By EDDIE PELLS
OAKMONT, Pa. — Gary Woodland, the 2019 U.S. Open champion, waved the rules official over. Certainly, a ball buried that deep in the rough had to have embedded into the soft turf below when his off-line drive on the 12th hole landed with a thunk.
No such luck, the official told him. The rough at Oakmont is just deep — and thick and hard to escape. Instead of taking a free drop for an embedded ball, Woodland had to replace it where he found it, get out his wedge, take a hack and pray.
That resulted in Woodland’s first blemish in a back nine of 6-over 41 at the U.S. Open on Thursday. It turned a promising round that began with three birdies into a 3-over 73 slog.
Woodland’s was one of dozens of tales from the rough — gnarly, thick and sometimes downright impossible — that make an Open at Oakmont as tough as they come.
“Even for a guy like me, I can’t get out of it some of the times, depending on the lie,” said defending champion Bryson DeChambeau, who makes a living on overpowering golf courses and gouging out of the thick stuff. “It was tough. It was a brutal test of golf.”
DeChambeau was at even par when he nuked his second shot over the green and into the rough in back of the 12th green. The grass opened up his club face on the third and rifled the ball into more rough. He needed two more shots to advance the ball from there to the fringe. He shot 73.
“If you miss the green, you miss it by too much, you then try to play an 8-yard pitch over the rough onto a green that’s brick hard running away from you,” Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre said after his round of even-par 70. “It just feels like every shot is on a knife edge.”
Punishing the best in the world is exactly how the superintendents at what might be America’s toughest golf course planned it.
For the record, they do mow this rough. If they didn’t, there’s a chance some of the grass would lay over itself, allowing the ball to perch up instead of sink down. The mowers here have blades that use suction to pull the grass upward as they cut, helping the grass stand up straight and creating the physics that allow the ball to sink to the bottom.
Which is exactly where Rory McIlroy found his second shot, then his third, after failing to gouge his drive out of the lush green fescue located right of all that “regular” rough on the par-4 fourth. He made 6 there on his way to 74.
On No. 3, top-ranked No. 1 Scottie Scheffler hit his tee shot into the famous church pew bunker, then cooked his second shot up the hill and over the green. The rough opened up his clubface on the chip, sending the ball into the second cut of fringe. He got down in two to save bogey there.
Patrick Reed hit the shot of the day. It was a 286-yarder from the fairway that hit the green and dropped in for only the fourth albatross — a 2 on a par 5 — in recorded U.S. Open history.
If only he could have stopped there. His ensuing drive was so far left, it landed in the rough near the eighth tee box. He hacked across the fairway into more rough and scrambled to save bogey.
Later, Reed short-sided his approach on No. 9, moved the next shot from the rough about 5 feet and needed to get up and down for bogey.
Maybe J.J. Spaun figured it out the best.
With the dew still slickening the grass for his early tee time, Spaun chipped in from a gnarly lie on his first hole to open the Open with a birdie. He only hit eight of 14 fairways and 12 of 18 greens, but that was good enough for a 4-under 66, which sent him home with the lead and a chance to watch the afternoon players suffer.
“I like feeling uncomfortable,” Spaun said.
He came to the right place this week.
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