Greetings From San Diego: USGA Media Day Edition
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The USGA hosted its annual U.S. Open media day to give the region's newspaper assistant copy editors, middle-of-the-night radio sports talk show hosts and club newsletter columnists the chance to spend six hours slashing around Torrey Pines for free.
Jay Rains addresses the press (click to enlarge).
As part of the trade out for being comp'd and receiving a cap and bag tag, the moochers had to sit through a press conference hosted by media relations man Craig Smith, with speeches from president Jim Vernon (who made a great impression, as expected), executive committee member Jay Rains (it's okay to smile Jay!), Torrey Pines superintendent Mark Woodward (talks faster than Marty Scorsese on speed), championship committee chair Jim Hyler (the next Prez) and USGA competitions director Mike Davis (the main draw).
Each offered remarks you can read here, including some fresh golf course setup insights from Hyler and Davis. Following was a short Q&A and on beamed in DVD, defending champion Angel Cabrera interviewed by Alex Miceli.
A transcript of the Cabrera interview was passed out before the play button was hit, which allowed everyone who remained to track every painstaking minute, which turned out to be 20 for those of us who stayed around. Nothing against Cabrera, but it became obvious within a minute or so that no one really wanted to hear each question translated in Spanish, followed by the answer in Spanish before we heard the interpretation.
Note to USGA: editing was invented for a reason.
As the interview progressed, it became hard to hear Cabrera above the chatter among those still in attendance. The droves filed out to prepare for losing ten balls and posting their three-digit scores.
While someone surely appreciated the journalistic integrity of showing us questions and answers in Spanish, next time let's chop that baby up and whittle it down to the English portion of the proceedings, eh?
I have to admit it was fun watching the blue coats nervously looking at the crowd filing out and amongst themselves wondering if they should pull the plug.
That said, I'm very excited about the Open's return to Southern California and anticipate that the combination of San Diego's fun coastal vibe, the magnificent arena the course should be (thanks to tree removal) and the exciting setup touches being cooked up by Mssrs. Davis and Hyler, that it's going to be a special week.
Some general thoughts and photos after spending the last two days walking around Torrey Pines:
View from grandstand behind No. 5. The classic Open look is taking shape (click to enlarge)Golf Course - The South Course is in excellent condition. The heat wave we had a couple of weeks ago apparently made the kikuyu happy, so the fairways are excellent but not so thatchy that it'll prevent Woodward from speeding them up. Even as wet as the course is right now with dense fog and some irrigating, I saw a lot of balls running.
The rough is dense, apparently a tad thicker than the USGA had hoped. Therefore they have slightly lowered some of the cut heights (see Davis's comments in the transcript). That said, it's predominantly rye and poa rough, with the occasional kikuyu lie. The first cut of rough will be reduced to 15 feet from 20 because Davis has decided that the course is already playing wide enough. 
Healthy crop of rough just waiting to be trampled by spectators (click to enlarge)
The greens are in fine shape, still rolling a couple of feet slower than they hope to have them for the Open where they are aiming for 13 on the Stimpmeter Monday-Sunday. They still don't have the firmness, but there's plenty of time to deal with that. 
A newly cut approach improves No. 4 (click to enlarge)The bunkering looks a lot better with longer rough, but not nearly as attractive or strategically placed as I'd like to have seen. Rees Jones decries the "collapsing" bunkers of Doak, Coore/Crenshaw and Hanse, yet he is okay with them at "seaside" courses like Atlantic. When I asked him why Torrey Pines didn't count as a seaside course, he reasoned that the public couldn't have handled such bunkers.
Oh yes, Rees and I chatted for a while in the midst of one of his on-course photo shoots...
Rees Jones (click to enlarge)Rees: He made sure to let me know that he was not in fact the vandal of Chamber Bay's lone tree, so it's nice to know that Rees is surfing the web in between press conferences, photos shoots and exclusive interviews.
In general the Open Doctor is very excited about Davis's plans to vary the setup of more than half the holes and will probably taking credit for having built so much variety into the course by June. Though I don't sense he's too wild about encouraging players to go for the par-5s at No. 9 or No. 18 in two. 
The merchandise hangar (click to enlarge)Infrastructure: I paced off the merchandise pavilion as slightly over 100 yards long. And there's also a "satellite" location near the bus drop off by the 12th hole. The various corporate tent villages are coming along nicely and most feature great ocean views, though I did find the ones along No. 1 and near No. 2 tee to be a tad close to play. The Trophy Club (I don't know what it is, but I'm guessing it ain't cheap) sits in a stunning location on Torrey North's No. 2 hole, and just east of it is the media center which will feature an awesome patio and dining area overlooking the ocean. But it is surprisingly far from the drop off point, so scribblers bring comfortable shoes.
View from The Trophy Club (click to enlarge)
Speaking of the most important people in the world...
Media Hotel: I was bummed not to get in the Doubletree Del Mar since I've stayed there twice now at ridiculously low prices (thank you Priceline and Biddingfortravel.com). Besides housing 300 scribes, it's where the media parking and shuttle is located. After driving around the business parks surrounding the Doubletree, I realized how little there is around the it in the way of local dining in an area with so much great local faire. Then again, how can you not love a hotel that asks you at check-in to initial a pledge to respect it's no-tolerance-for-smoking-anywhere-on-the-property policy?
Let the "I hate California" columns begin!
