Pinehurst, N.C. _

So I'm walking the back nine at Pinehurst No. 2, trying to get a feel for the place while following native Minnesotans and former Gophers Donald Constable and Clayton Rask.

And there's Johnny Miller.

My favorite golf announcer was riding the course in a car, checking out the greens and the rough.

He stopped to chat with a group of fans, and signed autographs, and said two things that jumped out at me:

1: ``I didn't think the rough would look like this, or be this tough. All those seeds must have lain dormant for 100 years under that Bermuda rough, and they saw the sun and said, ``Whoa!" That stuff (wiregrass) is going to cause some headaches."

2: ``A lot of guys are going to be pulling their hair out by the end of the week."