While no one would confuse it for the Masters, the US Open does have its fair share of great traditions. Sneaky funny pairings, the black-and-white checkered flagsticks with the red flags, carnage, too much carnage that leads to player complaints, overcorrecting of the course that leads to crazy-low scores on Sunday, etc.
And of course, who could forget the No.1 US Open tradition of them all: posting videos of how long the rough is before the tournament begins. It’s a practice that dates back to the early 1960s, when Arnold Palmer first took video of the rough length at Cherry Hills on Tuesday of tournament week and posted it for his 5.1 million Instagram followers.
OK, so that last part might be made up, but it does feel like we’ve been doing this for a long time now, and frankly, it never gets old. This year, the first “look how long the rough is at Torrey Pines!” video arrived on Thursday… of Palmetto Championship week. That’s right, a full week ahead of the opening round. Shoutout Xander Schauffele for giving us a look at the rough behind the 18th green at Torrey during his early prep:
SHEESH, that is thick indeed.
The best part about these videos? A. They are almost always taken in places these pros will never hit the ball, and B. The grass they are filming ends up getting cut 99.9 percent of the time anyway before play begins. In reality, the rough will be quite long, but not out-of-control long, similar to many PGA Tour events. Smells like another Bryson DeChambeau win to us, much to the chagrin of Brooks Koepka.
Having said that, please, inject the long rough videos into our veins.
