The Future of the USGA

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Gary D'Amato of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is one of the top golf writers. Here is his story of the future of the USGA. Now we know why Erin Hills is on the USGA's radar:


www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=443492

Here is an excerpt:

Sitting in his office in Mequon, speaking in a voice so soft the tape recorder barely picks it up and punctuating the conversation with self-effacing humor, Jim Reinhart does not come across as one of the most powerful men in golf.

Such is the esteem in which Reinhart is held that in just six years he has risen from novice Executive Committee member to vice president of the United States Golf Association and chairman of the USGA's Rules of Golf Committee.

He is a lock to succeed Walter Driver as USGA president in 2008, though modesty and decorum prevent him from saying so. He would be only the second man from Wisconsin to hold that position; Lynford Lardner Jr. of Milwaukee served as USGA president in 1972 and '73.
He worked behind the scenes to help Milwaukee Country Club and the Brown Deer Park Golf Course form an unprecedented private-public partnership and land the 2008 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship. He has championed Erin Hills, the public course in the Town of Erin that is scheduled to open Aug. 1 and will play host to the 2008 U.S. Women's Public Links Championship

[John Kavanaugh]

Victoria National (private) and Quail Crossing (public) partnered to host a 1999 U.S. Amatuer qualifier...In 1999 no less...

[JESII]

Hosting the actual event was the situation cited. There are well over one hundred qualifiers that require 36 holes (not necessarily two courses) each year. This must have been the first time a host site for a main event partnered a public and a private. Seems more noteworthy in that it hasn't happened before than it being thought it never could happen.

[JESII]

An interesting article, thanks Steve.

[TEPaul]

I met Jim Reinhart over at Ganton in 2003 because we seemed to go back and forth with him in the car from the hotel out to the Ganton course and then saw him here and there in the last few years. He's got one of those senses of humor that is both sort of off-the-wall zinging and sort of self depricating at the same time. I think if he had nothing to do with the USGA or anything else notable and was just some guy you met in a bar one time, he's the type of guy you wouldn't forget. I wish Jim Reinhart all the best with the USGA in the next four years or so. He's a great guy.

[JESII]

Tom,

Do you think he'll be able to do what none of these recent top level people in the USGA have not been able to do? That is, of course, get the very much desired approval of the Golf Club Atlas treehouse full of nuts.

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
Do you think he'll be able to do what none of these recent top level people in the USGA have not been able to do? That is, of course, get the very much desired approval of the Golf Club Atlas treehouse full of nuts."

Sully:

Jim Reinhart is a great guy and perhaps a most persuasive man but no, I doubt even he could do that.

First of all, if Reinhart managed to get the USGA to do every single thing GOLFCLUBATLAS.comers now recommend and hope will happen they would still blame the USGA for anything they could think of. Haven't you noticed the USGA is the entity that this site just loves to hate?

But perhaps he could help maintain a low boil on what the USGA thinks of GOLFCLUBATLASers. There was an Excecutive Committee member, now since on to other things who actually recommended that the USGA should think seriously about "getting" some of the jerks on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com. I hope that didn't mean virtual assassination but one never know these days.  

[Geoffrey Childs]

What about Pumpkin Ridge and the US Am.?  One course at the facility is public the other private.

[JESII]

Has it always been that way? JVB...John Kirk? Help.

[Craig Van Egmond]

Yes, Pumpkin Ridge as always had one public (Ghost Creek) and one private (Witch Hollow).

[JohnV]

Yes, Pumpkin Ridge has always had one public and one private.  Geoffrey and Craig beat me to the punch on that one.  But, it they are both owned by the same people so it is a little less impressive than getting an old hi-level private club and a municipal course to work together.

Jim is a great guy.  He was the USGA Executive Committee member in charge of the Mid-Am for a few years and we all really like him.

The US Mid-Amateur was scheduled to be on public and private courses in 1999 in St. Louis with Old Warson and a public course, the name of which escapes me, but that course had a problem with the greens so Bellerive kindly stepped in as the second course.

[JohnV]

This year's US Amateur is being played at both pubic and private facilities.  Hazeltine is the main course and the Chaska Town Course is a public course.