No Rough at Pinehurst, but Still Plenty of Trouble

by Jeff Skinner

To say that this restored version of Pinehurst N0.2 is a different course is an understatement. Player after player has said that this course is so different from the previous course in 1999 and 2005 that you have to calculate an entire new strategy.

Phil Mickelson says he didn’t think playing in the last two Opens here is an advantage. Bubba Watson says he may be laying up a lot more this week to avoid trouble especially those “weeds” as he calls them.

Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and the rest of the people in the know call it wire grass and that “stuff” that has replaced the deep U.S. Open rough have been designated as “sandy areas.” Although Coore likes to say “stuff” and since he restored this course he gets that right.

But one of the aspects that has received plenty of chatter this week are those sandy areas and more specifically, the bunkers in those sandy areas.

So a player could very well be walking into a sandy area which is played “through the green” and find his ball has rolled into the bottom of a bunker.

Now, he isn’t in the sandy area, he is in a bunker and that is treated as a hazard.

This wasn’t something the USGA asked for. This was the Coore/Crenshaw design but now Mike Davis and crew has to live with the possibility of a player being confused about the options he has and the rule he has to follow.

The thought of another bunker debacle like the one that cost Dustin Johnson a chance at the 2010 PGA Championship must have kept USGA President Tom O’Toole and Davis awake at night.

Davis has been very vocal about the players’ need to understand the rules but at the same time realizes the possibility of something bad happening outside the fairways.

To combat this he emphasizes that there will be a walking rules official with each group so if the player has any doubt he can call on the official. And if there still is a question the solution is simple: play it as a hazard. Don’t ground your club, don’t remove any loose impediments just treat it as a hazard and you’ll be fine.

One of the last things the USGA wants is a controversy over poor judgment by a player that costs him strokes.

But there is another way for a player to avoid such controversy: keep it in the fairway.