Best U.S. Open set-up in memory?

[JLahrman]

Sorry

I still think the rough is not necessary.  It would have been better with less rough.  I will take '99 at Pinehurst anyday.

Sean,

I completely agree.  I thought the fairway width was fine here, and the driveable par 4s were great.  But 1999 at Pinehurst was better.  The length of the rough gave the players so many more options.  I still remember Vijay driving into the left rough on 16, deciding he needed a birdie, and having a hack at the green with some long club.  He didn't pull it off, but I loved that he could attempt the shot.

[TEPaul]

I think this was a very successful US Open in the context of the course.

The 17th got a lot of attention and that's great but I think that hole should be analyzed very carefully in what it produced this week.

In other words, I don't think it needed that ultra deep rough around the green. The tournament probably would've turned out even more exciting if it didn't have that.

The architecture/green speed/firmness of that hole is good enough without that ultra deep rough around the green. The hole got a lot of "others". What it needed was more low scores for successful risk taking.

[Phil McDade]

Wayne Morrison had an interesting recent thread on golden-age courses and the ability they had to extract penalties and dictate strategy via bunkering despite the advent of lengthening technology. Essentially he viewed many of them as flexible courses. I though of that today while watching Oakmont, and how flexible the course seemed, particularly with the shortening of the par 4s and the lengthening of the par 3s. I wonder if there is another rota-type course out there that has that kind of flexibility. It just seemed to offer players lots of choices and strategic decisions about how the play various holes, a good thing.

[ed_getka]

A quite hero in all this may well be Steve Smyers, a USGA Board Member and also an ASGCA Member. For the first time — perhaps ever — the USGA has involved a golf course architect, both on the Board and also in decisions on daily set up of the Open venue.

That is interesting. I didn't know Steve had any involvement with course setup for the Open. Whether Mike Davis and/or Steve are driving  the move to the setup of the last two Opens I think they are making some good decisions.
   The one thing I was wondering about  was the frequency with which I heard the golfers  talking about varying green speeds throughout their rounds. Was that just whining, or were the greenspeeds a little variable and keeping the pros off balance with their putting? I would think the green contours had more to do with their perceptions, but I don't know. Any thoughts?

[Kirk Gill]

I concur with Ran regarding the setup of the course. It was NOT out of control, and within the context of the extremely high level of difficulty that Oakmont and its members demand, the course was playable. I'll admit that my game would suffer at the venue, but watching the pros negotiate it made for excellent entertainment, imho. What struck me looking at the various camera angles during the television broadcast was how modern the course looked. The shapes of the bunkers, the lines of the course, struck me as modern-looking.

Is there something about the way they are presenting the course now that is different than in the past, or have these lines always looked like that? I may be missing the boat, but Oakmont looks very little like any dead guy course I've ever seen.........or am I missing the boat completely?

[Phil McDade]

I think many of the greenside bunkers have been deepened, and many bunkers appear to have raised profiles, as opposed to laying flatter on the land.

[Buck Wolter]

Does anybody think today was more exciting than Sunday at the Masters this year? I seem to remember a similar thread bemoaning the Masters set-up but I thought it was a better tournament and a much more exciting leaderboard/finish. Maybe everybody just choked today but that was a boring round of golf to sit through.

Buck

[Ed Tilley]

I just cannot understand the US Open. You get pretty much perfect weather for 4 days, sunshine, very little wind. The winning score is +5. That's just plain ridiculous in good conditions. Forgive my understanding of English but isn't par meant to be the average score?

Oakmont looked like such a great course to my untrained eye, it didn't exactly need to be protected. I just can't understand this obsession with heavy rough and 'test'. At Carnoustie in 99, the R&A got the set up all wrong (and openly admitted it), the weather was terrible, and the winning score was still only +6 (and was a par at the last for J VDV from being +3). Everyone was (rightly) hyper critical of Carnoustie. Is it just me or is there something wrong here.

I hope the Open gets F & F conditions, decent weather and the winning score is -10. That would be a proper test.

[TEPaul]

I'd like to credit the five year program of Zimmer and Oakmont for a great looking and playing Open, particularly the firm and fast "through the green" and on the greens. To me that was about a perfect IMM for those kind of players. That was the result of a number of years of frequent light top dressing the course and other sand fill operations and dialing down of overall irrigation.  

That course took on an inch and a half of water on Wednesday night and it snapped right back to firm and fast in a day or two. On a golf course that hadn't been in a dry program for years those fairways probably would've been almost plugging right on through Sunday with that amount of water on Wednesday night.

Did you see those drives of Cabrera and Woods on #12? They were hit on a perfect line and both of them ran like a red-ass rabbit about 80-90 yards down and along those cool fairway contours!

THAT's what I call FIRM AND FAST!!

[Darren_Kilfara]

I think Angel was tied for 7th at +6 and passed 6 guys after Saturday's play.  More importantly, he was only two back of Tiger - the obvious guy to watch because I don't think Tiger was gonna go higher than 74 unless the weather kicked up.  I thought the guys back at +7 before the start of the day was the absolute limit (though very much outsiders - meaning something like a 68 or perhaps less would have been necessary to grab the title) of who was actually in with a shout.  

Sean - aren't you paying a little too much attention to "par"? Let me ask you this: if they had listed #8 as a par 4 and a couple of the longer par 4s as par 5s, so that the par was 73 and guys were making more "birdies" or even "eagles", would that have changed anything about the way the course was playing? I think an intelligent spectator simply learns to recalibrate his expectations and applaud certain pars on a US Open setup the way he would applaud birdies on another course. An event is categorically not boring simply because relatively few birdies are being made...

My hat, too, is off to the USGA. Oakmont has now joined Shinnecock at the top of my list of favorite US Open venues.

Cheers,
Darren

[Matt_Sullivan]

Ed Tilley makes a great point. Why deride Carnoustie 99 and praise Oakmont. I also agree with Sean's comment that it was a bad weather day away from +10 winning. Just cause the USGA watered the greens every day and moved a few tees around, we think they did a great job setting up the course?

Oh and I enjoyed the tournament and thought it was great, but I enjoyed it in the same way I always enjoy US Opens: a great course made almost impossible and giving the players fits generally makes for great TV

[Brent Hutto]

To answer the question posed in the topic title...

I think Oakmont is one of the courses best suited to the U.S. Open but this year's setup was not even close to being the best in memory. And my golf memory only goes back ten years or so.

The lack of width and length of the rough interefered with the optimum functioning of the course. However, I will say that choice of hole locations and the canny moving up and back of tees were done to perfection. Slightly widening the inch-and-a-half first cut in places and whacking back certain greenside rough areas to 2-3 inches would have resulted in possibly the best set-up of recent years but we'll never know just how good it could have been.

I also think the theatrics by the last group on the third hole Sunday were a thoroughly enjoyable slap in the face to those who think hacking golf balls out of gnarly 6" rough with wedges is the ultimate expression of short game skill. Yet in some sense the setup of that hole stuck out like a sore thumb as inconsistent with the flavor of the course as a whole.

[TEPaul]

"I also think the theatrics by the last group on the third hole Sunday were a thoroughly enjoyable slap in the face to those who think hacking golf balls out of gnarly 6" rough with wedges is the ultimate expression of short game skill. Yet in some sense the setup of that hole stuck out like a sore thumb as inconsistent with the flavor of the course as a whole."

Brent:

Frankly, that is a most excellent point!

It does, however, raise an interesting question----what other holes at Oakmont would be as conducive to that short grass surrounding area (ala Shinnecock) as is Oakmont's #3?

I do have one recommendation which on further reflection may've made another hole and the tournament really something.

#17!!

Imagine firm and fast and short grass surrounding that green and the mind-bending recovery shots over bunkers and up and around slopes and such to that long and narrow little gem. And what a time to have that in the round! What it would do is really tempt the skill levels of players like that.

[JohnV]

I was with Lee Janzen and Nick Dougherty on Sunday.  Lee, who certainly isn't one of the strongest guys out there, hit the 7th green from the thicker cut of rough from 200 yards.  It was a great hot running shot which impressed me.  It was thick, but proper technique could get the ball back in play or even on the green and leave par opportunities.

One thing was that there were very few guys getting the break of going way wide and getting to where the spectators had trampled the rough down which was good in my opinion.

As for areas where it would be neat to see chipping areas, I think that over the 12th green would be good.  There is a little ridge at the back of the green and if that and about 5 to 10 yards beyond it were fairway height it would be a lot of fun.  Also possibly the other holes with fall away greens such as 1 and 10.

[Brent Hutto]

One thing was that there were very few guys getting the break of going way wide and getting to where the spectators had trampled the rough down which was good in my opinion.

I forgot to list that in my "well done" aspects. In today's game I think that is going to be a necessity in major championships on courses with heavy rough. It kind of sucks for the galleries but this week proved that it makes sense for the integrity of the course.

As for areas where it would be neat to see chipping areas, I think that over the 12th green would be good.  There is a little ridge at the back of the green and if that and about 5 to 10 yards beyond it were fairway height it would be a lot of fun.  Also possibly the other holes with fall away greens such as 1 and 10.

One of my favorite (underutilized) features are fall-away greens. Oakmont has some good ones and that sort of green at any course works awesomely with shaved-down banks.

Watching Aaron and Tiger play the third reminded me of playing with my buddy Terry who always makes the Baddeley up-and-down (leaving me to make the Tiger-like double bogey) in those situations.

[TEPaul]

JohnV:

#1 and #10 would be interesting with chipping area behind them, particularly if they were setup to take the ball fairly far away from the green surface as does the area behind #3. I did look at #12 on Thursday with that in mind and I was surprised by the height of the manufactured ridge around the back of that green. Actually the spectators were standing on it.

[Matt_Ward]

Kudos as well to the USGA and Oakmont for a job well done.

I have a small bone with the overall nature of the rough -- I wish it would have played as the USGA defined it years ago --the so-called "1/2 shot penalty."

However, that's a small bone to pick given the nature of today's technology and the inane execution demonstrated by so many players throughout the week. Some of the guys could not hit Pennsy from the Ohio stateline with their tee shots and clearly deserve what followed.

The USGA should return to Oakmont on a much more frequent basis. To wait well over a decade to return to such a landmark layout is TOO long of time frame.

[Gary Slatter]

Great set-up, I understand they even have added ash trays for 2008.

[Paul Stephenson]

I thought they were close to going over the edge on some of the greens yesterday, but it was the best job the USGA has done in a few years.  

I really liked them moving the tees around.  Infact, did #8 play 1 yard longer to the pin than #17 yesterday?  Mike Davis must be a fan of the "half-par" hole.

[jim_lewis]

The setup at Pinehurst #2 in 1999 was, by far, the best I can recall in the past 4 decades. The shorter rough "suckered" players into trying to advance the ball to the greens. The rough at Oakmont suckered many players into thinking they could advance the ball back to the fairway. Payne Stewart won at 1 under. With two holes to play there were four players who had a chance to win. They were Stewart, Mickelson, Woods, and Singh, four of the top players in the world. Great setup, great finish, with 4 great players. Beat that! It seems to me that if the rough at Oakmont (and other Open venues) were a little shorter, we would see more exciting attempts to advance the ball to the greens with very little improvemnt in the scores.

I too like the idea af a few driveable par fours. It seems to me that the risk-reward should be balanced so that many players will be tempted to try, not just the desperate, the stupid, and those out of contention.

Jim

[Jim Nugent]

I have a small bone with the overall nature of the rough -- I wish it would have played as the USGA defined it years ago --the so-called "1/2 shot penalty."

Matt, the USGA keeps a stat called "Cost of Rough."  I don't see the definition, but I'm pretty sure it means how much higher your score is on a hole when your tee shot misses the fairway.  The average Cost of Rough per hole for all golfers over the four rounds was 0.558 strokes, i.e. almost exactly 1/2 stroke.  

ETA: the USGA gives the Cost of Rough numbers for every individual hole, except par 3's, and also the average for all 18.  Lots of variation.  Rough took the lightest toll on 17 (0.261 strokes), 15 (0.331 strokes) and 2 (0.367 strokes).  Rough took the heaviest toll on 18 (0.749 strokes) and 9 (0.748 strokes).  Anyone have ideas why the rough played tougher or easier on these holes?  

[TEPaul]

Jim Lewis:

I agree with you that the '99 Open at Pinehurst was the best Open setup in my memory, certainly from the standpoint of the "rough" setup.

[Garland Bayley]

Anyone know the cost of bunker stat? I would prefer to have the cost of bunker be higher than cost of rough. I am afraid that at US Opens, that is not true.

[Forrest Richardson]

Gary — The ashtray post was very funny. To my count, it has been the best and most to-the-point post in 30 days.

Ed G. — Steve Smyers was not in charge as I understand it. However, he made daily trips out at 4:00-something in the morning when tee and cups were being set, and also participated in meetings about set-up. I think it was a positive leap to involve a golf course architect (and player) in these decisions even if his involvement was a small percentage.

[tlavin]

At the end of the proverbial day, I think that Mike Davis, Tim Moraghan, Steve Smyers and the rest of the set-up crew have both the talent and the institutional memory to avoid some of the controversies of years past.  Getting close to the edge but not going over it is a delicate art form and the decision to water the greens seems quite prudent indeed in the immediate aftermath.  Could they have gotten away with not watering them?  Maybe they could have, but we do know that the greens were still firm and still fast even with a little water.