What is it about Shinnecock Hills...

[Jason Thurman]

... that lends it to these setup debacles?

[Phil McDade]

... that lends it to these setup debacles?

Mike Davis' desire to run the set-up at a June U.S. Open championship at this course?


Davis' absence at these championships would lead to fewer debacles. As the saying goes, debacles are a feature, not a bug, with Mr. Davis and U.S. Open set-ups.

[JESII]

Shinnecock is so good it’s beyond the USGA’s ability to manage...

[Terry Lavin]

It's sort of like the "nothing good happens after midnight" lesson that mom tried to impart (unsuccessfully, in the main) to me.  The closer you live to the edge, the more likely it is that you'll go too far.  I don't think this issue is controlled by Shinnecock (or any other host course), nor do I think it is limited to Mike Davis.  They've had setup issues before in the Tom Meeks era and I simply attribute it to the institutional affection for the severe setup.  One cannot control the weather and if you are torturing the turf to get maximum speed and trampoline effect, bad things can pop up rather quickly.  I should mention that I've worked with both of these men and that I've always had a great deal of respect for Meeks, because he would "wear the jacket" if there was a problem with a punitive setup.  He also "owned" the softer setup at Olympia, but the golf course took a pounding in the media anyway.  The same is true of Davis and Erin Hills, it seems to me.


I think they got lucky with Koepka as a winner, because he had the right mettle during the Saturday Slaughter and managed the golf course quite well on Sunday, so the spotlight could drift away from the near debacle with the setup decisions.  They managed to identify the best player in the field and didn't wind up with a random lucky winner, which has happened in the past.

[JC Urbina]

Terry,

[Andrew Buck]

I do wonder if it is more difficult on a sandy sight due to natural ability of a golf course to drain and firm up over the course of a day.  The feature that we love for day to day play actually makes it harder to live on the edge (which probably isn't needed). 

Terry,
In regards to the Olympia Fields open, I do wonder if it would have been viewed slightly differently, despite the easy start to the tournament if larger names would have been in contention. 

[Peter Pallotta]

I haven't read the Flynn book and don't know much about him; but he 're-designed' the course just a few years after Augusta opened. Does anyone know if he visited/was influenced by the latter? Watching this year, and with the original C&C restoration in mind, the course felt at times like what Augusta would've been if designed by the sea instead of inland Georgia.

[Mark_Fine]

Shinnecock is a Doak 10 and if they didn’t try to trick it up it would present itself sooo much better.  Look at Sunday’s round.  Many middle of the green pins, enough firmness that balls bounced when they hit the greens.  Some great scores and some very high scores but it was still a very difficult test for the best players in the world.  When they get the greens too fast and firm and when the wind comes up and they move the holes too close to the edges it gets goofy.  Anyone who has played a top Flynn design knows why.  Those edge hole locations were never meant for green speeds at 11 or 12 or whatever they were rolling at.  Protecting par is easy but it can be embarrassing as the USGA found out yet again 😢

[Jason Thurman]

Does Shinnecock need to be tricked up to protect par? I think it's obvious that the USGA cares about doing so in a year following a course that played double digits under...


Was Sunday's setup and conditions ideal? And what would the winning score have been with four days of it?

[Tom_Doak]

Yes the course is a 10 in my book.  They shouldn't be doing anything to set it up.


The thing about Shinnecock that screws them up is simply that it's a very windy place.  You get anywhere close to edgy there, and the wind picks up, and you get blown off the edge.  That's what they were afraid of last year, but then it didn't happen, and they overcompensated this year.



Terry I disagree that they live for edgy setups ... at Sebonack Mike Davis personally explained to me how hyper cautious they were, ironically, for fear of Shinnecock 2004.  The problems all arise from setting a target score for the US Open champion, and overreacting to the critics from last year.  (Not a US Open, too easy, blah blah blah)


I did see a quote from Mike Davis that conditions at a place like Shinnecock could make a 20 stroke difference in the winning score, and that's probably not much of an exaggeration.  They got it back to within about five of what they were hoping for by watering Saturday night. 


But it is the act of having a target number that leads to so many brain farts.  They could have just left it alone and the tournament would have been equally compelling.  Except they have to justify their existence.

[ward peyronnin]

I am going the contrarian way.
Personally I had a great time watching the tournament this weekend not necessarily listening to it.

Why not take the venue to the edge for these guys AND THEIR EQIUPMENT. If they played smart and executed they could stay in it Sat. So morning and afternoon presented differently; that happens all the time and what is the difference if you say it is an act of God like a squall or wind and sun on an already tough set up? It produced a great Sunday grouping with a hugely variable matrix. 

The course was not lost at all unless you listen to all the armchair analyst on this site and in the media or Sunday would have been a disaster. Sunday produced a great champion and a record score and lovely shots. Sat pulled all those Olympians wallowing in hubris back to mortal play. I was at Cruden Bay two weeks ago where they had no rain and they were pointing to  how crusty it was with great satisfaction and I guarantee no one was out syringing every day.

The paradox is how so many on this site bay about equipment and softness and relation to par and shot variety and when it is delivered bay about unfairness and incompetence and arrogance. Once again I had a great time watching this U. S. Open so maybe tennis is a better venue for those of you dissatisfied with the product this weekend

[Ben Sims]

Ward,


I couldn’t agree more. I enjoyed the tournament immensely. What I didn’t enjoy was how many times I saw a ball run twenty yards off the green to the side or back. I can’t believe that’s how Flynn intended misses to be punished.


Again, the elephant in the room is how equipment, skill, and modern agronomy intersect with the ridiculous notion that the score should be a fixed target for the USGA. In my opinion, it’s nearly impossible to make any golf course of reasonable (yes I know it was 7400+yds) distance “hard” for these guys. I think if the USGA were philosophically okay with a -10 score winning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.


Shinny is 10. I don’t think that’s up for debate. But was it a 10 this weekend? And if it wasn’t, why not?

[William_G]

Ward,


I couldn’t agree more. I enjoyed the tournament immensely. What I didn’t enjoy was how many times I saw a ball run twenty yards off the green to the side or back. I can’t believe that’s how Flynn intended misses to be punished.


Again, the elephant in the room is how equipment, skill, and modern agronomy intersect with the ridiculous notion that the score should be a fixed target for the USGA. In my opinion, it’s nearly impossible to make any golf course of reasonable (yes I know it was 7400+yds) distance “hard” for these guys. I think if the USGA were philosophically okay with a -10 score winning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.


Shinny is 10. I don’t think that’s up for debate. But was it a 10 this weekend? And if it wasn’t, why not?

something like, it's the best course but not my favorite

The AM Handicap Flight and the PM Championship Flight were playing 2 different courses on Saturday for sure, yet it wasn't a Flighted event

[Mark_Fine]

The sad part to me was the outcome of the tournament was definitely impacted by the set up and the luck of the draw.  Maybe one could say that all the time but in this US Open the players who teed off late on Saturday got screwed and brought the whole field back into contention.  The course went over the edge.  It had little to do with how they played and more when they teed off. 

[Ira Fishman]

Brooks Koepka may end up closer to being Andy North than Ben Hogan at the end of the day, but the tournament appears to have crowned a most worthy champion so I do not think the criticism of the set up should be based on the outcome.  However, as reluctant as I am to comment about a course I have seen only on TV, it does seem that the speed of the greens on Saturday interfered with the ability of the players to use the strategic options the layout otherwise provided.  In particular, creative ground game options simply were not going to get rewarded. 


Ira

[Ian Mackenzie]

The sad part to me was the outcome of the tournament was definitely impacted by the set up and the luck of the draw.  Maybe one could say that all the time but in this US Open the players who teed off late on Saturday got screwed and brought the whole field back into contention.  The course went over the edge.  It had little to do with how they played and more when they teed off.

I did not really get what all the fuss was about.


On Saturday, the players who teed off in the am experienced an average wind speed of 6 MPH.
In the afternoon, the wind doubled to 12 MPH average.


why is this any different than if, at the Open Championship, it started to rain sideways in the pm while it was sunny and calm in the am?


Mother Nature got involved and everyone wants to blame the USGA.

[Benjamin Litman]

Blaming the USGA is a lot like cheering for Phil: People don't necessarily know why they do it--and there are plenty of countervailing reasons not to--but most other people do it, so they simply fall into line. Conformity is, for many, hard to resist.

[Mike Schott]

The sad part to me was the outcome of the tournament was definitely impacted by the set up and the luck of the draw.  Maybe one could say that all the time but in this US Open the players who teed off late on Saturday got screwed and brought the whole field back into contention.  The course went over the edge.  It had little to do with how they played and more when they teed off.

I did not really get what all the fuss was about.


On Saturday, the players who teed off in the am experienced an average wind speed of 6 MPH.
In the afternoon, the wind doubled to 12 MPH average.


why is this any different than if, at the Open Championship, it started to rain sideways in the pm while it was sunny and calm in the am?


Mother Nature got involved and everyone wants to blame the USGA.

Yes, Mother Nature is part of the game but when approach shots, nearly perfectly placed, roll off the green by 10-20 yards or into bunkers that's not the weather. The fact that the USGA chose to change the conditions on Sunday by greening up the course is evidence enough.

[Peter Pallotta]

I felt like Mike did, though I can't 'defend' the idea other than in terms of personal temperament, i.e. there is a difference, in playing or watching golf, between the seemingly ordained and the superficially intended -- between the vagaries of fate and the miscalculations of the human mind. I think it's for the same reason that architects who can 'hide their tracks' and create courses that look like they've been there, untouched, for a 100 years, get so much praise: there's something inherent in the spirit/ethos of the game (and in this golfer's psyche) that accepts a bad/unlucky bounce or break from the hand of (disinterested) Nature while rebelling again a similar bad break coming from the (culpable) hand of Man.   

[Ian Mackenzie]

The sad part to me was the outcome of the tournament was definitely impacted by the set up and the luck of the draw.  Maybe one could say that all the time but in this US Open the players who teed off late on Saturday got screwed and brought the whole field back into contention.  The course went over the edge.  It had little to do with how they played and more when they teed off.

I did not really get what all the fuss was about.


On Saturday, the players who teed off in the am experienced an average wind speed of 6 MPH.
In the afternoon, the wind doubled to 12 MPH average.


why is this any different than if, at the Open Championship, it started to rain sideways in the pm while it was sunny and calm in the am?


Mother Nature got involved and everyone wants to blame the USGA.

Yes, Mother Nature is part of the game but when approach shots, nearly perfectly placed, roll off the green by 10-20 yards or into bunkers that's not the weather. The fact that the USGA chose to change the conditions on Sunday by greening up the course is evidence enough.

Please tell that to Tom Watson....;-)...his shot to Turnberry's 18th was about as perfect as you could ask with an 8 iron from 187 for a guy who was 59 at the time...;-)


Plus, I disagree with you.
Shots that did what you said were hit to the wrong part of the green. Perhaps the play was not to be so aggressive and instead hit to a fat part of the green to set up a 40' two-putt and NOT try to hit it inside 15' to set up a birdie.

[Jason Thurman]

I didn't watch the tournament live this year, aside from a few shots here and there and the Phil highlight. What should I watch for when I watch it later, architecturally speaking?


Shout to Jay.


There are courses that show their greatness when hosting Tour pros. There are others that are built for golf's higher pleasures, that speak truth to power when they host the world's best. Augusta flexes for Tiger and Bubba, while Merion holds a mirror up to the USGA and screams "Look what you're doing!" when the circus comes to town. Both are fun to watch.


Where is Shinnecock on the spectrum?

[Tom ORourke]

If you have lived around Philadelphia and played some of the Flynn courses you have seen how he builds great courses with very interesting green complexes. I played in a father-son event at Manufacturers where the other dad had a 60 foot putt from one inch off the green, and the caddy told him to hit it 4 inches and it was either going in or off the green. He actually made it, but the point is that Flynn's greens are not meant to be played at 11, never mind 13-14. I notice that after the Women's AM at Rolling Green a few years ago that no invite for a Ladies Open has come. I think the USGA feels that those greens are too severe. Yet they try going back to Shinnecock? The turning point for me on Saturday came when Rose and Stenson hit into ten. Stenson landed on the front and Rose hit pin high. They ended up 90 yards apart. Stenson rolled back 50 yards and Rose went flying over the back and down the hill. I would rather Davis goes back to the old greenside rough and give them a flop / chip from 10-30 feet rather than a pitch up the hill from 40-50 yards, with the ball rolling back to their feet or going over the back. When the best players have an issue with getting a chip on a green and having it stay on you have screwed up the setup. Now add a drop in humidity, a few more MPHs of wind, and you have a train wreck. Again. I like every Flynn course I have played from Lehigh to Huntingdon Valley to Rolling Green and more. But they are not going to be conducive to a USGA setup. I watched the Tuesday evening champions event and the course was unplayable then, so we all saw this coming. Except for Davis.

[corey miller]

Though I do not agree with the procedure, I do understand why the USGA narrows fairways but shouldn’t that be under the purview of coore & Crenshaw after their restoration work at Shinnecock? 


To hear that the short game areas around the greens are Mike Davis doing is pretty sad.


Heck, I think I liked it better when we had the “open doctor” Reed Jones.  Is it possible Rees may even be less arrogant than Davis?


USGA is a sad joke.

[James Brown]

I think this is pretty simple.  Shinnecock is the windiest and most variably windiest site for an Open except for Pebble. 

[Mike Schott]

The sad part to me was the outcome of the tournament was definitely impacted by the set up and the luck of the draw.  Maybe one could say that all the time but in this US Open the players who teed off late on Saturday got screwed and brought the whole field back into contention.  The course went over the edge.  It had little to do with how they played and more when they teed off.

I did not really get what all the fuss was about.


On Saturday, the players who teed off in the am experienced an average wind speed of 6 MPH.
In the afternoon, the wind doubled to 12 MPH average.


why is this any different than if, at the Open Championship, it started to rain sideways in the pm while it was sunny and calm in the am?


Mother Nature got involved and everyone wants to blame the USGA.

Yes, Mother Nature is part of the game but when approach shots, nearly perfectly placed, roll off the green by 10-20 yards or into bunkers that's not the weather. The fact that the USGA chose to change the conditions on Sunday by greening up the course is evidence enough.

Please tell that to Tom Watson....;-)...his shot to Turnberry's 18th was about as perfect as you could ask with an 8 iron from 187 for a guy who was 59 at the time...;-)


Plus, I disagree with you.
Shots that did what you said were hit to the wrong part of the green. Perhaps the play was not to be so aggressive and instead hit to a fat part of the green to set up a 40' two-putt and NOT try to hit it inside 15' to set up a birdie.

Ian, many of the shots that ran off the greens were hit safely. It was either poor pin placement (13 and 15 on Saturday) and/or poor conditions that caused the poor results on these shots.