[SteveOgulukian]

Erin Hills Fallout: Shinnecock Hills To Be Narrowed After Restoration Widening


http://golfergalore.com/2017/09/06/erin-hills-fallout-shinnecock-hills-to-be-narrowed-after-restoration-widening/


Apologies if this has already been brought up, but has anyone seen this?  I'm sure the members will not be too pleased by this decision as it will surely affect the course leading up to, and after, the Open. 

[MCirba]

Ugh.

[Alex Miller]

Link directly to article... http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2017/9/6/erin-hills-fallout-shinnecock-hills-to-be-narrowed-after-res.html

[Bill Raffo]

Funny, I just drove through this morning and saw little white flags lining the fairway of the 12th hole. Looked like it was a pretty significant, narrowing.

[Carl Johnson]

You have a choice.  Run the course for member play, or for what the USGA wants you to do for their tournaments.  Obviously, Shinnecock Hills' Board believes that it needs the USGA more than the USGA needs it.  Our club is hosting a USGA championship next year and the USGA made "suggestions" for changes, including narrowing fairways.  We've already implemented those changes, so the USGA can see how they work a year in advance.  As I understand it, we did not have to implement these changes, but apparently the Board thought it was important to do what the USGA "suggested."  The changes are not member friendly, in my opinion (but I have no idea what our other 499 members would say).  I'd also add that they appear to me to be inconsistent with the fundamental design of the course, which is to have fairly wide fairways, and challenge on positioning for the approach shots.  But, whatever . . . .   

[Tom_Doak]

Standard operating procedure.  The USGA can be very "suggestive".  At Stonewall for the Mid-Am, they insisted on normalizing all of the collars to the same width, eliminating several places where I had a bit of short grass on the high side of greens.

[Mike Sweeney]

Standard operating procedure. 

When are Ran and Tom Doak going to start the alt-USGA?


I am not stupid and you will not topple the USGA, but you will keep them in re-check.

[Cliff Hamm]

Back in the day, like the 60's, I recall the rough for the US Open being much, much longer than it is today.  Like a hayfield.  But I don't recall the narrowing of fairways.  Of course that was a long, long time ago and I could be wrong.


Give my choice I would rather they really, really grow the rough but keep the fairways at a normal width.

[BHoover]

Something to keep in mind, from the Shackleford link, Jaime Diaz writes that the course still will be wider than it was in 1986, 1995, and 2004. It just won't be as wide as originally anticipated.


So maybe this is not quite as much of a "narrowing" as some may think?

[Peter Pallotta]

So the Board, presumably in the interests of the members, gave C&C free reign to do precisely what C&C do best, which is to (through width) revitalize strategic options and choice and preferred angles into greens; and then the exact same Board, now presumably at the expense of the members (playing wise, at least, if not financially) do an about face and neuter the very changes they've just paid one of the very best architectural firms in the world to make?
Maybe this Board should just take money and membership cards away from everyone and burn them in a recently restored wood burning stove.
Maybe the USGA should come out and admit that this isn't about Erin Hills, but about Pinehurst -- and acknowledge that far from respecting the work of architects like C&C, they not so secretly snicker at their work.
At the very least, shouldn't both this Board and the USGA agree to shed their cynical posturings and value the course enough to just leave it alone -- agree that they'll both stop asking for another championship at this 'storied venue'?
Poor storied venue -- with friends and supporters like this, who needs enemies and critics?
Honestly, sometimes I find myself thinking that, far from loving great classic architecture, the USGA actually hates it.
I mean, if I lavishly praised my wife in public but then came home and ordered her to change her dress and told her how to act and demanded that she be not who she actually is but only I want her to be, would anyone think I loved her?
 

[Eric LeFante]

I don't think you can truly test the driver/fairway woods of the best players in the world with fairways that are wide enough for maximum strategy and member play. I agree with everyone that memberships need to decide if they want to play their golf course with fairway widths that are not ideal for them. I don't think the USGA is wrong for wanting less than 40-50 yard wide fairways. If the fairways were 25-30 yards wide in 2004 and they are 30-40 yards wide for next years open, I don't see anything wrong with that.


Johnny Miller complained that the last few US Opens (2017, 2015, 2014) were not familiar to him with the very wide fairways and lack of rough. For decades, the US Open was all about really narrow fairways and chip out rough. We are very far from that now. Would Hogan have won 4 US Opens if the fairways were 40 yards wide? I think the shorter hitters are thrilled that the fairways are being narrowed at Shinnecock.

[Mike_Trenham]

Standard operating procedure.  The USGA can be very "suggestive".  At Stonewall for the Mid-Am, they insisted on normalizing all of the collars to the same width, eliminating several places where I had a bit of short grass on the high side of greens.

Yes, wasn't that on the North Course, which was used for one round of Medal Play and the first 18 holes of the Championship Match?

[Tom_Doak]

Standard operating procedure.  The USGA can be very "suggestive".  At Stonewall for the Mid-Am, they insisted on normalizing all of the collars to the same width, eliminating several places where I had a bit of short grass on the high side of greens.

Yes, wasn't that on the North Course, which was used for one round of Medal Play and the first 18 holes of the Championship Match?

Both courses, actually, but you are right that they included the North course even though it was only used for a couple of days.

[Tom_Doak]

At the very least, shouldn't both this Board and the USGA agree to shed their cynical posturings and value the course enough to just leave it alone -- agree that they'll both stop asking for another championship at this 'storied venue'?

Every single time Shinnecock has hosted the Open, at the conclusion the members have harrumphed and said "never again" because of how the USGA handled the event and set up the course and paid them less than they should have.  And then a few years later, their lust for fame kicks back in, and they agree to do it all over again.


And it's the same at nearly all of the other clubs that host the U.S. Open, I would guess.  That's just the way this b.s. works.


Shinnecock didn't hire Coore & Crenshaw independently, no matter what the press releases may say.  Mike Davis had to bless their appointment.  And if they didn't know that made their recommendations subject to Mike Davis's sense of the state of play, then Bill and Ben are not as sharp as I think they are.

[Joe Hancock]

So, why do the fairway widths on any given championship course have to be within such narrow parameters? Why couldn't there be narrow fairways on holes with one-dimensional approach options, while allowing for very wide fairways for holes with multiple, or preferred angles of approach? Of course, the greens would have to be very firm for this to work for the pros, but still.....


Instead of mandating the winner be the player who drives it straight down the middle 56 times, why not let the player who makes the most wise decisions, and then executes them, be in consideration? There's no decision-making in hitting uniformly narrow fairways.

[Peter Pallotta]

A very fine question/suggestion, Joe. I've never seen that approach on any golf course I've ever played, and I'd never even considered it before. But apparently, neither have any tournament officials or most restoration experts.
Peter

[Tom_Doak]

A very fine question/suggestion, Joe. I've never seen that approach on any golf course I've ever played, and I'd never even considered it before. But apparently, neither have any tournament officials or most restoration experts.

A restoration expert will generally stick to restoring how the course was in the old days, and I cannot say I've seen a huge dispersion of fairway widths in the aerial photos of any of the well-known Golden Age courses.  That's not to say it's a bad idea, but it hasn't been pursued often.  The only place I've ever played a course like that was Tokyo Golf Club after Desmond Muirhead's work in the late 1980's, and the back and forth from wide fairways to very narrow ones just seemed completely arbitrary and random.  Thankfully, it's been restored to a more conventional treatment now.

[Ally Mcintosh]

There's an even bigger issue in other courses mimicking the suggestions.


The R&A have in the past insisted / suggested that the fairways on their Open courses be between 20-25 yards. And I've known at least 2 non-Open clubs set their courses up that way "because that's what The R&A want".

[jeffwarne]

Doddering old fools.....


It's the ball stupid.

[Jon Wiggett]

Yet another example of how the USGA just do not understand how to challenge the top players. #shipoffools #yawn

[Jerry Kluger]

Perhaps it is a conditioning issue that brings this about.  C & C do their work with firm and fast conditions in mind so when the course softens up it becomes much easier for the very best players.  It seems that we are more often seeing softer conditions in major championships due to weather which makes the course play easier.  I believe that Quail Hollow put in a sub-air system in the greens so they could keep them firm.  I was at this year's Masters and when the wind blew really hard the first two days ANGC became extremely tough and challenging which to me made it much more exciting.  So the issue is how much can a club do so far as conditioning in order to keep the course challenging to the very best players.

[Jonathan Mallard]

Standard operating procedure. 

When are Ran and Tom Doak going to start the alt-USGA?


I am not stupid and you will not topple the USGA, but you will keep them in re-check.

Um... Doesn't this website at least scratch at the surface of this?

[JJShanley]

OT-ish here, but why did Shinny not host a U.S. Open for 90 years after 1896?  I suppose politics may have played a part, but it also struck me (as a foreigner) as a central venue to the early history of golf in this country.


Other courses (Pinehurst, for example) have gone decades without hosting a major, but the Shinny example surprised me when I first realized it.

[Mike_Trenham]

OT-ish here, but why did Shinny not host a U.S. Open for 90 years after 1896?  I suppose politics may have played a part, but it also struck me (as a foreigner) as a central venue to the early history of golf in this country.


Other courses (Pinehurst, for example) have gone decades without hosting a major, but the Shinny example surprised me when I first realized it.

I understand it has more to do with the make up of the club and that it is a weekend/summer club for most members, thus they did not have the depth of members able to get involved with pulling off a US Open. 


[size=78%]The USGA was keen on returning for the sake of history and because it was a worthy venue.  The problem was solved by the USGA simply writing a contract to take the place over for the week with very minimal member involvement or risk.   With the ability to run the event exactly as they wanted with a perfect market resulted in the USGA making a massive profit.  [/size]

[size=78%]The event has become more and more commercial since 1986, It was a turning point. [/size]

[Bill Raffo]

Had a chance to play this morning and inquired about the narrowing.  What's interesting is that they aren't going to simply grow the fairway grass out, they are going to dig up the fairway and replace it with fescue sod. I never knew there was such a thing but I guess you can buy just about anything in this world.  Being that it's Mid September and the Hamptons has cold, long springs, there is potential for a disaster if the weather doesn't cooperate and the fescue replacement doesn't grow in.



I feel bad for the members. I paced off 15 yards on the 13th hole. That course is hard enough already...it's going to be a monster once it's in and then they'll have to go through digging it all back up and replacing it with what they have now.

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