Can Peggy do it? It will be rough.: Editors' Blog: Golf Digest

Can Peggy do it? It will be rough.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 Comments

The preparations are over. The coaching, except the advice that will come from her famous caddy, is through. Now it's up to Peggy Ference to see if an average Jane can break 100 on a U.S. Open set up. And this is no average U.S. Open set up. The USGA officials involved think it's perfect, which means the rough is deep, consistent, graduated and wrist-wrecking. It is fair, but golfers don't want justice, they cry out for mercy, and this is grass is merciless. It may be worse even than the rough at Oakmont, with no bare patches, no wispiness, no exit. It's the grass that grows under your dripping outdoor faucet, lush and lovely, unless you're a golfer. This rough swallows balls as completely as the Pacific does, and Peggy Ference's job will be to avoid it. "The answer is, don't get in the rough, period," said Erik Norton, one of the finalists in the first year's event who called Peggy this week. "Off the tee, around the green, do whatever you have to do to stay out of it; that's what I told Peggy." The rough is is the villain in this play and it presided silently over last night's rules meeting and dinner, waiting. Like any monster, it was the object of dark, nervous humor among its potential victims last night. The USGA's Mike Davis, responsible for the course set up, advised the players at the rules meeting that spotters would there on every hole to find balls that found the rough but that on occasion, "We may ask you to hit a provisional, and perhaps, if that shot is questionable, to hit a provisional for your provisional." Bubba Watson, caddying for Drew Brees, had a question. "Will the spotters be short of the fairway, too? Because I notice some of Gretzky's shots were not quite making it." The Great One, who'd played against Watson in a match during yesterday's practice round, laughed with the room. "We're going skating tonight, man." But there will be no skating for Gretzky, Brees, Mark Wahlberg or Peggy today. Only Brees has a single-digit handicap, 6, on this Open course; the others all fall roughly in the category of 10-handicappers, the ones Tiger said could not break 100 on an Open set up. Here is Peggy's reality. According to USGA handicap officials, though she is a 4.5 handicap from the forward tees, her Pebble Beach handicap becomes a 12 from the tournament tees she plays today. The course rating for is 82.7, slope 155. On three holes, the third, 9th and 15th, the fairway represents a carry longer than her best drive. If she and her fellow competitors get a break, it is in the fact that the fairways and greens have nowhere near the firmness they'll have next week. Greens are fast, but receptive. Peggy is remarkably confident, and thrilled to have Pavin by her side. Yesterday, during a round in which she got last minute coaching from her home pro, Allen Bowman, and tips on escaping rough and sand from caddy Corey Pavin, she shot 96, according to her brother Matt. That was yesterday. Today the NBC cameras role, and beginning in an hour, every shot counts, no mullies, no matter how many, no matter how exhilerating or embarrassing. "I have a good feeling," said former finalist Norton. "But it will be rough." --Bob Carney