In a Q&A with pgatour.com posted today, the architecture-minded Geoff Ogilvy had some interesting, if basic, things to say about rough (much of which recalled Ran's comment, in his course profile of Bethpage Black, about the disconnect around the time of the 2002 U.S. Open between the fairway and fairway bunkers at the 11th hole):
PGATOUR.COM: What do you look for in a course?
OGILVY: "There are two important things: Aesthetics -- it has to be natural looking with good contrasts and good-looking to the eye; and strategically interesting -- there have to be reasons why you play holes certain ways. There are probably 25 better short par 4s than the 10th at Riviera, but it is infinitely interesting to play. You can go for the green, play it short. There’s no right or wrong way. It’s amazing how few courses we play that have strategic interest. The top courses in the world all have that characteristic."
PGATOUR.COM: What do you dislike most about a course?
OGILVY: "If I could change one thing on TOUR, it would be where we cut the grass and how we treat the rough. Too often fairway bunkers are buried in the rough. Bunkers at St. Andrews are the size of picnic tables but if you get within 50 yards of them you freak out because the ball can roll in. Here around greenside bunkers and fairway bunkers is all rough. The ball shouldn’t roll into the rough a foot off the back of the green. It’s more interesting watching people chip off shorter grass.
"Pinehurst was extreme, but it was a good model to look at. Water the fairways and greens but when it comes to rough, let’s make it rough. It’s less penalty for the average golfer because they can hit out of it and more of a penalty for us because we don’t know what the ball is going to do. It’s also environmentally sound and saves manpower. I could go on all day.
"What sold this to me was I was in a bar at Pinehurst the Monday before the U.S. Open and a couple of snowbirds who come down regularly said they play all the courses at Pinehurst. I said, ‘You don’t want to play No. 2. It’s the toughest.’ They said, ‘It’s funny you say that because that’s easiest for us and hardest for you pros.’ We don’t need 12-yard wide fairways and crazy, chip-out rough. Pinehurst is as much as you want to handle forever. These guys found it easy, but we found it tough. I’m not the outlier here, either. There’s a massive amount of players on TOUR who want to do what I want to do. Balls should run off into the junk. The 20 most memorable shots of all-time are recovery shots -- Tiger out of the bunker in Canada, Phil on 13 at the Masters, Bubba out of the trees at Augusta National. It’s not about easy or hard, it’s just boring. Give a kid a golf ball and a club and he’s going to try to do something crazy, not hit from the middle of the fairway."
The full interview (much of which has nothing to do with golf-course architecture) is here:
http://www.pgatour.com/news/2015/01/06/geoff-ogilvy-q-and-a.html