The USGA and RA felt this meant that landing in the rough was no longer enough of a penalty for shots that strayed from the fairway.

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"If you had no high resolution images and you tried to go someplace smooth from Viking images, you'd probably land someplace pretty rough and dangerous from a landing standpoint, " he said.

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He's undoubtedly better from the rough this season, where his shots are landing 43 feet, four inches from the hole, compared with 48 feet, seven inches last season.

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Most of the fairways are canted, meaning that drives landing in their center can easily bound into the rough.

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The landing sites, when seen from orbit, were so rough that the two spacecraft spent weeks scanning for alternatives.

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