The Importance Of Hitting U.S. Open Fairways Isn't What It Used To Be

Lee westwood after round 3

Think about all the effort put into juicing the roughs with fertilizer, fine tuning the lines a bit to make the players lay up so the ball doesn’t have to be regulated and the excitement at seeing them punished!

Not happening. At least, not for the 2020 U.S. Open leaders.

The most stout rough we’ve seen in some time is not meaning a darned thing at Winged Foot, as Matthew Wolff takes a two stroke lead into Sunday. Two, also happens to be the number of fairways hit in a 65 that featured two very makeable birdie misses. Wolff has hit 12 fairways after three rounds leaving him tied for 58th. The bottom portion of the fairways hit ranking:

In second place sits Bryson DeChambeau, whose found 17 of 32 fairways, placing him T31 in that category.

To recap: the top two players hit 5/28 fairways but 23/36 greens Saturday.

Yes, two players with a legit shot Sunday are hitting fairways and they may still flip the narrative if 57% is a number that affirms your faith in tee ball accuracy:

Digging into the course stats, note how just four holes saw a higher fairway hit percentage than green in regulation. The other ten driving holes saw higher GIR’s than balls in the fairway, with some showing a huge discrepancy indicating that the short grass means only so much.

Also note how small the cost of rough was Saturday, with only four holes having it cost a half stroke or slightly more.

Third round leader Patrick Reed’s ballstriking struggles did finally catch up to him, so there is that for those wanting to insist there is great relevance in hitting fairways.

But the distance numbers suggest launch angle golf is working and there is no reason to do anything but bomb away. A staggering 38 players are averaging over 310 yards through three rounds with only 7 players averaging under 300.

The 310-and-up club, led 15 players averaging over 322 yards for the week on the measuring holes.

While it should be a fun final round to watch, this week reminds those who’ve forgotten the previous bomb-and-gouge era that juiced rough still does not discourage the strategy. Still, it is stunning to watch the approach work so well on a course rigged to diffuse such an approach.

The madness of it all was summed up at the NBC telecast’s end when Roger Maltbie was asked by Dan Hicks about Bryson DeChambeau’s attacking style.

“Every part of me wants to not like this, that you just reduce the game to power and the fairway becomes less important, especially at a U.S. Open because historically, that’s just not the way it’s been done,” Maltbie said. “But this is impressive and (DeChambeau is) convincing me that he’s not wrong in the way that he’s assessed how to play the game now.”

Paul Azinger then offered this assessment.

“What are you going to do if you want to neutralize these guys, or if you want to make them accurate? Is power going to trump accuracy in this great game? The answer, it seems, is yes…one single club has made the difference, and it’s the driver.”