“Fifty years from now, they’re going to look back and say, ‘Do you remember the end of this 2015 U.S. Open"

Paul Ramsdell of the Seattle Times talks to the USGA's Mike Davis about the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay.

Topics include the greens, a defense of the grounds staff, the finish, the fan experience (he concedes mistakes) and the prospects for a return where there is a mention of the next ten years, but as I noted at GolfDigest.com, that's not happening.

On the greens:

“Having done a lot of these things (conducting Opens), I look at it and say, ‘Yes, we had bumpy greens,’ ” he said. “But at the end of it, we’ve had bumpy greens many, many, many times at the U.S. Open. We’ve played this event 115 times, and the vast majority of them have been on poa annua greens. Later in the day, there’s a bounce to them. If you have ever looked at that famous putt Tiger Woods made at Torrey Pines on the 72nd hole, that ball was in the air 30 times.”

And he makes a very shrewd point, something recent west coast Opens with poa complaints have proven to be true:

Davis doesn’t want the excitement of the past week — and the buzz over this event that engulfed the Northwest golf community the past two years — to be buried under any controversy, and he doesn’t think it will.

“Fifty years from now, they’re going to look back and say, ‘Do you remember the end of this 2015 U.S. Open, how it went back and forth?’ ”

Good to see a slight edge in the Yes vote for a return to Chambers Bay, with almost as many punching the Maybe button.