Playing the U.S. Open is difficult enough without beating yourself before you even get to the first tee in round one. Yet, according to Rory McIlroy, that’s exactly what Kevin Na and other would-be contenders this week at Erin Hills have done by lamenting how gosh darn tough the rough is on the Wisconsin track.
U.S. Open 2017: Rory McIlroy says players upset about Erin Hills rough ‘have no chance’ to win
McIlroy believes that players voicing their displeasure with the rough at Erin Hills have played themselves out of the U.S. Open without firing a single shot.
Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images
“This is one of those tournaments that if you let it [course conditions] get into your head I feel like you’re already defeated before your tee off,” said McIlroy, who shared with reporters on Tuesday his dismay that maintenance crews had trimmed the thick, high fescue on four holes. “There have been a couple of times where I have let it get in my head: 15 at Chambers [Bay in 2014], even though I made a bit of a round of it, I was a little bit disillusioned along with some other guys with the way the course was and everything. But if you let it get into your head you really have no chance.”
The rough at U.S. Opens, often the tallest, thickest, and juiciest players face all year, is always a contentious issue, and this week is no different.
Wes Bryan, who will be starting his first U.S. Open, got the ball rolling a couple of weeks ago with his scouting report on the gnarly stuff his colleagues would experience at Erin Hills. In his video, the winner of the 2017 RBC Heritage took two steps off the fairway and dropped a ball into high, wavy fescue.
“Stuff’s about two feet tall,” Bryan noted.
Kevin Na then kicked off the whining and moaning portion of Open week when on Monday he posted an Instagram video in which he threw a ball some three yards into the knee-high grasses, took a couple whacks, and then declared his ball lost.
Na, who may be so wedded to his misery about the rough that he appears to have some of it growing out of his hat, was not alone in his misery. 2013 U.S. Open winner Justin Rose proclaimed the course “playable,” but bemoaned the “hay” costing any golfer “more than a stroke penalty because there may be nowhere to drop it.”
Jon Rahm decided to practice safe golf by eschewing practice shots from the fescue. In fact, he had not even stepped foot in it as of Tuesday.
“There’s no need to injure my wrist before I tee off,” he said.
One U.S. Open veteran who’s seen it all since he began battling the tourney’s typically swift greens and treacherous off-fairway conditions in 1997 took a more humorous look at what will likely drive many of his peers mad and to early exits.
Perhaps his sense of humor will save Lee Westwood from the clutch of guys McIlroy believes will be gone by Saturday.
“I feel like some of the players this week, the rough’s already got into their head,” added McIlroy, who did not name names but they know who they are. “That’s not the way you want to start off. You want to start off with positivity and a positive frame of mind, and that’s the way I’m trying to approach it this week.”
McIlroy also relented some on Wednesday about his beef with officials for trimming the rough and took a more philosophical and pragmatic view of the goings-on.
“They only cut it on four holes so I get that there were certain parts of the fescue that were a little thicker than others and I get why people were worried about it,” the four-time major champion told Fox Sports on Wednesday. “It’s the U.S. Open; we expect a tough test.
“At the same time, we’re playing for over $2 million this week,” he concluded. “We don’t have much to complain about out here.”
Wonder if Wesley, Kevin, et al could hear Rory through the rustling barley?
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