Dale:
I've been reading a lot of stuff criticizing US Open set ups this week. The "pile on" mentality on this site and in much of the golf press on this topic seems to revolve around relatively few instances, in modern times at least:
The hole location on the 18th at Olympic in '98;
The maintenance of the 9th and 18th holes at Southern Hills in 2001;
The carry to the 10th fairway at Bethpage in 2002;
Course conditions on Sunday at Shinnecock last year.
There are certainly other issues from the past we could debate: the Els ruling at Oakmont and the rough at Winged Foot in '74, the Hinkle tree at Inverness, the selection of Hazeltine in '71, for example.
What seems to happen is that people take these very few instances and generalize about the state of the Open and the USGA, and if enough people pile on, these generalizations seem to become reality.
I am sitting here with the USGA Championship Media Guide, looking at past sites and results, and the events described above become pretty episodic, and not the rule. In fact the rule is just the opposite: 99.99999% of the time the USGA gets exactly what it wants- the toughest golf tournament of the year, at great venues, with extremely trying conditions, great playing surfaces, and great champions.
For some reason, the "pile on-ers" either don't comprehend, or don't want to comprehend, don't care about, or simply choose to ignore what the USGA says about these incidents. In each instance mentioned above, the USGA has been right out front, talking about the situation, taking responsibility for whatever happened. For some people that apparently just isn't sufficient. It's just so easy to criticize when you don't have to answer for your words.
About Olympic, Tom Meeks was right up front about his error. He went against his instinct. He was trying to save the lower part of the green. It didn't work. Mea Culpa. (by the way, there were 71 other hole locations used that week. No other problems that I'm aware of.)
At Southern Hills, the 9th and 18th greens got too fast. Their maintenance was altered prior to the tournament rounds. It had to be done or those greens would have been unplayable.
BTW, Goosen never blamed the the green for his missed putt, as far as I'm aware. Others have, however,)
The carry at Bethpage. Again, Meeks was right up front that he overestimated the players' ability to carry the ball that far, particularly in the cold, wet weather. Mea Culpa. (After the first round, the tee placement was changed and it was no longer a problem.
At Shinnecock last year, the course got away from them due to a poor decision to not water, and then the wind blew all night. Th USGA has admitted the bad decision. Shouldn't they be appaluded for being up front?
At Oakmont, Trey Holland went straight to the media tent, admitted the ruling mistake, said he wished it hadn't happened but that it couldn't be changed, and took questions. (Note: Holland was given bad information about the status of the camera stand, that it was unmoveable, when it actually was. Thus, he made a good rules decision with bad information. He never said that publically, because it never should have happened. Instead, he did the right thing, did not blame anyone else, and took the heat.)
This is a long way of saying that the vast majority of the time the US Open set up is exaclty what it is intended to be- very tough, and very fair-and when it hasn't been, the USGA has been very open about what went wrong. Regardless of what any of their critics say.