Renner, Warren right in the thick of it despite rough going
STOCKBRIDGE - The sky was blue, the big, puffy clouds were white, underlined with gray, and everything else was green. When the Massachusetts Golf Association set up the Stockbridge Golf Club's lush layout for the State Open, they let the rough grow long, and the trees crowding the fairways offered a thicket of verdure, layers of blue spruce and shaking aspen, oak and willow, swamp grass and ferns.
The course looked idyllic, spread out across a valley in the Berkshires. It's short (6,646 yards), and it was soft after the downpours from Monday's thunderstorms.
But it didn't give up much yesterday. Nourished by the Housatonic River that snakes through the course, as well as the rain, the rough just kept getting thicker, so tall and tangled it seemed to keep growing as the round progressed.
After the second day of play, a pair of young pros, Jim Renner and Shawn Warren, shared the lead at 1-under-par 139. Both shot 1-under 69s in the morning and left the course just as overcast skies turned to drizzle.
Those playing in the second wave started in the drizzle, continued under bright sunshine, then felt the swirling winds pick up, then settle down.
Mike Calef fired a 67 to move into second place, leading the amateurs at 140. Brian Higgins, also an amateur, fired a 69-73 -142.
Best score of the day came from John Curley of Centerville, who carved out a 66, which coupled with his opening 75 left him in a three-way tie for fourth at 141.
No one else could get enough going to challenge the leaders. The cut came at 7-over 147, leaving 46 players from the field of 150 to try to make something happen in today's final round.
"The course played hard," said last year's runner-up, Frank Dully II (69-75 -144). "The wind was actually swirling a lot, so sometimes you'd think it was downwind and it was a crosswind. With the wetness, the ball wasn't rolling at all; it played a lot longer and the wind was really tricky. It was tough."
Seventy-five players had to get to the course at 6 a.m. to resume the first round, halted by thunderstorms Monday at 4:30. The second round followed immediately.
Renner, of Plainville, picked up four birdies, but gave most of it back with three bogeys.
Warren, a native of Windham, Maine, who played at Marshall University, had two birdies and a bogey.
"It was pretty fair out there," said Renner. "Obviously, we played the same pins as the first rounds, so that was a little different. It's a different type of course. It's kind of hard to gauge on what people are shooting and what people are going to shoot. You can hit a lot of good shots out here and be penalized. You can also hit some bad shots that you can get away with in some places."
The rough was the killer. Players had to be content to plod along at par.
"I was just kind of hanging in there," Renner said. "I made a couple of nice par putts here and there, anywhere from 6-8 feet, and anytime you can make those, it helps. The rough is so deep here. It's tougher when it's wet, but everyone's got to deal with it.
"Obviously, not seeing this place before, not playing it, really knowing nothing about it - that puts everyone on a level playing field. So I can't really complain to be 1 under."
Jimmy Marston (73 -146) knows the course well - he's been the club pro for six years. But he hasn't had a birdie in 36 holes.
"The rough is just brutal," Marston said. "I mean, once you get it in the rough you just gouge it forward and hope. It's not easy to stop it. That's really what it is because nothing else is hard. The fairways are generous enough, the greens are pretty soft because it rained so much - you can throw it in there and stop it - but when you hit in the rough, you just can't control where it's going."
Only Curley seemed to solve Stockbridge, carding five birdies (including three in a row on the front nine) against a lone three-putt bogey.
"I hit in the rough a couple of times and I got some pretty decent lies and had some good shots," said Curley. "I just played kind of conservative when I was in the rough, into the middle of the greens.
"I hit the ball well [Monday], I just had a couple of bad holes. Today, I just tried to play good enough so I could play [the final round]. I left my stuff in my hotel room so I'd be stuck here anyway."
Barbara Matson can be reached at matson@globe.com.
