How Deep Is The Rough At Oakland Hills For the US Junior Amateur?

How Deep Is The Rough At Oakland Hills For the US Junior Amateur?

The USGA has a reputation for encouraging the cultivation of soul crushing rough at its championship venues. Par is to be protected at all costs, and growing out the rough is one way to do that.

So how deep is it at Oakland Hills for the 2024 US Junior Amateur?

Really deep.

There is a ball in the photo at the top of the page. On a drive on seventeen North, an unlucky player hit one of the few trees on the course, dropping the ball into the rough. I saw where it landed, and went to stand near it so the player could find it more easily.

While he walked up the fairway, I took a few photos. Below is one that’s closer.

As the player approached, I stepped back and asked “do you see it?”

He was five feet away.

“No,” he said.

I pointed straight at it. He walked forward and nearly stepped on it. it was that deep, and a tuft between player and ball made it nearly invisible. Finally, he recognized his predicament.

“That’s an unlucky lie,” he said.

I said nothing, because there was nothing to be said. I just smiled and gave a friendly wave as I trooped on back toward the tee, where I was hoping to get a photo of one of the leaders.

But. Yes. It was a bad lie.

And it was exactly as the USGA intended.

Later, I was following a group with a player who looked poised to make a nice run up the leaderboard. His tee shot on twelve, however, found the rough on the right. He hacked his way out of it, but it is so deep that there is little control. The ball flew left across the fairway. His third out of the rough was short of the green in the bunker right. His fourth was away from the hole. His putt was short for five, and in the hole for six.

Seemingly unnerved, his next hole also found trouble. In thre eholes he went from climbing to falling.

Playing out of such rough is about so much more than strength and skill. I think it also is about mental resilience. A great player finds rough, but doesn’t let it ruin a round. Great players take their medicine and move on.

I once read that great cornerbacks in football are the ones who move on from failures, because failures are inevitable. They can only worry about the next pass.

That strikes me as also true of golf. In golf, failures are inevitable. The only shot that matters is the next one.