So we’ve been hammered over the head all week with terms like “wire grass” and “native sandy areas” to describe all the waste and junk that run alongside and around the fairways at Pinehurst. It’s a totally different look for a U.S. Open, this Coore/Crenshaw restoration back to the original Donald Ross layout in the Sandhills. There’s no rough, but just a bunch of hardpan and then big clumps of stuff so it’s kind of a crapshoot -- your ball could find an nice spot, or it could nestle up against some “native grasses” and put you in jail.
Ken Duke just made the best par in the history of the U.S. Open
Here’s how you respond to an unlucky and awful lie at Pinehurst.
Ken Duke didn’t hit an awful shot or send his ball off the fairway, but he did get one of the worst bounces and lies this week. HIs shot rolled off the front of the green and up against one of those huge clumps.
He had absolutely no backswing to get through it and put it up onto the green. After pulling several clubs, examining the angles and practice swings through that outgrowth, he decided to go backwards, just knocking it off to the left and into the bunker that little clump was on top of.
So now he’s in a greenside bunker, needing to get up-and-down just for a bogey, which seemed like a tough proposition on a green we just saw spit his ball off and into that crap. Well, he avoided the double bogey, and the bogey, and just decided to sink the bunker shot for the best par you’ll ever see.
That’s an incredibly dorky golf high-five, but after that sequence, Mr. Duke can do whatever he the hell he wants.
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