John, I was sorta joking there, but it will be interesting. Just seems there are a lot of examples where the USGA pushed the greens/course right to the edge and players were describing the greens as turning all sorts of colors and getting crusty etc... Never occured to me that it was any fault of the super, I kind of figured it was out of his hands. Given the situation I'm sure they'll take a little more conservative approach in '14. Would have been interesting if they held the ladies event first, I bet the guys would have howled over that!!!!
Yeah, I knew you were more or less joking and I wasn't trying to be defensive in my response. The super has a fair amount of control while the event is there though; it is still his course after all, he knows more about how much he can push the conditions than do the USGA guys. I wasn't in Pinehurst in '05, but that is a very tough time of the year for courses down there, its just so hot. On a typical day at a course down there, you'll have 2 guys working to spray the greens. It takes them roughly 90 minutes to work 9 holes. On hot days, the greens will have started to wilt again by the time they complete one rotation. Given how low the greens were cut for the open, I have no doubt that the grass was turning various other shades of green and brown. While brown wilt is not terrible, its certainly not ideal. I remember my super saying he didn't
really worry about the condition of the turf so long as it didn't turn dark brown/purple (exact color may be different depending on what specific type of turf). When it is dark, you basically have completely killed the turf in that area (anyone correct me if I am wrong here, I haven't really kept up on turf stuff since I left the club). Even at Shinnecock in '04 the greens did not get to the permanent damage point.