There’s always a lot of talk about how difficult it will be to play the rough at the U.S. Open and PGA Championship.
Social media is flooded with predictions about the winning score being over par, interviews of players who claim it’s unfair, and the obligatory videos showing the “ball falling in the rough”.
Most of this has been achieved at Oak Hill Country Club in advance of the PGA Championship 2023.
While I write this article, I guess I’m also feeding into the frenzy. It’s okay. I will be a part of a system that brings intrigue to the major championships. It’s not so bad.
Oak Hill rough, however, is among the toughest roughs I’ve seen on any golf course. It is not as long as Winged Foot or as high at the knees like some Open Championship Fescue. It’s just dense, healthy and juicy rough, which makes it important for players to hit the fairways.
The players tried their limits in the rough during the practice rounds on Monday and Wednesday. The players dropped the balls at different locations to see how far a fairwaywood… a hybrid… a 4 iron… a 6 iron could be advanced.
The players were trying to answer the question: “What is the lowest-lofted, realistically speaking, club that I can use in order to advance the ball the furthest possible when I miss a fairway?”
Many people quickly realized that the answer was “none above.”
Most players, caddies and Tour representatives that I spoke with said that the 7-iron was the longest realistic club. This is being generous because the majority of responses were for the 8-iron.
When the ball is sat down, some players will replace their longest iron with a higher-lofted hybrid or fairway wood in an attempt to get more spin and launch. But the truth is that hitting a wedge or short iron back into the fairway when the ball is sat down, would be the best play.
The ball seems to always settle in the Oak Hill rough and in this weather of mid-May in upstate New York.
Aaron Rai, PGA Championship alternate and 139th-best player in the World, is catching a social stray as he posted one of his crude experiments with a hybrid on Twitter.
The outcome wasn’t very pretty.
You’re telling that the rough at @PGAChampionship is thick? pic.twitter.com/9C5ZvKvBiq
Steve Scott (@sscottpga 17 May 2023
Rai’s results were not uncommon. Particularly during practice rounds, when players would test their limits.
Tommy Fleetwood gave GolfWRX a full review of Oak Hill in an Instagram video. The embedded video is below.
GolfWRX shared a post on Twitter (@golfwrx).
He says in the video that “you might get lucky and get a mid iron out of it. But for the majority, it’s just a gouge using one of the shorter clubs.”
This is a frightening statement. You may get fortunate to be capable of hitting a mid iron? !
Yikes.
I asked the Trackman representative if he had spent any time on the golf course with players. He said he saw short iron spin rates regularly drop below 3,000rpm. Xander Schaffele, for instance, had a spin rate of just 2,400 rpm with an 8 iron.
Take the number of irons and multiply by 1,000. An 8-iron should spin at around 8,000 revs. Oak Hill rough was so thick, his 8-iron’s spin rate dropped by over 5,000rpm. He looked like a driver who had been well struck.
If the ball is in rough this year at Oak Hill, the priority is to get up and move over the thick grass patch directly in front. The green is secondary.
Before you mock Aaron Rai for duffing out his hybrid during a practice session, or say “that’s the reason he is an alternate,” remember that he currently ranks 10th on the PGA Tour’s driving accuracy. He’s also 28th in the percentage of Greens in Regulated, 23rd when it comes to approaches between 200-225 yards and he has hit 33 consecutive greens.
The rough may be just very thick.
Buckle up for a great 2023 PGA Championship. This should give you an idea of what’s going on outside the Oak Hill fairways.
