Final Ryder Cup Question: Would Rough Have Helped...
/...of course not. But because we need to shift focus to the totally meaningless and devoid-of-drama Tour Championship, there is one more Ryder Cup question worth considering.
It was clear that the Azinger cut was enormous and from the scalping I saw, maybe a little tighter cut than originally planned. Based on the shots hit from it, the lies were almost comparable to fairway heights. So Valhalla's landing areas played 40-50 yards wide in most cases.
Yes, there were some ankle deep areas we'll call "native" but in terms of 3-4 inch fertilized and pampered stuff lining separating fairways from gallery ropes, there just wasn't much rough. Nor was there much around the greens. I recall one Hunter Mahan chip from behind a green (17?) sitting in some thick stuff, otherwise there is not another shot of significance that we saw played from the pitch-out junk that lines all too many fairways and engulfs putting surfaces.
Now, if this were a stroke play event and the boys faced this setup, people would be calling Valhalla names and downplaying the course's quality. If it were an individual stroke play event, the press would be calling it un-major like and not a true "test." Scores might have been, gasp, low and we'd be deprived of the flukish fascination of seeing drives just barely missing fairways getting a raw deal as wild miss-hits find a nice matted down lie.
So why isn't this rough-free Ryder Cup's integrity being questioned? Don't tell me it's little old "match play" giving it the free pass here.
Could it be that we're seeing a realization by the media that rough is a cancerous growth on any golf course and that it's been depriving us of excitement? Could the combination of the Masters losing its appeal, the U.S. Open climbing quickly thanks to tiered roughs and the PGA at Oakland Hills contrasting so starkly with Southern Hills, actually awakening the media to the vagaries of rough and absurd setup ploys?
I give to you example A of why I think this may be the case, but of course welcome your thoughts. Tim Rosaforte at GolfDigest.com writes:
Everybody talked about the way Azinger tweaked Valhalla, but it didn't really favor either side. What it did was create the most exciting shootout of the year, with holes being halved with birdies and flagsticks peppered with shots. It's too bad major golf associations such as the USGA don't take more of a page from this, letting the guys play with an open collar instead of a straightjacket. With the ball bounding on those Kentucky fairways and balls releasing off those contours toward the hole, it was similar to Augusta National when it was exciting, not the year's first U.S. Open.
On this subject, Michael Bamberger in SI:
The golf course helped make the event. Captain Paul Azinger, working with PGA of America officials and Valhalla's course superintendent, Mark Wilson, had it just right. Fairways wide enough to encourage the players to hit driver. Rough that was penal but playable. Greens that were probably slightly slower than regular Tour speed, which meant the players could get putts to the hole. Just enough water on the greens to make them receptive. They weren't U.S. Open conditions, and you wouldn't want U.S. Open conditions in this event. They were ideal match-play conditions. I had never been a big fan of Valhalla — its scale is too huge — but this time I felt differently. I hope Billy Payne and Fred Ridley and the boys at Augusta were watching closely. They could get some tips on course setup from Azinger and Co. I'm not saying make it Mickey Mouse. I'm saying let them play and put on a show. All these things today are TV events anyhow, right?
