Whistling Straits: US Open worthy?

[Garland Bayley]

Phil:

I don't know how you can talk about Open sites without taking logistics and market into account.

The geographic basis of the discussion is is the Chicago market and an extended area including southern Wisconsin, and northern Illinois.

So I think that gives us, as three interesting possibilities:

Whistling Straights- I wouldn't drop it yet just because the PGA was played there- many US OPen sites have also hosted PGAs;

Erin Hills- there seems to a lot of interest today, but it has just opened and time will tell if it is truly worthy;

Cog Hill Dubsdread- if the Rees Jones re-do is successful. I think this may the best option if the re-do works; it has the location, the population, the space, basically everything needed.

Substitute Chambers Bay for Cog Hill and you get my vote.

[Jim Nugent]

Here are Golf Mag's top 30 U.S. courses, along with my not-so-well-informed notes about which might be able to hold a U.S. Open, from a golfing and logistical standpoint...

1.  Pine Valley.  Logistical problems.  Does club want it?
2.  Cypress Point.  Too short.  Logistical problems.
3.  Augusta National.  Won't get two majors.
4.  Shinnecock Hills.  Already in the rota
5.  Pebble Beach.  Already in the rota
6.  Sand Hills.  Too remote.
7.  Merion (East).  Coming soon.  Great laboratory, from course and logistical viewpoints.
8.  Pacific Dunes.  Too short?  Too remote?
9.  Oakmont.  Already in the rota.
10. Pinehurst (No. 2).  Already in rota.
11. National Golf Links of America.  Too short.  
12. Seminole.  Weather and logistical (?) problems.  
13. Crystal Downs.  Too remote?  Too short?  Does club want?
14.  San Francisco.  Logistical problems?  Too short?  Does club want?
15.  Prairie Dunes.  A possibility, though kind of remote.
16.  Winged Foot (West).  Already in rota.
17.  Fishers Island.  Too short.  Logistical impossibility.
18.  Oakland Hills (South).  In PGA rota.
19.  Bethpage (Black).   Already in rota.
20.  Chicago.  Too short.
21.  The Country Club (Championship).  Has been in rota.  Possible for future.
22.  Riviera.  Course good enough and can handle logistics.
23.  Muirfield Village.  Course good enough (?) and can handle logistics.
24.  Oak Hill (East).  Has held in past.  Good enough?
25.  Baltusrol (Lower).  Course and logistics ok, but recently held PGA.  
26.  Olympic (Lake).  Currently in rota.
27.  Southern Hills.  Sort of in rota.
28.  Whistling Straits (Straits).  Course and logistics good enough, but with PGA now.    
29.  TPC at Sawgrass (Stadium).  Weather concerns.
30.  Los Angeles (North).  Course and logistics fine.  Club doesn't want?  

Of the top 30 GW courses, that leaves damn few candidates.  (If my one-line analyses are right.)  What about Ballyneal and Sebonack?    

[Phil McDade]

Jim:

Well, the attempt at throwing out Pine Valley, Sand Hills and Ballyneal into the mix was to generate a bit of debate about the architectural merits of those courses as US Open courses, not as legitimate sites for them. If, as Ran suggests, the USGA's financial position is such that it can take a "breather" every so often, who not extend that argument to its logical extreme and debate the merits of SH and Ballyneal? (I actually think you can put Pine Valley into this argument, if the club wanted to host, which I've read is doubtful.)

The USGA clearly wants to move its major around the country, as a way to access all of the corporate money that's available in different regions. They searched very hard for a second/third West Coast course, and came up with an elongated Torrey Pines as the answer. Nice scenery; Open-worthy course? Maybe it will be. There were lots of doubters about Bethpage, and a friend of mine who played it a lot when he lived out there said a year before the Open there that it would absolutely eat the pros up, and he was largely correct.

And Ran's argument about the three new ones added -- Bethpage, Shinnecock and Pinehurst -- gives credence to the argument that it was nice to host the Open at courses of true architectural merit. But those are also pretty safe markets -- and market considerations are some of the biggest factors influencing USGA Open siting decisions these days, it seems to me.

It also seems like folks are looking for Chicago alternatives, but what about Olympia Fields? Sure, it yielded lots of low scores the first two days, but besides the top 2 finishers, its resistance to scoring was not atypical of recent Opens, and certainly better than Medinah. Does anyone out there really think a Rees-a-fied Dubsdread would be a better than Olympia Fields as a US Open course?

[Yancey_Beamer]

I've played Whistling Straits.It is truly magnificent. I believe it qualifies as a potential Open site.There is not any reason to require that a worthy site be 80 years old.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

No it is a fake course.

[John Kirk]

I liked Whistling Straits as a pro tournament course.  I thought the fact it is very long (7500 yards) makes the players use more long irons, and probably offers a more balanced test of their games, without having to resort to ultra narrow fairways to keep scoring high enough.

One thing the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits featured was a very tight leaderboard, with 3 players tied for the lead (-8) after 72 holes, and 9 other players within three strokes.  I believe some courses tend to stretch out the field, while others yield a narrow scoring distribution.  I think it likely that a U.S. Open (or the next PGA) is likely to feature a bunched leaderbaord on Sunday afternoon.

Unless Tiger runs away with it again.  That's Tiger Woods, not Tiger Bernhardt.  And to our Tiger, I'm not terribly fond of the Straits course from a distance, as I like courses that aren't manufactured.  But I thought it proved to be an excellent PGA tournament course.

[Phil McDade]

Is Whistling Straits that much more manufactured than Oakmont? Other than some very neat terrain, what makes Oakmont a worthy (and feared) open course? Its penal bunkers and very exacting greens. Was any of that "found" there, or was it manufactured by Fownes? OK, it has pedigree well beyond WS, and maybe that's a fair argument for holding an Open there as opposed to WS. But I don't think "manufacturing" is a very good argument relative to the merits of Open-worthy courses.

[JohnV]

Phil,

Everything at Whistling Straights is manufactured, it was a flat field.  Other than digging bunkers, next to nothing was moved at Oakmont.

As for WS, it does have the US Senior Open this year so that is a start for the USGA.  Plus they've had Women's Open at the other courses there so perhaps a US Open will happen.

[Phil McDade]

John:

Well, Oakmont's two most notable features, and what gives it its teeth, are completely manufactured -- its greens and bunkers.

Herb Kohler really, really wanted a US Open at WS, and lobbied pretty hard for it. But the PGA offered him a pretty good deal -- two PGAs (one for the one it moved from Seattle due to Olympic Games overlap), plus the Ryder Cup. I think Herb still hopes to land a US Open at WS, but I'm not sure it's going to happen before 2020, given how much other major tourney activity it's going to see in the next several years.