US Open setup discussion in Golf Digest

[JLahrman]

End result for me - perhaps the media pushes the story too much and makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but there is a problem when the course setup is a dominant storyline for one particular tournament year after year after year.

[Garland Bayley]

This is the lazy take.

"I enjoy watching them struggle?"

Really? There's a fundamental difference between something being difficult and something being a struggle. You are struggling to beat the field and if the other guy is just as likely to card a 3 on a hole as you are that is truly the test of execution - yours against the field.

The more the golf course setup intrudes, the more it becomes a farce.

This is the arrogant take.

It seems to me that the lower your skills, the more the golf course setup intrudes. The logical conclusion would then be that playing golf for the high handicappers is a farce.

I say let them struggle and whine. A little dose of humble pie won't kill them.

[Peter Pallotta]

edit

[A.G._Crockett]

Speaking ONLY for myself, I love the struggle of competitive athletics; literally, it's been my life.  Overcoming your personal limitations, both physical and mental, reaching your limits, trying yourself against others, seeing the fruits of hard work and preparation, all of it.  I think it was Lombardi who said something to the effect that the greatest emotion in life is winning, but the second greatest is losing; you have to have been in the arena to know what he meant.  And there is a Teddy Roosevelt quote about the man in the arena that I kept on my desk, and used with various athletes over the years after a missed shot at the end of a basketball game, or whatever.  I love that struggle, and when I can't do this anymore, I'll be a sad, sad dude.


I love competitive golf, both as a player and as a spectator, for all of the reasons above.  Just as I don't think I would enjoy watching a basketball game with an uneven floor so that there were random bounces of the ball that had nothing to do with the skill of the players, or a baseball field with holes in it, or a football field with incorrect yardage markers or tilted goal posts, I not only don't enjoy playing golf on courses in bad condition, I don't enjoy watching the randomness of that when the best players in the world are asked to play under poor course conditions.  THAT is not the struggle that I want to see.

Watching Woods control himself at Augusta while others more or less failed to do so was wonderful and thrilling, as well as historic.  There was nothing wonderful or thrilling about watching what happened to Dustin Johnson at Chambers Bay, and it is noted in the Golf Digest piece that all the players knew in advance that the tournament would ultimately be LOST (not won!) by a missed short putt on bad, bumpy greens.  That's not the right struggle.


Simlarly, there was nothing wonderful or thrilling about seeing what Mickelson did last year on Saturday at Shinnecock.  It was an embarrassment to the game in every respect; the surprising thing to me was that in the GD piece, the support for Mickelson was essentially unanimous.  And that isn't the right struggle, either.


None of this stuff happens anywhere else, all year, ever; only at the US Open.  And that tells ME all I need to know.

[Kyle Harris]

A. G. Crockett,

[/size]Louis Oosthuiszen managed to shoot 29 on the back nine on Sunday at Chambers Bay in the what... third from last group? Maybe he was dragging his feet around the hole.  [size=78%]

[/size]DJ's mental mistakes are indeed mental mistakes. [size=78%]

[/size]I don't think Chambers Bay was an example of course setup gone too far. [size=78%]

[A.G._Crockett]

A. G. Crockett,

Louis Oosthuiszen managed to shoot 29 on the back nine on Sunday at Chambers Bay in the what... third from last group? Maybe he was dragging his feet around the hole.  [size=78%]

[/size]DJ's mental mistakes are indeed mental mistakes. [size=78%]

[/size]I don't think Chambers Bay was an example of course setup gone too far.

[size=78%]
Kyle

A comment from a person labeled "Former US Open Champion":  "Chambers Bay, the greens were so bad, everyone knew it was going to end the way it did, with someone (Dustin Johnson) missing a short putt."
A second comment from that same person, later in the article:  "The fairways at Chambers Bay were running the same speed as the greens.  Miss some greens by a foot, and the ball finished 100 yards away."
I remember two things most clearly about Chambers Bay:  First, that you literally could not tell where the green started and the fairway/fringe ended.  And second, the worm's eye view of DJ's putt; it jumped and wobbled a half dozen times in 3'.  Neither of those resemble golf anywhere else all year, and neither serve as a coherent test of skill.  Beyond that, we'll have to agree to disagree about the setup there.  I thought it was silly to watch, demeaning to RTJ III and the superintendent, and an exercise in pointless randomness for golf.
[/size]

[Lou_Duran]

From Golfweek:
"The United States Golf Association announced that more than 9,000 golfers submitted entries for the U.S. Open.
"That’s a lot of people hoping to play Pebble Beach Golf Links June 13-16.
"The total number of entries was 9,215 to be exact, marking the eighth straight year that more than 9,000 entries were received. Golfers from all 50 states and 78 countries threw their hats in the ring."

I like the US Open objective as articulated by Sandy Tatum- paraphrasing: not to embarrass the best, but to identify them- and the normal setup.  If given the choice at my home club of having a USGA official-in-charge set up the course or the guys from the maintenance staff doing it every day, I'll take the USGA "expert" every time.

All the whining about bad bounces and luck!  I was under the impression that we like quirk and serendipity on this site.

The numbers above don't lie.  It's not like the USGA is throwing an S&M party and no one shows up.  Those who don't want the stress have options.  As Jeff Ogilvy notes in the Trinity Forest thread, without stress there is no fun (or something to that effect).  I think that having four distinct "Majors" (Players included, PGA not so much) is a good thing.

[Kalen Braley]

AG and Tom (in posts 11 and 12) already hit the nail on the head.

This is about a big bloated organization wanting to tramp stamp their signature event and no way they can resist sitting back and leaving well enough alone.  Heaven forbid what will they do with the bloated staff and resources otherwise?  Last thing they want is the average joe to actually know things can run just fine without the USGA....

P.S.  Lou, you need to layoff the bong pipe with that last comment....for real.

[A.G._Crockett]

From Golfweek:
"The United States Golf Association announced that more than 9,000 golfers submitted entries for the U.S. Open.
"That’s a lot of people hoping to play Pebble Beach Golf Links June 13-16.
"The total number of entries was 9,215 to be exact, marking the eighth straight year that more than 9,000 entries were received. Golfers from all 50 states and 78 countries threw their hats in the ring."

I like the US Open objective as articulated by Sandy Tatum- paraphrasing: not to embarrass the best, but to identify them- and the normal setup.  If given the choice at my home club of having a USGA official-in-charge set up the course or the guys from the maintenance staff doing it every day, I'll take the USGA "expert" every time.

All the whining about bad bounces and luck!  I was under the impression that we like quirk and serendipity on this site.

The numbers above don't lie.  It's not like the USGA is throwing an S&M party and no one shows up.  Those who don't want the stress have options.  As Jeff Ogilvy notes in the Trinity Forest thread, without stress there is no fun (or something to that effect).  I think that having four distinct "Majors" (Players included, PGA not so much) is a good thing.

Lou,I know that you have an interest in economics.  The USGA is a monopolist, and the problem with monopolists is that there is no incentive for them to produce better quality at lower prices.  That 9000 plus people hope to play in the US Open has absolutely ZERO to do with whether or not the USGA is providing a quality product; it's the US freaking Open.  One of the ironies here is that in years where the USGA has just completely screwed the pooch in course setups and conditions, most of the 9000 were eliminated on courses that were in good condition and with a proper setup.

[Lou_Duran]

Kalen- another edifying post from you.  Maybe you need to step out of your myopic world of 0s and 1s.  There is a class warfare element to the frequent attacks on the USGA that I find disheartening.


A.G,- you may wish to brush up on what is a monopoly and how relevant they are today in a world economy.  Your assertion that monopolies have no incentive to improve is inexplicable as is the suggestion that the USGA is stuck in a rut.  There are pros who don't play in The Open for a variety of reasons including the style and quality of the courses.  While the US Open may not be everyone's cup of tea, no one is forced to play in it.  As someone who has officiated in quite a few USGA qualifying rounds, your assertions about the conditions and set up are not borne out by my experience.  Complaints about poor lies, bumpy greens and "unfair" hole locations are not uncommon, but these come mostly from marginal players who have little chance of succeeding.  And then there are the whines about the rules, but I think that we have beat that dead horse to death a few times already.  Cheers!   
   

[JESII]

Lou,


I am the other USGA defender on here, but to use US Open applicant numbers as supporting evidence might be a reach.


Using the same handicap limit (maybe 1.2?), how many people would you estimate applying for The Masters if they opened it up?


AG,


The USGA certainly overlooks the meal in the US Open too often, but the good outweighs the bad exponentially...and asking a Tour player from any generation what they think of the course is akin to asking Michael Spinks what he thought of the fight...

[Peter Pallotta]

Jim -
they have a right to set up a golf course in any way they deem most likely to identify the best golfer, and even to assume that a score of around -1 for the week is the right barometer/indicator of that.
But: if at courses as diverse as Merion & Olympic & Bethpage & Oakmont & Shinnecock the winning score is always around that number, year after year, from the east coast to the west, from linksy to parkland, don't you at least wonder if the USGA 'stamp' hasn't gotten too dominant -obliterating (in any meaningful sense) the very excellence in architecture/design that made those classic courses great (each in their own distinct way) in the first place?
At least Spinks had his family and cornerman crying for him; who else should cry for the (even just temporary) loss of America's finest historic designs if not the USGA?

[Sean_A]

I have asked before...what does identify the best golfer mean? Is that some sort of code that one of better players on tour should win and if not, the set-up wasn't right?  I don't get it.  Best score wins, regardless if folks like or dislike a set-up.  To me, identify the best player is right there with using all the clubs in the bag and he gets it.  Sounds good on a very superficial level, but WTF?

Ciao

[JESII]

Peter - that was supposed to say overcooks the meal...which would agree with your point that they try to hard to manipulate a score.

[Garland Bayley]

The Masters invites their players so the players feel obligated to not point out shortcomings.

Players earn their way into the open so they feel free to complain.

Golf Digest may have published these complaints about the open, but their articles have also stated in the past that players will not let them publish their critiques of Augusta.

This article complains that the USGA won't use PGA Tour staff to set up the course. I have to ask what major allows PGA Tour staff to set up the course?

Could PGA Tour staff get the mix of fescue and poa anua grass on Chambers greens to be less bumpy late in the day given the different growth rates of the grasses?

Can DJ always hit quality putts under pressure? I believe he made a bad stroke and AG and crybaby pros are making a mountain out of a mouse.

[JESII]

Watching a replay of last years PGA and the greens look dreadful...8 footers wobble 3 or 4 ways