From the Newark Star Ledger:
Baltusrol vows to be more rough for Woods
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
BY KEVIN MANAHAN
Star-Ledger Staff
AUGUSTA, Ga. Somewhere in a garage in Springfield, N.J., where grass clippings carpet the floor and the room freshener is the smell of fertilizer, a golf course superintendent is talking to the television as he watches the replays of the Masters highlights.
"Go ahead, Tiger Woods, enjoy your victory. But the day of reckoning is coming. In four months, you're going to be mine. Mine! Mine!"
Then he breaks into a sinister laugh.
Okay, maybe Mark Kuhns, superintendent at Baltusrol Golf Club, isn't some devious criminal mind, but he watched the tournament, and he knows this statistic: Woods finished 49th out of 50 golfers in driving accuracy at the Masters.
And you thought Chris DiMarco was the guy in that pairing with the loose head on his driver.
Yesterday morning, Kuhns returned to the lower course at Baltusrol, where the PGA Championship will be played in August, and one of the first things he did was turn on the sprinklers. After a nice, wet spring, the rough already is gnarlier than Willie Nelson's beard.
"The rough? It's outstanding," Kuhns said from his office yesterday. "It's well fed. It's growing well. We just laid down 32 acres of Kentucky bluegrass and it's thick and thriving."
In other words, it's going to eat Pro V1's for lunch.
"Here, if you're in the rough, it's going to cost you a half a stroke to a stroke," Kuhns said. "If you're in the fairway, you're going to be rewarded. If not, there's going to be a stiff penalty. Tiger is strong, but he'll have a problem if he's in the wrong place."
Face it, Augusta National was rigged for Woods and the long hitters. If the old guys in the green jackets wanted an underdog to win, they'd lay down a few million cubic yards of rough and turn their tournament from a grip-and-rip festival into a competition that rewards accuracy.
But they don't want some no-name sitting at the champions dinner the following year if they can help it. Mike Weir will win a Masters only when rain slows the course and everyone else just wants to go home and take a long, hot shower. Guys like Larry Mize will win a green jacket only when they make incredible shots. Chris DiMarco can stay in the mix for as long as his putter stays hot, but he is now 0-for-3 when he has been in contention.
Augusta wants a leaderboard dominated by Woods and Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh, the longest hitters, the sexiest names.
"I hope sooner or later, the PGA wakes up," Jeff Maggert said. "Guys who make their living keeping the ball in the fairways are having a tougher time making a living. Maybe there will be more tournaments where the rough is a factor. Right now, it seems, this is what they want."
When Woods wins, ratings are the highest. When Woods wins, interest in golf is at its peak. When Woods wins, everybody well, almost everybody is happy.
At Augusta National, golfers can be long and wrong. Oh, the course has a second cut, some barely noticeable longer grass that lines the fairways, but that just makes it tougher for golfers to spin the ball on the green.
Short hitter Fred Funk's reaction: "When you're Tiger Woods and you're hitting wedges out of there, it doesn't really make a difference."
And another short hitter, Jerry Kelly, says: "There's little rough at Pinehurst (site of this year's U.S. Open). Tiger could could do it there, too."
Woods says he has revamped his swing, but that was to give him more accuracy with his irons. The driver remains a riddle. Still, he took the lead of the Masters with seven consecutive birdies, then held off DiMarco in a playoff after squandering a four-shot lead in the final round. But those who watched his game believe Baltusrol could be Kryptonite to golf's Superman.
"Tiger is better than anyone else," golfer Joe Ogilvie said. "He's mentally tougher than everyone else. He is physically better. He has the best short game, the best iron game. The only question mark is his driver.
"Look at the (recent) tournaments where the rough was high Bayhill and the TPC. He wasn't a factor in either one. Of course, if he starts hitting the driver into the fairway, game over."
Woods' coach, Hank Haney, is taking bows. Last year, as he tinkered with the swing, Woods failed to win a major for the second year in a row. Haney took a lot of heat. Now he is taking bows.
"It was the media's perception that things weren't working," Haney said. "He kept saying he was close, and that became a joke. He knew he was close. He could feel it coming. It was nice that he weathered the storm."
Check back in August.