Ogilvy smooths ruffled feathers

IN THE midst of all the gloom, with grown men fearful of losing golf balls in the long grass and the weather gods continuing to have dark grey clouds hanging over the Lancashire coastline, came some perspective.

It was offered by former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy who, on hearing the moans about the tigerish rough emanating from the locker-room here at Royal Lytham and St Annes, remarked: “If you play sensibly, you’re going to be able to keep it out of the long stuff mostly.”

With so much precipitation in the late-spring and on into a summer where it has hardly stopped raining, the luscious growth of rough has proven to be a big concern for players heading into this latest edition of golf’s oldest Major championship.

But the RA’s Peter Dawson claimed, “the rough is up but the course is reasonably generous on width and most of the players seem happy with it, at least those I have spoken to”.

A quite different concern, and one that has necessitated the need for a pumping station at the far end of the course to be turned on, is that of a high water table which has led to a number of bunkers retaining water.

Dawson acknowledged that the irrigation system was “pumping furiously” to combat the “unprecedented rainfall” and explained, “the water table can be higher than the floor of a couple of bunkers here. If that’s the case, you pump it out and if it just comes back in we’ll have to see what we get. The rules are written for such circumstances. You can drop in the bunker. You can drop it back at a penalty, or you can declare a bunker out of play. I hate all three options, especially the last one. It’s not fair on the guy who hits it straight.”

Straight hitting, you feel, will be a priority for players this week in particular. The rough, as we’ve constantly heard, is high but the 205 bunkers on the course are so strategically placed that they pose a real hazard for players.

While Tiger Woods claimed after a practice round on Sunday that sections of the rough were “almost unplayable”, and yesterday defending champion Darren Clarke said there were patches of rough that were “absolutely brutal . . . the grass is quite thick, not what we would expect in links (golf). It’s really, really tough. If you start spraying the ball around this week, you might as well go home. There’s no chance of coming out of this rough at all. There’s a really huge premium on accuracy.”

Clarke added that there was a fear, even with on-course spotters, of players losing balls. “Even if they do find the balls in some of those areas, I don’t know if you’ll be able to take a swing and move it. It is really thick, so there could be some lost balls out there.”

Ogilvy, though, offered the perspective. “It’s not like Birkdale or Carnoustie, where you can’t keep (the ball) out of it. It’s greener probably than they wanted it to be, but it’s a course you can manage you way around. A place like Birkdale, you’ve got so many cross-angle shots. They’re narrower corridors and it’s really hard to keep it out of the long stuff. Here, it’s long and it’s healthier than they’d want it to be but I don’t think it’ll be the defining factor of the tournament.”

With yet more rain predicted over the coming days, there was – finally – some silver lining in the forecast for the actual championship which will see early rain on Thursday clearing to sunny spells with northeast to northwest winds of 10 to 15 miles per hour. The forecast is for the weather to be fine and dry with just a gentle breeze on Friday and Saturday.

All of which should ease the concerns about the water table and the bunkers, which present sufficient challenge without additional water complicating matters.

As Clarke observed of the sand traps: “It’s just a nightmare because there’s 205 of them . . . (and) they’re very penal. There’s going to be occasions where I think you’re going to have to see guys taking penalty drops out of them because they won’t be able to move their balls anywhere. They’re a huge part of this golf course. There’s a few holes where prudence may come into play, (say) if you’ve got 220 yards left to the green for your second shot which is better than having to chip it out sideways or backwards out of bunkers.”

The key will be to stay out of them in the first place. Easier said than done, of course.