Some Rough Times at Wood Ranch : Pac-10 Golfers Who Flew Off Fairway Often Flew Off the Handle

Scattered around the lush Wood Ranch Golf Club is a hearty grass called red fescue, planted in strategic places to swallow up errant golf balls. It hasn’t been mowed since 1984. When course workers eventually wade through it, they know they’ll find thousands of golf balls. What they’re afraid of is that they’ll also find an electric golf cart and a couple of club members.

“If you can’t keep the ball in the fairway,” said club member Keith Harrier, “you’re out of luck and eventually out of golf balls.”

At this week’s Pacific-10 Conference golf championship, many of the players spent more time thrashing through the high grass than Marlon Perkins on “Wild Kingdom.”

From a spectator’s point of view, it can be funny. The players who knock a ball into the stuff, however, think it ranks right up there on the humor chart with mustard gas.

None of the Pac-10 players found the fescue less funny than Rich Bietz of Arizona State, an All-American candidate. During Tuesday’s third round, Bietz was one under par through 17 holes and was making a serious run at the tournament lead.

But instead of the lead, what Bietz got was red fescue, a whopping 10 and a severely sprained wrist which forced him to withdraw before Wednesday’s final round.

Bietz’s bad luck started when his drive went into the tall grass, and instead of taking a one-stroke penalty and hitting another drive, Bietz decided to blast the ball out. He would not have made a more serious error had he decided to play the rest of the tournament with a plastic kitchen spatula instead of golf clubs.

On his first swing, the grass wrapped around his club just after impact and the ball rolled only a few feet. “I heard my wrist pop,” Bietz said.

On his second swing, the grass stopped the club before it could strike the ball. In golf jargon, this is known as a whiff. These count as a stroke and also force spectators to cover their mouths and shield their smirks from the enraged golfer.

Twice more, a now-frenzied Bietz crashed his club into the grass in pursuit of the ball. Finally, on the fifth swing, it trickled onto the fairway.

“My wrist was sore right after the first shot, but I kept hitting it anyway,” Bietz said. “I was going crazy by then. I felt so helpless. I just had to get the ball out of there. But that stuff was death. I’ve never seen any grass like that. Nothing even close. It was death.”

Said club member Lee Mann: “We have a joke about a guy who gets a gun stuck in his ribs and tells the robber, ‘Don’t shoot. Take my watch, my money, my jewelry.’ And the robber tells him, ‘Keep that stuff. Give me all your golf balls. I’m playing Wood Ranch today.’ ”