[JESII]

Assume you mean 15 yards on 13 up where the fairway narrows already?

[jeffwarne]

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.

Fescue sod with three and a half months growing period between now and the event, and no time for it to thin out naturally from heat, stress etc.
They planted a nonsense grass as rough in 2004 that looked ridiculous and weird, then cut down the tall bluestem farther out.


Seems absolutely ridiculous and is certainly more disruptive than simply letting the fairway grass grow to rough height (which is doable and nonpermanent with their fairways as opposed to pure bent)


After the event do they then?
 A. leave the fescue as rough
B.cut it to fairway height leaving two different surfaces
C.resod it with the original grass


This is the opposite of sustainability-sadly business as usual for the doddering old men (or is it drunk old women...)


it's the ball stupid.......

[Peter Pallotta]

Mr Meeks looks better and better all the time. History will judge him, compared to his successors, as modest in his goals and humble in his approach.
Money makes strange bedfellows; and ego, apparently, has no bounds.
Graduated rough was one thing (and I remember well how many of you couldn't wait to heap praise on that one); fescue sod sounds like bad satire.

[jeffwarne]

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.

bump-epic post

[Tom Bacsanyi]

My concern is what happens in 2023 with LACC?  Based on Walker Cup coverage, the course looks incredibly wide.  Will the USGA mandate a halving of the fairway widths?

[Greg Chambers]

My concern is what happens in 2023 with LACC?  Based on Walker Cup coverage, the course looks incredibly wide.  Will the USGA mandate a halving of the fairway widths?

They might..but at least it's all Bermuda.  No monkey business with changing grasses to narrow fairways...what a joke.

[Steve Salmen]

Would anyone know whether work has begun to narrow the course?

[Niall C]

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".

Ally

As the resident defender of the R&A on here let me say I've never seen that at Gailes or Silloth both of which I have been a member at when they have had R&A sponsored events. Some times I wonder if it is the perception of what they want rather than what the actually do want.

As a matter of interest, what did they have outside the 20/25 yard strip of fairway ?

Niall

[Matthew Petersen]

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?
 

I actually really do think it's about Erin Hills. The USGA has been a purely reactive organization of late and much to their detriment. Goofy ruling for DJ at Oakmont? Let's fast track a rules change! Players hate the depth of fescue rough at Erin Hills? Why, we already planned to mow that down, gents, sure we did. Some minor public complaining that Erin Hills was too wide and the scores too low? Let's narrow the fairways at Shinny!


Just because sometimes you get the right decision from this doesn't change how obviously reactionary such decisions are and how dangerous that is. The fairways were wide at EH because they need to be if the wind really blows. The wind never really did. (Also, if the guys in the mix on the final day had been named McIlroy, Johnson, and Spieth, instead of Koepka and Harman, most of those complaints would never have been made.


It's enough to make me hope the wind whips at Shinnecock next June and no one can find a fairway.

[Ted Sirbaugh]

Would anyone know whether work has begun to narrow the course?

They began the work this past weekend and are supposed to be digging up two fairways a day until it is complete

[Matt_Cohn]

Does anyone have the scorecard/yardages for the 7,439 yard US Open tees?

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