CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA | Fully into pumpkin season these days and fighting the hourly temptation to dip into the Halloween candy we’re secretly hoping no children come to take away, it’s also time to anticipate the first hard freeze of the fall.
That may seem counterintuitive, given the grudging reluctance to give up golf in shorts and sunscreen that most of us have enjoyed for months now, but it’s time.
It takes a proper visit from Jack Frost himself to tame the crop of rough that has eaten golf balls the way most of us eat popcorn at a movie. As someone living where Bermuda grass is the agronomic coin of the realm, the sense of adventure in searching for a ball buried in 2- to 3-inch rough has long departed.
What mowers or reluctant superintendents have not done – mow down or thin the demon rough – a good hard freeze might accomplish by stunting any further growth.
Rummaging through thick grass just a few yards off the fairway and hoping to step on the ball isn’t fun. There is an easy solution – hit it straighter – but most of us aren’t suddenly going to turn into Calvin Peete.
High grass off fairways and around greens is a part of the game, but there comes a point – slightly below ankle-height – when it becomes an aggravation more than a tactical element. It’s golf, not an Easter egg hunt.
It’s not limited to Bermuda grass, though it’s particularly ornery in late summer and early fall when it grows like a teenager and golf balls sink to the bottom like my Carolina Panthers.
Friends who tangle with rye grass or fescue also have had their patience tested by another season of grappling with too much of God’s green grass.
To be clear, rough is an integral part of the game and it should add an element of challenge to shots that have gone astray. Recovery shots are some of the most fun shots to play, especially those rare occasions when they come off as imagined.
That leaves us to do what we so often do: go searching for a solution to our problem.
In this case, it’s Mother Nature’s turn to do for us what another set of custom-fit clubs can’t and our superintendents don’t have time to do.
Chill out.
Ron Green Jr.
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