AG -
I read those comments and I don't want to believe them. I don't like having my most cynical & grumbling opinions confirmed -- ie, in this case, that money & ego & status once again rule the day. I'd much rather like to think (and be comforted by a romantic view) that my differences with the USGA are rooted in honestly-held principles and good-faith value systems, ie that officials there truly believe that USGA championships are and should be unique tests of golf, that the 'set-ups' actually do highlight the architecture and identify the best golfer of all, and that those set-ups are informed by the most expert opinion available (whether from inside the USGA or not) -- sought out by those officials in the name of professionalism and due diligence and a duty to the game and its great & iconic courses.
As I say, I find it unpleasant to think this is not the case.
Peter,
I, too, would prefer to think all of the same things about the USGA that you would prefer to believe. But the operation just makes that impossible. Like the NCAA, the USGA seems to me to be more about preserving control than doing the right thing, and the revenue stream seems paramount.
Many years ago, when I knew far less about golf courses than now, and before the run of US Open setup disasters, a friend who is in the golf business and whose work intersected with the USGA quite often said to me, "You wouldn't want the USGA to even run the Member-Guest at your club."
More recently, my son, an assistant superintendent at a private club, worked with the USGA when his club hosted a USGA national championship. From his perspective, the experience was just awful, and nearly resulted in his course losing their greens completely. (Surprise!) The best story was that the USGA demanded that week before the tournament started that the USGA hole signs, which were on 4x4's buried about three feet deep, be redone so that they were each a foot higher than the crew had installed them, despite no guidance in advance from the USGA about that critical matter. So the week of a major amateur championship, that's what the crew was spending time on; digging holes.
I think that in ANY large organization, critical self-examination and a culture in which mistakes are owned and admitted and corrected is a paramount virtue. I also think this does NOT come naturally, and especially so if you are a monopoly, which the USGA clearly is. In economic theory, the problem with monopolists isn't that they are getting rich; it's that the incentives for higher quality at lower prices just aren't there.
And so it is with the USGA monopoly; what is their incentive to be self=critical and to improve their product, given that they believe that they know more than you do? So they make groove rules and anchoring bans and the like, with no real evidence supporting their decisions; it's just how they FEEL. That's fine, I suppose, but is it then surprising when they apply the same operating principles to pin placements and turf health on a golf course about which they know far less than others?
Put another way, do you have confidence that the USGA will have learned enough to NOT screw up Pebble Beach? Because I don't; I rather assume that they will. It's who they are.