Graeme McDowell shows you the ‘fake rough’ at Pinehurst

Unless you’ve been hiding from golf coverage, you know that Pinehurst #2 has gone through a redesign. The golf course hosting this U.S. Open won’t be like the one in 2005 or the course in 1999, with changes to bring in those sandy areas instead of traditional rough making it look and feel different than championships of old.

But the redesign didn’t change the fact that the USGA loves their rough, even if that means bringing in some “fake rough” as Graeme McDowell puts it.

McDowell posted this video behind the 12th green, of a ball that ended up right against what looks like a huge patch of nasty rough. Usually this would make the shot virtually impossible to get close, but as McDowell shows you, all you have to do is just pick up the unnatural grass and toss it aside.

Who knows if this is just a one-off instance, or actually something that the USGA intended to make the course tougher, but if I was playing this week at Pinehurst I would make sure to tug on each piece of rough I saw to make sure it wasn’t something that was okay to move.

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