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State of the rough at your course

Ours is brutal, proper lost ball stuff. It's heathland , so tends to be very slight strip of semi,then heather and gorse surrounded by e thickest grass I've ever seen.your better going in the heather.fairways are pretty wide but anything offline is a dropped ball. I'm not complaining though,the greens are the best I've ever seen at our place,as are the fairways.they've deliberately toughened the course up as its not particularly long. I've lost 10 balls in 2 rounds
 
If they insist in growing the rough too high, suggest they install different coloured marker posts at various points in the rough . Players will get a better line and have a better chance to find their ball, even if it is unplayable .
Tell your greenkeepers cut it now before it rains or else . :sbox:
 
Ours has just been cut back thank god as a few weeks ago it was knee high a few yards of the fairway and real thick and juicy, last year was brutal and all you saw was 4 balls looking for balls in it.
 
Our place you can lose your ball in the weeds in the first cut, then every hole has jungle after that. Its a nightmare, you cannot play with good balls for fear of losing them 2 feet off the short stuff.
 
You have to be at least 35yds away from the centre of the fairway to find deep stuff at ours. There is a good amount of intermediate rough which tests your ball striking if it's found.

I think we have it just about right, hit a bad shot and you've got a tricky shot. Hit it off the planet and you don't deserve to find your Wilson Ultra anyway!!!! ;)
 
Brutal....

In the King Trophy open ( 8 and below handicaps) last weekend the starter was telling everyone on the tee to play a provisional if their ball went in the rough.

If you do find it and play play safe and go out side ways you have to hit it so hard that you usually end up in the stuff the other side of the fairway:(
 
Imurg said:
Ours can up to waist high.
Admittedly, it's a decent distance offline and it's a poor shot to find it but, guess what?
We're handicap golfers and we're all capable of bitting a bad enough shot to get there.
Anyone who says they're too straight to find it is either using a 9 iron all the time or they're not trying hard enough...
Click to expand...

Pretty much the same here, waist high now in some places with that dense grass at the bottom of it and the wispy stuff reaching for the stars. Almost a case of why bother looking unless you can go straight to it!

The definition is really looking sharp though at the moment with some extended 1st cuts then raising to around 75mm equal rough cut but then its wild. I haven't got a problem with brutal wild rough if its far enough away from green and fairways, what I don't like is it being in the tree's, our fairway lined tree's are penalty enough without knee high rough in their also with no chance of finding a ball due to ricochets.
 
Ours is ridiculous, it goes from short semi-rough to over knee deep, and it doesn't take a bad shot to go in it.
Played a comp the other week and my playing partner hit the edge of a green on a 200yd par 3 (strong prevailing wind into our face) and his ball bounced off the side of the green and was lost.
We have two brilliant par 5's on the back 9, but if you don't hit the green it is in knee high rough everywhere except the thin opening.

I've raised it with the committee expressing my concerns, not just for me but for higher handicappers, and for the risk that it may cause some more people to give up the game. I was told that if you don't hit the green it was probably "an iffy shot". You shouldn't lose balls from iffy shots, they should just be in hazards, you should only lose balls from bad/very bad shots.

Mate of mine lost 15 balls over the course of last weekend, he's just bought some lake balls from ebay (he plays of 14, so isn't a bad golfer).
 
The rough at Carrick Knowe has been getting progressively worse over the last few weeks. Its about 1 1/2 ft high in most places. The worst of it is people have been trampling about looking for there balls. This then compacts it down and makes it even harder to spot the ball.

Even around the bases of the trees they have let the grass grow. its thick and nasty stuff. I actually feel like buying them a strimmer.
I do agree it holds up players. I played in a comp at the weekend and a few people in our group including me used the full 5 minutes looking for lost balls. If they gave you a semi chance of finding the ball that is half the battle. Even if you do find the ball in 2 feet of grass your next task is to hack it out of there.

Mike
 
Ours is very fair, we have 3 definite cuts - if you just roll a couple of yards off the fairway you're fine no danger, just probably lose total control of your next shot, 5-20 yards off the fairway you'll probably have an awful lie but on most you'll find it. Then on some holes it's provisional rough knee-waist high if you find it it's a wedge back to the fairway!

The more wayward you are the bigger the punishment should be!
 
According to the R&A's website:

"The rough provides progressively longer grass and other forms of vegetation that increase the difficulty of recovery the further you are away from the fairway."

I think the problem people/courses are having is the lack of progression in rough depth. My club goes from short semi-rough to knee-waist deep. We lack the 2-3 inch rough that is hard to progress the ball up the fairway from, but doesn't result in a lost ball. Also, the 2-3 inch rough can help stop the ball just rolling into the deeper stuff.
 
Fair but mental if you stray too far from the fairway - and sometimes too far is not very far - but when not very far then you know that you really shouldn't be there.
 
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