened to drop his cigarette into the drier patches. There were several brushy fires back in the day. The only place I can recall where they left the fescue was between holes 10 & 11 where there were no spectators. They also removed several trees- notable the grove that was in that triangle between 1,17,18. They did replace them, and then took them away again for 2009 to make room for the hospitality tents. So when I played it after the 2009 open, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the further off the fairway you were, it was easier to find your ball and actually have a shot to the green or make significant progress forward.

The Winged Foot issues highlighted the issue of spectators on conditions- particularly Harris English losing his opening tee shot on Sunday. With the usual crowd, no chance that ball gets lost in the tamped down "rough". One possible solution is to reduce the number of spectators, and move them further off the fairways to make the "rough" wider and less disturbed.

BDC has mentioned his possible approach to Augusta a few months ago, saying he would do this here, and that there. Driving to places that are not on the normal line, etc... Well, you can be sure that ANGC was listening and He will find that there are some migrating 200 year old trees on lines he was thinking of using that weren't there last year. Tee boxes shifted to bring trees into lines off the tee that will need to be negotiated.

Another point is the "consistency" of the rough at these events. It was fairly uniform all over the place. So if you practiced enough, you could get a feel for what is needed to get out no matter where you were. Now- most of the local courses I play on you don't get a carpet of lush grass off the fairway. There are patches of weeds, clumps of grass interspersed with concrete like dirt so your ball could be hard up against a root clump of grass making your shot a real test. They certainly wouldn't consider that at Augusta, but perhaps other venues could think about making these players play under conditions that us "regular" Joe's see all the time.

 

[MWard]

According to BAD himself is have very high Bermuda rough. That is what got him at Eastlake. As someone who mainly plays at courses with Bermuda, when it is very high it is next to impossible to hit good shots out of it. I think it is due to the density of small blade grass.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And cause it's the devil. Playing out of longer rye grass is challenging, but not as difficult as playing out of bermuda. Bermuda is a freakin joke half the time. Are you going to catch it clean? Or high on the face? How much soil is under the grass, and is it wet out? Cause now it's a thick grass lie, and you have the club slowing down from both the wet grass and the dense and damp soil.

 

[OldandStiff]

According to BAD himself is have very high Bermuda rough. That is what got him at Eastlake. As someone who mainly plays at courses with Bermuda, when it is very high it is next to impossible to hit good shots out of it. I think it is due to the density of small blade grass.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've received an education on it this summer/fall and long Bermuda is by far the most penal rough I've ever played on/out of. Absolutely forces conservative play, or conservative outs.

 

[Scott F]

Dig out the fairway bunkers placed 300-350 yards off the tee deep enough to prevent guys from reaching the green if they are in one. Add trees and bushes just off the fairways in landing areas. If a player hits an offline tee shot, make sure he doesn’t have a clear shot into the green. Courses don’t have to be be totally redesigned.

 

[chile]

make it the ninja warrior course of courses. hazards...very penal hazards in spots that were/are perceived to be inviting. make this the carnage that winged foot wasn't. #revengeofthecourse

 

[Bernoulli]

IMO one of the problems with Winged Foot was that the fairways were simply too narrow. When you shrink the fairways to 25 yards wide everyone in the field will miss a lot of them (Field average was only 39%). Then everyone is playing out of the thick rough but only the highest swing speed guys can actually deal with it. Bryson basically said this before the tournament started but many shrugged him off. Truth be told, I think courses with thick rough usually give a big advantage to the bombers.

There is much truth, I believe, in what you have stated. Narrow fairways were a benefit for Bryson's game. This was one of the things that Bryson referenced before and after his victory.

 

[Drumdog]

I guess I don't understand the desire to set up a course to try and stop a certain playing style.
Just sayin'....

 

[maxw72]

I was listening to a podcast this morning talk about this and how Bryson was saying that when the fairways are this narrow, it hurts the accurate drivers as well because the fairways are nearly impossible to land in. So those players who are more accurate with their drives are landing in the rough but they are anywhere between 50-80 yards further back then people like Dechambeau and Wolff. So yes, Bryson and Matt are in the rough, but so is everyone else, but now Bryson and Matt are closer and need less of a club to get on the green.

 

[Molten]

Winged Foot DID combat B&G. And every other style of golf, too. Only 1 person amongst the very best players in the entire world broke par. At some point people just need to accept that BDC played phenomenal golf.

I think Winged Foot wasn’t able to protect it because the mouth of the greens is wide open and you can run the ball up. Small greens and narrow mouths should protect more.

 

[maxw72]

I guess I don't understand the desire to set up a course to try and stop a certain playing style.
Just sayin'....

I can agree that there isn't a point to set up a course to play more difficult to a certain playing style. But I can see the importance and almost a "pride" in setting up a course to play extremely difficult. No course supers want to see their course play so easy and a player shoot 20 under on it. They want their course to hit back. So don't set up a course to hurt a specific playing style, set up your course to play difficult for everyone. I think the best way of doing that is very complex greens!

 

[Bernoulli]

Winged Foot DID combat B&G. And every other style of golf, too. Only 1 person amongst the very best players in the entire world broke par. At some point people just need to accept that BDC played phenomenal golf.

I agree completely. In fact, we probably are not having this discussion if someone other than Bryson won.

 

[TRyan]

Winged Foot DID combat B&G. And every other style of golf, too. Only 1 person amongst the very best players in the entire world broke par. At some point people just need to accept that BDC played phenomenal golf.

I really think this is the answer. There were LOTS of bombers in the field.... Bryson just out-performed everyone, regardless of play style. The rest of his game was also superb, much better than everyone else, especially on Sunday.

 

[TRA024]

I would look at this on not only how to stop bomb and gouge but how do you give some of the more "traditional" players a fighting chance. Sometimes making the hole shorter takes driver out of the longest hitter (water etc.), make clear differences in fairway width, graduate rough height front to back (the closer you get to the hole the higher the rough), cut the green surroundings so that balls don't stop quickly and you have a clear advantage from the fairway with some spin, etc. etc.

Before any equipment roll-back is discussed I do think there's a lot of things that can be tested in course set-up and agronomy. The only way to find out is to try out different things and that could be a great way to get some added attention to some of the less marquee tour events. The worst thing USGA + R&A could do now is based on theory make a rule change that Bryson or someone else cracks the code for on week 3.

 

[Jason89er]

If you look at the scoring, WF really did provide a very very challenging layout and neutralized the field. BDC simply out putted and scrambled better than anyone at WF. He was absolute money with his putter. Wolfee missed the putts and BDC made the putts. Wolfee missed 5 makable putts for par. He makes those and applies some pressure who knows what would of happened. I watched every hole. In my opinion clutch putts decided the winner on Sunday. Everyone keep talking about his length. Forgot that. He made the putts when they counted the most.

Now I have to say.....I hate his putting style. It’s like watching Rick Barry shoot free throws. Underhand Granny style. Barry is 7th all time at 89.3 of his FTs made. So just like BDC you have to recognize the results. But it’s awful to watch.

Getting back to the OPs topic....put a huge emphasis on making putts. Smaller, faster, more angles, just all around tougher greens. You can’t overpower that. No way no how. Putting is the great equalizer in golf.

 

[Duffer Seamus]

Grow the second, or 3rd cut of rough knee high. No one gouges out of knee high rough.

I saw somebody do just that at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, I think it was? I don't know if it was quite knee-high, but it was pretty darn high. Thought "Good luck with that." He got it out and threw a divot about the size of a small shrub

 

[Elbow Jobertski]

Since THP wasn't around in 2000 when TW won by 100 strokes, was everybody wringing their hands or just congratulating GREAT golf??

It was more that the scores were becoming a joke. They were talking "Tiger Proofing" courses but it wasn't specifically to combat his playing style to help others compete. If anything lengthening and making courses harder increased his relative advantage.

Bomb and gouge is boring though.

The main way to combat bomb and gouge is get rid of the rough. Sometimes rough just stops the ball from going somewhere really nasty. A tree lined hole shouldn't have rough that keeps the balls out of the trees.

No rough, punish stray shots with trees, bunkers, mounds, anything that makes the shot unpleasant and a recovery more interesting. Have low grass combined with intentional hardpan spots to cause a lot of difficult lies where the ball rests against higher turf. Bring back Oakmont's old furrowed rakes so bunkers are scary again.

 

[Templet0n]

Grow the second, or 3rd cut of rough knee high. No one gouges out of knee high rough.

This is actually the wrong directing. If you watch. The tour guys have more issues with the first cut slight rough than with deep deep stuff. you want just long just enough rough to create indecision and uncertainty with ball flight. With super deep rough there is no chance for flyer lies. The ball is going to knuckle and come out slow every time. So you can just aim at the font of the green and swing as hard as you can..

With rough that is just long enough that solid contact can be made, but might not. You get flyers, or shots that spin and check. That uncertainty creates a situation where a decision has to be made. When a decision needs to made. The wrong one can creep in and cause issues. Then you get blow up holes.

Not so much with just super deep hay rough..

 

[Luchnia]

I've received an education on it this summer/fall and long Bermuda is by far the most penal rough I've ever played on/out of. Absolutely forces conservative play, or conservative outs.

I know what you mean. I was educated a few weeks ago. Played a league game and the rough was BRUTAL. Had a lot of rain a few days before. Was not mowed low enough either. The stuff was thick, wet, and tight. On one hole, I had a nice drive and rolled off the fairway into the rough stopping almost immediately. Ball basically disappeared. After a bit of searching we finally found it.

I knew the rough was bad so I clubbed up from an 8 iron to a 7 iron. I swung very aggressive because I saw others struggling with rough shots and I made the best contact I could. The ball went about 15 to 20 yards if that.

I told them I could not swing the 7 iron any faster or I would hurt myself. My buddy had probably half dozen balls that landed in the rough that day and only got one out to any reasonable distance. It was brutal on our score cards. We tried a number of different clubs. If the grass had of been dry that would have helped a lot.

There were four of us in my group that could not get the balls out of the rough no matter how we played them. I finally told my buddy the next one that went in the rough I was going to simply bring it out safe with a chipping wedge since that was the only club that could cut through the grass and at least get some loft and distance on the ball by bringing the ball up as much as possible.

When we finished up that day many of the conversations centered around how difficult it was getting out of the rough.

 

[rollin]

I think a lot of people don’t know that guys like Rory and DJ drove it farther than Bryson(7th in driving distance) this week and the fact that Bryson was straighter than most of the field as he was ranked 26th. He won not just because of length but because he was ranked 5th in GIR, putted well, and got up and down a lot from tough spots.

I totally get your thoughts there and not at all suggesting much anything different.
But to be fair before suggesting that he was "only 7th" in distance....,...we must admit that sitting 7th among distance in the tourney is not really suggesting he was significantly far from leading in distance. You have to go to position 10 before you begin even a 10 yrd difference from the top. Sitting 7th he was only 8y off.. While that matters its not like he was 15 or 20 yrds down which begins to happen around the 15th position.

None of that negates your thoughts about the roles of his putting and greens game played in his victory. But only (due respect) that perhaps saying sitting 7th doesn't quite make the argument as well as intended for him not being all that long.

 

[WLG1952]

I saw somebody do just that at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, I think it was? I don't know if it was quite knee-high, but it was pretty darn high. Thought "Good luck with that." He got it out and threw a divot about the size of a small shrub

Where did the ball end up?

 

[Scott F]

I guess I don't understand the desire to set up a course to try and stop a certain playing style.
Just sayin'....

Aren’t most courses set up to stop bad golfers who can’t carry water hazards, miss fairways or miss greens?
The bunkers the long hitters drive over, are there to catch the drives of normal players. They designed the course for a different style of play that was the norm at the time it was built. When building a new course, it should be designed to challenge even the longest hitters by penalizing missing fairways.

 

[PowerThrust]

Knee high rough 300 yards off the tees. Done.

 

[blueonblack]

Reign in the ball.
Oopsy, USGA.