"Beauty In Eye Of Beholder"

A week after the U.S. Open, there is still quite a bit of conjecture about the greens at Pebble Beach.

The USGA's Pat Gross writes this defense at USGA.org.

The U.S. Open is not about cosmetics; it’s about providing a challenging and rigorous test to identify the best player.  Producing a cosmetically attractive golf course would have been the easy task: a little more water, a touch of fertilizer, and we would have had green, pretty putting greens and soft conditions, but that was not the goal.

The question I keep hearing relates to firmness and why they couldn't have softened the greens just a bit. And while I certainly can see that response, there is another large audience that would howl with horror at the notion of artificially softening the greens. But when the greens have shrunken so much and are in a sense dysfunctional architecturally when combined with major championshp conditions, maybe that is the answer. But either way, the USGA can't win.