[Mark_Rowlinson]

What damage has been done to the cause of traditional golf and the values that many who contribute to this site clearly espouse by the set-up of Shinnecock for the US Open?  It made uncomfortable viewing and in its wake I have had great difficulty trying to justify links golf to many of my friends who prefer the consitency and predictability of parkland golf.  The debacle at Carnoustie did similar damage in the UK.  What think ye?

[Michael Dugger]

I think everyone who believes good golf ought to be like a game of darts is missing out.

Balls will roll.  Undulation will make them roll faster and slower.  Notice how some players used backstops on some of the Shinne greens in order to get the ball close.

Goosen hit quite a few fairways.  He "scrambled" very well when he needed to.  He putted like an absolute stud.

I think the best man won.  The tournament was a tremendous success in my opinion.

Anyone who says otherwise is missing out, IMHO.

[Bob_Huntley]

Mark Rowlinson,

USGA Opens= Goofy Golf

1992 Pebble Beach- Sunday round-No grass on the greens.

1998 Olympic- 18th hole debacle

2004 Shinnecock- Say no more.

Bob

[Mike Benham]

And if it doesn't rain at Bethpage and Pinehurst ... you might add those to the list ... in fact, is a hard and fast #2 a recipe for disaster (again)?

[Lou_Duran]

Bob Huntley,

Sad, but becoming true.

Set the course up as the designers intended and let the best shoot what they will.  If the USGA wishes to mess with something, bifurcate and go after the ball.  In time, address the equipment as well.

[Brian Phillips]

Mike,

I don't agree that it has that much to do with the rain.  It has more to do with the cutting heights of the course and the rolling of the greens.

Even if irrigation had been put down in the evenings on those greens which they might have been for all I know they would still have dried out in that weather.  If the greens had not been cut so low and or rolled the problem would not have happened.

You can still get hard and fast without cutting grass so low.

Brian

[ForkaB]

Very important topic, Mark.  Thanks.

Lou (and Bob)

Very well said.  I think Shinny2004 should bring "bifurcation" to the forefront of the thoughts of the powers that be.  If they solve the problem (with the "competition ball") then Lou's ideal (and mine) of......

"Set the course up as the designers intended and let the best shoot what they will."

....might just have a chance of happening.  If, on the other hand, we're condmned to George's Mephistophelian vision of narrower and narrower fairways and more and more inaccessible greens, well, then I think I'll take up lawn bowling..........
 

[A_Clay_Man]

Mark- If the result of yesterdays pettiness is the flattening of traditional golf greens, I'd say the damage will be huge.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Baxter and I are working on a renovation where we are turning a blah par 3 2nd into a "redan".  The green sat on a knob with bunkers left and right.  There is one member who was a very wide breadth when it comes to visiting great venues.  We'll see what the "others" say, now that they know what a "redan" is....

[Donnie Beck]

Brian,

What height were the greens cut at ?

[Brian Phillips]

Donnie,

About the same height as the sander that I use on my living room floor.

Is it coming to a stage where classical courses are going to start to tell the USGA no when they want to use their courses.  Why would Shinnecock Hills want them back?

Brian

[Joel_Stewart]

USGA Opens= Goofy Golf

1992 Pebble Beach- Sunday round-No grass on the greens.

1998 Olympic- 18th hole debacle

2004 Shinnecock- Say no more.

Just for the hell of it, I'll play along and say that 3 courses with quirks in 12 years is NOT that bad.

In 1992, a complete unseen wind storm came through Pebble and was a complete fluke.

1998, Olympics one hole the 18th was rolled and not watered and got away from them.  The club has since destroyed that green and it is highly unlikely that the USGA will ever hold another Open at Olympic.

2004, in my mind a number of holes got away from the USGA not just the 7th.

You could add the 1966 Open which was the last time a club was left to the conditions.  Olympic grew the rough about a foot deep and in 1967 the USGA took over conditioning.

Considering you have extreme conditions on extreme golf courses, shouldn't the R&A and USGA be given some credit?  They are dealing with 18 holes and have no control over the weather.

[Dan Kelly]

They certainly wouldn't have to bring these courses so close to the edge of physical (and competitive) disaster if they'd go ahead with the Competition Ball.

This Open (at least the goings-on at No. 7) might have given life to that particular cause -- though, of course, I doubt it.

More likely they'll go with Johnny Miller's prescription, in seeking to "protect" par: narrower fairways and hack-out rough. Alas.

[Bob_Huntley]

USGA Opens= Goofy Golf

In 1992, a complete unseen wind storm came through Pebble and was a complete fluke.

Joel,

With respect, I disagree with you about the unseen wind. A number of residents said that there could be a decent blow on Sunday. Even without the wind, the third hole, which is protected by a large hedge was without grass when Mark Brooks played through.

Meeks et al always seem to find a way to mitigate their actions of shaving the grass down to root level. It is a dumb way to prepare a course and we should admit it.

[johnk]

I think Tom Meeks will use one of two formulas:

 - Narrow fairways, hack-out rough, deep rough around the greens and fast greens   (for Winged foot and parkland courses)

 - Narrow fairways, wispier rough, chipping areas, and baked-out greens  (Shinny, Pinehurst, and linksy type courses)

I think that the over-baking of greens is just as damaging to people's conception of golf as is narrowing fairways.  More courses will look to create ever more-extreme green speeds and flatten out greens to make them playable...

[Mike Hendren]

They should have given Meeks one of those nifty camp chairs that Phil was posing in and made him sit behind the 7th green with his eyes propped open by the same contraption used in A Clockwork Orange.

Why bother holding the Open at Shinnecock.  Just set up Lookout Mountain or the Hill Course at French Lick Springs in a similar manner.  Nobody breaks par any day.

Mike

[Bob_Huntley]

Michael,

Exactly.

Bob

[Tommy_Naccarato]

They should have given Meeks one of those nifty camp chairs that Phil was posing in and made him sit behind the 7th green with his eyes propped open by the same contraption used in A Clockwork Orange.

Mike

Mike, I think they should have put Meeks in one of those dentist-like torture chairs seen in the movie, "Brazil" and done some major work on him.

[tlavin]

I know Tom Meeks.  Tom Meeks has balls of steel.  He is not afraid to take chances.  In order to hold a championship on traditional courses like Shinnecock, Bethpage et al., you have to take chances.  One chance is to make holes ridiculously long and move the bunkers out to the inhuman lengths that the pros hit it to.  The other is to bake the course until the fairways and greens are near-dead.  Those are the only real options, if you want the championship to wind up with only a handful of players under par, which is clearly what the Competition Committee wants.

If you take non-traditional courses out of the mix, you certainly could have a U.S. Open on a newly built golf course that would be designed at already torturous lengths, but that would not require dramatic re-bunkering and asphalt-like conditions in the fairways and greens.  We already have courses like that.  Valhalla, Whistling Straits and a handful of TPC courses, just to name a few.

The people on this site LOVE traditional courses.  I just hope that we all recognize that, in order to continue hosting this championship at courses built before WWII, the USGA is going to have to take chances on watering issues.  Yesterday it backfired, but they came within one day of getting it just right.  I've been through a U.S. Open as a grounds chairman (Olympia Fields last year) and I have to tell you that it is a lot easier being a Monday Morning critic of Tom Meeks than it is to be Tom Meeks.

[rgkeller]

There is no point in holding championships on great and classic golf courses if the USGA is going to create conditions that overwhelm the architect's intent and the course's features.

Firm and fast - wonderful.

Green speeds at 13 - ridiculous.

The USGA has messed up the last two major championship that they have held, at Oakmont and at Shinnecock.

Meeks cannot retire fast enough.

[Joel_Stewart]

In order to hold a championship on traditional courses like Shinnecock, Bethpage et al., you have to take chances.  

Chances, why?   Our National Championship is on the line and Meeks wants to take chances, I don't think so.  Chance has uncertain outcomes thus uncertain winners of the Open.

Shinnecock and Bethpage are two courses where you could hold the US Open any day without change.  Grow the rough and speed up the greens to sane speeds and let the players duke it out.

[Robert "Cliff" Stanfield]

Well this Monday morning a few of my collegaues discussed the tournament and I heard some very good news in our circle.  My recently hired super stated that a few of his colleagues at various clubs in Atlanta have been getting calls from board members wanting to implement more native grass areas and achieve a "less green" look.  A recently built course in ATL is about to undergo a native planitng program in the height of the "Shinnecock Look".

You are always gonna have the skeptic stating what a golf course should look and play like.  I am just excited to hear my super state that the talk around town is that the days of Augusta green are heading out the door.  Sure talk is cheap but I am sure glad to hear that maybe for every 100 or so members maybe a handful are getting the picture.  History is supposed to repeat itself, right??

I vote to keep the rota of going toward the Shinny look and setup.  Maybe the USGA can begin to see how it can tuly give back to the industry...errr game, right?? and mold a new opinion of what golf should be...fast and firm.  I sure know a few supers that would love to turn the green meter down at the courses without the fear of being fired!

[johnk]

Terry, I admire Tom Meeks a bit too - he has a very difficult job, and he pushes the limit.  He's made mistakes before, and he will do it again - he knows that.

It shows that, yes, he does have to put the course on the edge to protect par, and that's what he's mandated to do...

But he really got Shinny over the edge.  If the wind had blown any harder, the  round would have needed to be cancelled.

Just the need to "syringe" or water the greens between groups is not proper in a competition.  It definitely wasn't fair to the first two groups who did not have watering and played #7 in 7-over...  Golf itself doesn't have to be fair, but you'd think that the competition committe would be...

[Tom_Doak]

Now you know why golf course architects are generally so conservative.  If Shinnecock was ten years old, none of that stuff this weekend would have been the USGA's fault ... it would have been a design problem!

This is why Nicklaus, Dye, Fazio et al. build flat greens, so they won't go wrong no matter the setup for some event someday.  As I get more high-profile jobs, the pressure on me will be the same.

And yet ... I thought Shinnecock did what it was supposed to this week.  It was the ultimate proof that defending a course for the pros is about firm & fast, and not about length.  But the pros didn't enjoy it a bit, and the TV networks love controversy, and the flames are still being fanned.

[Bob_Huntley]

This is like flogging a dead horse. We heard all week about the possibility of strong winds at Shinnecock, then Meeks is surprised when it came and dried out the course. I am sure he is a perfectly wonderful human being, kind to his wife and children, gives to charity, that he has balls of steel etc. Quite frankly, I would appreciate him more if instead of using the steel part of his anatomy he used his head.

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