Mike:

I doubt there's any way in the world the ODG's ever considered rough like that.

Matter of fact if they EVER let it get as high and thick as some courses do today how in the world do you think they could mow it at all? Do you think the big old gangs could mow some of the roughs courses have today?

Believe me, there's no way and I know whereof I speak, as I've been mowing fields all my life.

The last thing any golf course was going to do in the old days was have to mow grass 2-3 times at a time to get it the way they wanted it.

Another reason I have no doubt that this was the case in the old days is just looking at the old aerials. Those roughs in that day in those old aerials were not as high as most are today.

The USGA doesn't even recognize rough yet they sure use it.....

"I am not given to freakish holes and I have a distinct abhorance of rough..." Tilly commenting on the design attributes of the new Colonial Golf Club he had just designed and staked out in Atlanta as reported in the Atlanta Constitution on 10/6/1928.

The article would go on to state, "In a talk Friday night [given at the Ansley park Golf Club] Tillinghast told those assembled something of what he proposed to do... The course will have little or no rough, the bane of every golfer's existence. A case such as this will make the new layout different from any other in the country..."

This is an inetresting article on several levels. Tilly, though he "abhorred rough" used it as an integral part of almost every one of his designs. In fact the statement that "this will make the new layout different from any other in the country..." shows that rough, as part of golf course design, was not only A common practice but was actually universally THE common practice.

What must be rememberred though is where rough was cultivated as opposed to where the USGA grows it in in defining fairway width for their chamionships.

In the ODG time fairways were very wide because balls sliced and hooked REALLY sliced and hooked. That was the nature of the equipment then. Today's allows for narrower corridors, though not necessarily at the USGA extremes.

Tilly wrote about rough and using it to define PROPERLY the fairway and hole design. He also built a number of grass bunkers into many of his designs as well.

I think the real key to rough grass areas in the old days is not just how often they cut it but what they had to use to cut it which, in my own opinion, was very frequently for obvious reasons----eg if they didn't do it frequently the mowing equipment they used back then probably wouldn't work on it.

Most all the old aerials and on-ground photos I've seen seem to confirm this.

Mike -

Look at Ross's field sketches for ACC. He shows playing corridors, fw bunkers, but does not indicate rough.

Brad Klein pointed out a while back that what we understand today as rough is a by-product of modern irrigation. I think he's right. The rough typically seen on any good course today would stun Donald Ross and other ODG's. Their idea of rough was wispy, unmaintained, sparse turf.

Joshua Crane in the mid-20's was promoting rough as a way to "control" shots. He also favored graduated roughs (Ring any bells?) Behr, MacKenzie and others opposed such ideas. So the concept was clearly around during the GA.

The thing is, nobody back then would have imagined in their wildest dreams the thick, dense roughs we see today.

Bob

If it wasn't fairway cut, then it had to be longer grass, right?  I mean Ross' sketches showed fairway and nothing outside it, but that had to be longer grass.  It's the irrigation and modern maintenance that's the culprit for sure.

Great example is lots of courses that switched from single row to double row irrigation years ago.  The heads closer to the edges of the fairways irrigated areas that formerly were left to rain to get some water.  Now those areas have much thicker grass than areas 20 yards wider.