Genuinely Retro: Merion's Half-Inch Fairway Cut

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Lost in the lengthy USGA press conference Wednesday was this buried lede for maintenance and design wonks: Merion's fairway mowing height is decidedly retro and meant to start a more sustainable theme for the future.

Executive Director Mike Davis:

Fairways this week are predominantly bentgrass fairways.  There are a few other grasses in there.  One of the things that almost nobody in the room would notice, but I think it's worth noting is that, when I started at the USGA, we were mowing fairways right around a half an inch.  And then over the years it's almost like an arms race, it's just gone down.  And now we've gotten down closer to a quarter of an inch.

One of the things that we're talking about with sustainability of the game, pace of play and making the game more enjoyable, we are not doing any golfers any favor, recreational players, by seeing golf fairways cut down so tight.  It's harder for golfers to get the ball up.  It's harder to hit pitch shots ‑‑ don't say anything, Tom, I know what you're thinking ‑‑ we decided to go a little bit of a throwback this week, so fairways are almost half an inch in height again.  There's just more cushion under the ball.  And I think that's something that we really want to start to message to the recreational game, that this should not be ann arms race.  You are doing recreational golf no favors when you're mowing fairways that low.  We're doing it ourself to show that even the world's best players don't need to play off quarter inch fairways in height.

That's some locker room bulletin board material!

Now, about the lack of width...