Should you be able to find your ball in proper rough?

[SGC001]

The hole is 380 yards SI 4. Normal wind is behind and off the right. You have got 30 yards between the left edge of the bunkers and the trees to the left of the fairway. If you do go in the bunkers as long as you are not in the front of either bunker then you can get it out and still maybe hit the green with a good one.

This to me is what you do to toughen up a course, bunkers and water hazards. Do not do it by leaving grass that long you can't find your ball and especially by doing it only at the distance better players hit to.

I think there is a place for different kinds of hazards, water is a shot penalty so very penal but can give some nice holes and strategic options, bunkers have many uses but aren't cheap to maintain as they take up a lot of green keepers relative to how many times someone might visit a bunker, so a course would need to be able to afford the bunkers they have. I'd rather a ball be findable and playable with the short irons, but see rough as appropriate for some courses in certain spots and as long as a safer play is available which may cost them position I think it can have it's uses as you choose to take the risk for the reward.

 

[HawkeyeMS]

The rough at our place is pretty good at he moment. We have 3 cuts, well, 2 cuts and the jungle. Finding your ball in the 1st and 2nd cuts is easy enough, the jungle is well defined and shouldn't really be in play so if you do go in there and lose your ball, tough!

 

[ScienceBoy]

If you've got 14 holes bounded by thick, deep rough and add in 100+ amatuer golfers you're going to get plenty of moaning...

That is pretty much our course, playing in a medal I had to take 3 off the tee twice after hitting a shot just a yard or two into the rough. It was thick with weeds and every group was seen trudging back to the tee at least twice (if they were lucky).

 

[AmandaJR]

I do like the fact that our course has a plan but that would benefit from a first cut. The plan is for a fairway 25yds wide where the big hitters/low handicappers can drive it and 30yds wide for the rest of us! The choice is of course to take less club and be more accurate/hit the widest point of the fairway.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

The semi rough is beginning to juice up following the bout of wet and then warm weather but the ball is still easily found even if it is sitting down and hard to progress, exactly as it should be. The second cut is now deep and go in there at your peril but to be fair they have mown the first cut back so if you are in the deep stuff you are way off beam and so deserve to be punished.

 

[Bobirdie]

Yep it should always be findable.

If not be aswell just putting white stakes where the first cut ends