[Robert Giuffra]

The 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock remains one of the most controversial in the past 20 years.  On the final day, the wind had dried out the greens to the point where the USGA was forced to water them mid-round.   The severely sloped green of the par 3 seventh was near impossible to hold, and some players even aimed for the front bunker to try to make par.

Shinnecock is a hard course to set up because the wind off the ocean is so unpredictable, and the course plays firm and fast with tight runoff areas around slippery greens.   The wind speed at Augusta or Muirfield Village doesn’t change by 20 miles per hour within a single day. But the wind at Shinnecock can change direction and speed several times in a day.

Critics of the 2004 U.S. Open sometimes forget that Retief Goosen won with 276 (4-under par).  In the final round, with Phil Mickelson breathing down his neck, Goosen put on perhaps the most brilliant display of putting ever seen in the final round of the U.S. Open.  He deserved to win.


When the U.S. Open returned to Shinnecock in 2018, the winning score was one over par, but this Open was one of the most exciting in recent years.  The winner, Brooks Koepka, played a hard course better and smarter than anyone else in the field.  He won by a single shot over Tommy Fleetwood, who shot a 63 in the final round and missed several short putts at the end. 


Some other players were too aggressive.  They tried to attack every pin and didn’t take their medicine when they missed the fescue-lined fairways.  This level of aggressive play is what we see week after week on the PGA Tour, even at the Masters. 


In the third round of the 2018 U.S. Open, wind speeds increased substantially in the afternoon.  This is what happens when a course is near the ocean.   As the greens dried out, scores rose, and the players complained loudly about the USGA’s course set-up, as if the USGA was responsible for the change in the wind.  Phil Mickelson famously lost his temper on the 13 hole when he played hockey on the green.

Golf is supposed to be hard on a U.S. Open course when the wind whips up to over 20 miles per hour.  The players who played in the afternoon were just unlucky to play in the toughest conditions, but that’s golf. It’s not basketball where the climate-controlled conditions are perfect for every NBA game.

Since 2014, every U.S. Open winner has shot below par, except for Brooks Koepka in 2018 at Shinnecock.  In fact, at Erin Hills, Koepka shot 16-under par.   And since the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock, the winning scores have been 13-under at Pebble Beach and 6-under at Winged Foot, the site of the 1974’s “Massacre at Winged Foot,” where Hale Irwin won with 7-over par.  Is the USGA now afraid of the winner shooting over par?

The U.S. Open should be golf’s toughest test.  The USGA is now building a second headquarters in Pinehurst and plans to hold the Open at Pinehurst No. 2, a great golf course, five times between 2024 and 2047.   But Pinehurst No. 2, with its domed shaped greens but wide fairways, never plays as tough as Shinnecock or Oakmont.  In 2014, Martin Kaymer won at Pinehurst with 271 (9-under).   

Let’s hope the USGA doesn’t shy away from the toughest courses where even the winner can’t break par.  And let’s hope the players stop complaining at the U.S. Open in 2026 because sudden shifts in the wind make a hard course even harder.

[Mark Mammel]

As Sandy Tatum said at Winged Foot in 1974, when there was a hue and cry among the players about the course setup, "We are not trying to humiliate the best players in the world, we're simply trying to identify who they are."

[Sean_A]

Why should the US Open be golf's toughest test and how is test defined?

IMO every set up tests different skills and intelligence. There is even an argument to be made about the balance of testing skill and intelligence.

Ciao

[Peter Flory]

Would be interesting if the defending champion was in charge of course setup. 

[Kyle Harris]

Wait.


The US Open has a green with a hole cut to a different diameter than the rest?

[JESII]

Boy do I find myself right on the fence with this one.


To me, the best thing the USGA could do is subcontract the PGA Tour set up guys but tell them to push the envelope.


The Tour guys do it for 40+ courses a year. The USGA does it for 1 (2 if you count the US AM as Open prep course) and seem to over manage it. Rarely does it seem the courses true character shows through.


That's my beef with your Shinnecock examples, Robert. They (USGA) seemed to make last second decisions that effect everything they've done for several years leading up. The course is so good, and the conditions generally so challenging that trying to manipulate a numbers really strips out what could be spectacular golf. Goosen's putting was spectacular but almost surreal.


All in, I like the US Open to be extremely challenging for the guys...but I'm not endorsing your Shinnecock examples. Didn't they have a day of unbelievably low scoring? Almost on purpose...

[Steve Salmen]

One thing I can say for sure about the 2018 US Open, was that there was never going to be a repeat of what happened at #7 in 2004.  I spent quite a bit of time at the hole and noticed a few things:
-On Monday morning, I took a photo with no fewer than 15 people, mostly USGA officials I assume, at the 7th green.  They were walking around a lot and discussing hole locations.  A few guys were putting balls around.
-On Friday afternoon, I sat at the green for a few hours.  The flag was sort of front center, and the wind seemed to be helping towards the east.  Balls that came in lower, seemed to bounce hard and go long and left.  However, many balls held the green easily.  Patrick Cantlay nearly aced the hole, sticking an iron less than a foot and holding it there.
-This was my big takeaway, though.  Several balls that did not fly past the front of the green held onto the false front and did not roll back down the hill.  This is a very severe slope, not designed for balls to sit there.  This certainly helped improve scoring and pace of play.

[jeffwarne]

The 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock remains one of the most controversial in the past 20 years.  On the final day, the wind had dried out the greens to the point where the USGA was forced to water them mid-round.   The severely sloped green of the par 3 seventh was near impossible to hold, and some players even aimed for the front bunker to try to make par.

Shinnecock is a hard course to set up because the wind off the ocean is so unpredictable, and the course plays firm and fast with tight runoff areas around slippery greens.   The wind speed at Augusta or Muirfield Village doesn’t change by 20 miles per hour within a single day. But the wind at Shinnecock can change direction and speed several times in a day.

yet somehow, year after year, the Super at Shinny pulls it off year after year at big Club events.
We did find out who was the best putter(that day) in 2004.(hitting greens was hardly possible)
The weather on Sunday in '04 was EXACTLY what was predicted in the forecast on Saturday-I was there every day.
2018, again, the USGA couldn't help themselves in round 1 and 3-despite the stigma and the warnings.(and an on site rep for TWO years before the event)
To be fair, there was an outbreak of perfect June weather(who'dve thunk that)
Rain bailed them out the other days, then they reacted on Sunday with a different type of course again, with a new twist-dead, wet, softer(from copious watering) greens.


Too bad they don't use 1/10 of the resources they use to over-manage event agronomy, to "properly" regulate equipment(which would make the annual plinko treatment less necessary)

[Jeff_Brauer]

Relating back to the "formula" thread, this shows why many go conservative to ultra-conservative in design and set up, to avoid being criticized.  No one really knows where to draw that line, because no one can really predict the weather.


My take is, however, that there ought to be, under reasonably presumable conditions, at least one way to play at any hole location and make par, even for the top players.  (A fade, draw, or some other shot pattern might be required, and that might take some or much of the field out of that par possibility from time to time.) Obviously, there can be too hot or near hurricane days once in a while.  Not sure how to test that line, but if play is cancelled or suspended for wind, or to water certain greens every hour, more than once every decade, the line may have been crossed. Are every 5 years too often to have unusual playing conditions?  I don't know, but probably borderline from the host USGA's POV.



For what it's worth, of all the last generation Tour Pros I know every one of them said that for the Masters or Open, they may have thought the conditions were unfair, but because of what the tournament was, they were going to play it and not complain, whereas they might if it was a PGA Tour event (including the TPC Championship and PGA Championship) where they felt they should have a say. (because they might not be invited back to the Masters)


To me, the saddest thing was 7 at Shinney turned from being played as a Redan into trying to cut the shot into the bank to hold the green.  However, I still view that change in strategy as inevitable for even normal green speed Redans.  It's the player's job to negotiate the hole, even if the gca has tried to ask him to play it a certain way.


I have no problem even with the traditional Open setups.  As Tatum said, they are trying to separate the field into 1 and 143.  Or maybe 4 and 140.  The normal PGA Tour stop is trying to keep everyone competitive (and you can say it's more exciting that way most weeks) and out of embarrassing score territory to avoid hurt feelings (i.e., protect the lower half of the field from embarrassment)


Summary?  It is what it is.  I know the powers that be take it all very seriously and talk endlessly about every possibility, whereas back when I was setting cups as a summer job at a muni, I never gave borderline cup placements a second thought....and I was the only golfer on the crew, which is why they gave me that job, LOL.

[Mark Smolens]

Driving your ball into the fairway is certainly an important skill in the game of golf, one that should be tested in an event such as the US Open. I for one, however, do not find watching every player who misses a fairway, by whatever amount of distance, be required to hack a wedge out of 6 or 8" grass just to get the ball back into play. Indeed, another important skill in the game is the player's ability to "recover" after missing a fairway. The traditional US Open setup with strips of narrow fairway surrounded by unplayable rough, which Mike Davis must be given credit for eliminating, created boring slogs and 6 hour rounds.


As for the firmness issues on greens and surrounds, I agree with Mr. Bauer that the vagaries of Mother Nature will always create havoc for the best laid plans of those setting up the tests that are the National Open Championship

[Tom_Doak]

Robert:


Were you on site at Shinnecock in 2004, or are you just watching old footage?


I'm fine with hard set-ups, but pretty much everyone involved in 2004 would agree that one got away from them.  The most ridiculous part was them acting like no one could have foreseen such dry, windy conditions at Shinnecock Hills, which deals them up all the time. 


They were trying to take the golf course right up to the edge, and the wind drove it over the cliff.  Any proper set-up has got to hold back just a little, just in case the weather turns.

[V. Kmetz]

To the extent that all TV golf is just an entertainment, I don't care, I like watching the struggle and the thwarting of their usually heroic games.


To the extent that such conditions unmoor with mere fortune this would be champion from that and the unusually tough or extreme conditions make weather or a blade of grass as big a determinant as skill, I'm less pleased, but still, what do I really care. We all generally like a train wreck that doesn't claim us, and in which the losers make millions too as balm for their wounds, despite what we say.


To the extent that such conditions, set up, preparations are taken to be instructive, modeling or constitute architecture that we all like, will support, would want to play if we could...no f'n way.  I've played there twice and attended one day of each of the last three USOs...combined with climate Thursday of the 2018 was the stupidest iteration of F/F ever... that's not golf, even for elite tolerance...


None of you in your purest F/F bounce and roll souls would enjoy a day there and if ytou do, you like penal courses more than you say... it was ridiculous... Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelsom, maybe Jack Nicklaus never had to demonstrate such mastery... the idea that F/F like that is the soul of the game is as B.S. as the soul of the game being called a lofted wedge.


As a spectacle for me on TV, great...fly your freak flag high... as an influence on presentment for my play or casting the fine GCA properties of the subject course in relief, heads should roll.

[Steve Salmen]

Thursday morning of 2018, I sat above the 10th green.  I saw a double and two triples over maybe 5 groups. The hole played dead down wind from the tee.  Schwartzel hit his second shot over the green.  The flag was center, as far back from the front as they could possibly place it.  He hit his wedge a foot or two past the flag, it hopped, checked, and spun back to his feet. 


Several players hit it over the green but I don't recall anyone playing a running iron shot or putt back to the hole.  I also don't think I saw anyone get up and down.


That was an example of a 400 yard hole playing about as difficult as any golf hole can with respect to par and the green is not very severe.

[Mark_Fine]

The problem with golf is it is an outdoor game subject to Mother Nature and there is luck and rub of the green involved.  Sometimes a golf tournament identifies the best golfer and sometimes it identifies the luckiest best golfer.  As hard as the USGA or anyone else tries to make the playing field “fair” (I hate to use that word), they will never control luck or Mother Nature or the rub of the green.  And if they ever do it will be a very sterile game probably played inside a closed doom and even then the luckier golfer might still prevail.

[Jeff_Brauer]

To the extent that all TV golf is just an entertainment, I don't care, I like watching the struggle and the thwarting of their usually heroic games.


To the extent that such conditions unmoor with mere fortune this would be champion from that and the unusually tough or extreme conditions make weather or a blade of grass as big a determinant as skill, I'm less pleased, but still, what do I really care. We all generally like a train wreck that doesn't claim us, and in which the losers make millions too as balm for their wounds, despite what we say.


To the extent that such conditions, set up, preparations are taken to be instructive, modeling or constitute architecture that we all like, will support, would want to play if we could...no f'n way.  I've played there twice and attended one day of each of the last three USOs...combined with climate Thursday of the 2018 was the stupidest iteration of F/F ever... that's not golf, even for elite tolerance...


None of you in your purest F/F bounce and roll souls would enjoy a day there and if ytou do, you like penal courses more than you say... it was ridiculous... Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelsom, maybe Jack Nicklaus never had to demonstrate such mastery... the idea that F/F like that is the soul of the game is as B.S. as the soul of the game being called a lofted wedge.


As a spectacle for me on TV, great...fly your freak flag high... as an influence on presentment for my play or casting the fine GCA properties of the subject course in relief, heads should roll.

Philosophically, who does the USGA run their championships for?  Unlike NHL, NFL, NBA, and even PGA Tour, I think they care less about the TV spectacle and more about the competitors since they are trying to identify national champions of golf in various categories.  (The PGA Tour only tries to identify the Milwaukee Open, or wherever, champion for a week.)


So, as mentioned, they try to balance the most difficult test against the worst possible case scenario for dryness, fast and firm, and wind - on both ends of the spectrum, by the way.  And, if they try to go too far to the edge, they may miss occasionally.  If they go too conservative, they let more possibly undeserving players back in the title mix. 


I understand that if they make the field, most would say they are deserving of a win, but in reality, we all hoped for someone who has at least won something before to win the majors, since it tends to validate the tournament a bit more.

[V. Kmetz]

I didn't mean their "intent" to run a spectacle... I meant that:


1. It's a spectacle, to those fans who care enough to watch,...ruin and double bogeys
2.  They may not say it, but controversies and interest don't hurt them - no such thing as bad publicity in the course set up regard.

[Peter Pallotta]

Good post, Robert.

I think the issue is that the USGA wants to eat its cake and have it too; there's a misalignment between the courses it picks and the tests it wants. USGA officials have always seemed to want to (obsequiously) associate themselves with the most elite & historic of private courses-clubs* e.g. Merion and Shinnecock. But then they turn right around and (arrogantly) take charge of the set up to make sure that those same course fulfill the USGA's artificial/arbitrary mandate of making par a good winning score.

It isn't the weather or anything else: as Jeff W points out (and he would know): left to himself, the Super at Shinny year after year manages to 'set up' the course perfectly for the big Club events.

In other words, the USGA seems to love absolutely everything about courses like Shinnecock, except the course-design itself!

Peter
* Except for occasionally slumming at Bethpage.

[Robert Giuffra]

Robert:


Were you on site at Shinnecock in 2004, or are you just watching old footage?


I'm fine with hard set-ups, but pretty much everyone involved in 2004 would agree that one got away from them.  The most ridiculous part was them acting like no one could have foreseen such dry, windy conditions at Shinnecock Hills, which deals them up all the time. 


They were trying to take the golf course right up to the edge, and the wind drove it over the cliff.  Any proper set-up has got to hold back just a little, just in case the weather turns.

Mr. Doak,
I was not on site for the 2004 Us Open. I was however there in 2018 and had a great time watching the play. I do agree that in 2004 the USGA “lost” the golf course. I was simply trying to use 2004 as another resent example of hard golf at Shinnecock. Did the 2004 Us Open not crown the winner as the best and smartest player in the field for those four rounds?


Best,
Robert

[Tom_Doak]

Mr. Doak,
I was not on site for the 2004 Us Open. I was however there in 2018 and had a great time watching the play. I do agree that in 2004 the USGA “lost” the golf course. I was simply trying to use 2004 as another resent example of hard golf at Shinnecock. Did the 2004 Us Open not crown the winner as the best and smartest player in the field for those four rounds?

That seems like a rhetorical question.  You can always say the winner was the guy who handled the set-up the best, no matter how ridiculous the set-up was, and of course you'd use the words "best" and "smartest" if you are trying to defend that set-up.  But I did feel like at that tournament, more than any other I've watched, some of the results around the greens were just a crap shoot where even smart play might get you nowhere.


I had a discussion with Padraig Harrington recently, and he said he would much rather play a hard course that's set up appropriately easy for the day, than play a normal course where they are trying to set it up hard.  I am not by any means calling Shinnecock "normal", but I think there's something in that statement that could have been applied in 2004.

[Tom_Doak]

2.  They may not say it, but controversies and interest don't hurt them - no such thing as bad publicity in the course set up regard.

The TV network may have enjoyed the controversy and interest -- although they had to be very careful what they were saying about their "partners" -- but I really don't think the USGA brass has the same attitude toward publicity that Donald Trump does.  There were a lot of people at the USGA who were really disturbed with what happened in 2004 and determined not to let it happen again.  [Until it did.]

[Joe Hancock]

It would seem to me that any set up that has a certain type of player in mind has the potential to backfire. If the fairways are narrowed and the rough deepened, it would favor an accurate driver of the ball, for instance.........until someone comes along and hits it so far that they don’t care if they’re in the fairway or not.


Trying to identify someone’s idea of the “best player” on any given week seems difficult, mostly because there is a lot of ways to play the game.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Joe,


I'm sure the USGA guys had no trouble settling on what they felt was the "right way" to play championship golf.  If considering a design for the other 99% of courses that will never hold a tournament, like you, I think trying to generally (no quotas) balance the challenges makes sense, although some courses seem to naturally favor one type of golf, i.e. wooded courses tend to have narrow fairways and reward accuracy.

[jeffwarne]

  There were a lot of people at the USGA who were really disturbed with what happened in 2004 and determined not to let it happen again.  [Until it did.]

That's what shocked me the most in 2018.


In 2002 they turned a muni into a private.(in more ways than one)
In 2004, they reversed it....

[V. Kmetz]

2.  They may not say it, but controversies and interest don't hurt them - no such thing as bad publicity in the course set up regard.

The TV network may have enjoyed the controversy and interest -- although they had to be very careful what they were saying about their "partners" -- but I really don't think the USGA brass has the same attitude toward publicity that Donald Trump does.  There were a lot of people at the USGA who were really disturbed with what happened in 2004 and determined not to let it happen again.  [Until it did.]

You may be well be right that there's an element in golf admin. who cares about the issue at focus here... but they are nearly moot and ineffectual, no one is held accountable, and actually TD, I'm hard pressed to think of the US Open since 04 (and the Bethpage/Mike Davis cognizance) that went consecutive years without a controversy about the course, how its presented, what was done to make it presentable... sadly, even though the reboot 86 and 95 Open register with us folk as tournaments about the competition and how it went, the first question any Open will get at Shinnecock for the modern generation, is have they gone too far...

Another part is that while TV is not going to blast their purchased products, TV doesn't fear their sports as much as earns concessions from them... can you honestly say that the move to a sudden death style for all the majors isn't a direct concession to TV to give them (and us, the public supposedly hungering for it) a Sunday dinner hour winner? ... that two tees more ensures that the 4 rd schedule will be followed despite weather? and with that relationship in locked effect, I say those voices are much louder more meaningful than the faction that is embarrassed that a course gets away....albeit in the extremities of CoVid and a rescheduled golf slate, look how quickly and without muss NBC took back the USGA properties from Fox last year... if the money is worked out to all parties satisfactions....In effect, I'm saying that the USGA has given over its treasure for treasury...like all sports it really doesn't matter what happens or how it happens, just that the games go on and they generate viewership.


In another thread (future venues?) you voiced support for a return to Chambers Bay...why?  That course was a contrast nightmare for TV viewing, with (I'm to understand) sections of the course choked off for onsite spectators, that was a golfing version of a Plinko board...

[Joe_Tucholski]

The U.S. Open should be golf’s toughest test.  The USGA is now building a second headquarters in Pinehurst and plans to hold the Open at Pinehurst No. 2, a great golf course, five times between 2024 and 2047.   But Pinehurst No. 2, with its domed shaped greens but wide fairways, never plays as tough as Shinnecock or Oakmont.  In 2014, Martin Kaymer won at Pinehurst with 271 (9-under). 

I know most are focusing on your analysis of Shinnecock but not sure Pinehurst should be included in the US Open courses that plays on the easier side.  You reference 2014 where Kaymer ran away with the event due to an unbelievable 2 rounds at 130.  There were 3 people under par.  Kaymer at -9 and Fowler/Compton at -1.  Also remember they held the Women's US Open the next week (only Wie under par) which I have to believe impacted what they could do with the course.

In 2005 no one at Pinehurst was under par.

For comparison Oakmont, the other course you list as playing tough, had 4 players under par in 2016 (and Lowry had a bad final round).

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