On a personal level, although this was seemingly inevitable, it's sad for two reasons. First, I play Dubs a fair amount, and would love to have seen an Open there (though I can settle for the BMW). Second, the things they absolutely had to change at Erin Hills were the things I kind of liked. I'd never played a hole like #2 before, with that tiny green. I'd never played a hole like old #7 before, where I'm aiming at a rock on a par three and just guessing whether or not the club I hit was the right one. I don't think I'd want to play those types of holes all the time, but once every year or two was something to look forward to.
That ridge on the 15th green, however, was a piece of junk, and they really did need to fix that. I'm not sure if they did, but If that wasn't part of the renovation, that wouldn't make sense to me.
Steve S., regarding a Pine Meadow hypothetical, I see a couple problems. First, I don't think there's really all that much room for corporate tents. Where there's any real estate between holes, it's all pretty heavily wooded. For me, that's one of the charms of Pine Meadow, that sense of isolation on almost every hole. Although, they could have built a really cool platform between the tenth and 11th fairways on that lake that would have looked pretty awesome. Also, it's just too wide. Sure, they can grow the rough and narrow the fairways, but I think it would look kind of dumb with so much rough between the tree line and the fairway. Kind of unnatural. And selfishly, Dubs already costs too much. Pine Meadow is expensive to walk, but I can justify it. I'd hate to see green fees jacked up $30 or more there, which would have been nearly inevitable. It's probably the course I play more than any other in Chicago, though, so it would have been interesting to see what they would have done with it.