The only course that will remain difficult under all conditions will be one that is designed and kept for golf of a stereotyped, monotonous character, and this makes a most uninteresting proposition. BOBBY JONES
Available via Amazon (US): Golf Architecture For Normal People
Barnes And Noble (online and in stores)
Bookshop.org option to support local independent bookstores.
Reviews:
"Golf Architecture for Normal People . . . should be required reading for those who are not ashamed to admit they know little about the subject, and for those who think they do . . . . Golf course architecture geeks have trouble slimming their thoughts down to bite-sized chunks, but Shackelford has achieved a remarkable success here." —Independent (Ireland)
"From the relative newcomer who’s slowly getting hooked to those that have played the game for most of their lives and think they know a thing or two, Golf Architecture for Normal People provides a solid and sober perspective that will help everyone recognize why some golf courses are worth playing more than once while a single trip around others is all you’re ever likely to want or need." —Links Magazine.
“It’s a wonderful book. An easy read that arrives just in time for your summer reading list. If you’ve never thought about how an appreciation for course design could heighten your enjoyment of the game, you must check this out.”—The Peterborough Examiner
"As in his prior publications, in his newest book Shackelford shows a deep appreciation for what can be done to create a golf course that appeals to the broadest possible golfing audience…Shackelford’s prose is succinct, often witty, and accessible."—Cape Gazette
"Author, blogger and golf architecture expert Geoff Shackelford, who helped Gil Hanse design Rustic Canyon and restore 2023 U.S. Open host Los Angeles Country Club, taps into his passion by creating a guide that helps every golfer understand the nuances of course design. Published by Tatra Press, the 164-page hardcover book is a must-read for every golfer to better understand the game they love." —Golf Pass
"Shackelford provides an informative picture [and]...sprinkles in history lessons about those who planted the game's architectural roots, defines common terms and helps you hone your eyes when it comes to identifying some of the tricks of the trade."—FORE Magazine
"This new book does a great job demystifying golf course design ideas for average players, but can also be a beneficial read fro PGA Professionals and other golf course employees to get a better understanding of their home courses." —PGA Magazine
Island Green Madness: When Unlucky Gets Confused With Unfair
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Shotlink’s 17th hole through Saturday’s play in the 2022 Players
An intense Saturday of rain-delayed play saw high winds after a front moved through Ponte Vedra. Temperatures dropped and the TPC Sawgrass’ 17th saw one of those days of trouble, with 19 water balls spread between first and second round play.
While that’s nothing compared to the all-time worst of 50, Kevin Kisner said the conditions produced “pure luck” and impugned The Players Championship’s “integrity.” Other players seemed to take things in better stride if you read Adam Schupak’s Golfweek wrap of the antics. Credit to players like Collin Morikawa who said he just missed his shot and while difficult, the task was doable.
And if you take a look at PGA Tour’s compilation of all 19 water balls—drop area shots included—it’s staggering how many shots were dead just a few yards off the club face. Or how many purely awful strikes were made trying to play the ball down. I estimated 9 of the 19 just were unlucky due to a gust or just missing the 3,912 green. The rest never had a chance.
On Golf Channel’s Live From, it was nice to have some sparring back on set that’s been lost since Frank Nobilo and David Duval left.
Paul McGinley held firm in believing the conditions were tough and nothing more than a “freak day”.
Brandel Chamblee insisted the day was unfair. Most surprising were Chamblee’s claims that a tournament he calls a major also has “far too capricious of an element to have at the end of a major championship.”
There goes the major status!
The element he’s referring to: the par-3 17th, playing 136 yards for second round play.
Chamblee insisted that all efforts are made to have a sameness throughout the course in the name of fairness—a topic to debate for another day—and that “sport begins to break down if it’s seen as unfair.”
McGinley pushed back that “you can’t standardize golf” as an “outdoor sport.”
Chamblee countered that the 17th green was far too penal and “tilts the tournament more toward chance” before citing the shots of talented iron players like Morikawa and Scottie Scheffler.
I was surprised he went to those. Both hit shots that looked like trouble right after impact.
Anyway, Rich Lerner countered with some of the chance on 12 at Augusta National by Chamblee argued there is a difference Alister MacKenzie’s diagonal green backed by bunkers and TPC Sawgrass’s 17 with water all the way around (and suggested that would be a good fix for Pete Dye’s infamous hole).
It’s a lively discussion worth watching. But McGinley ultimately won the match by pointing out how players who “flighted” their shots below the wind reduced the element of chance. And his case was backed up by ShotLink data in a graphic.
Golf Channel “Live From” graphic using ShotLink data of tee shot apex, 17th hole 2022 Players
The full Live From discussion:
Ryder Cup Course Setup: How Low Will They Go?
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Plus, I wonder not very subtly whether Whistling Straits a different beast for the home team? And round up some random preview reads and Tweets.
Two items I don’t want you to miss just in case reading about course setup ploys in one newsletter is asking a lot on a Monday: Ward Clayton has the stunning tale of Skip Alexander’s place in Ryder Cup lore. This was a totally new one to me and fascinating to learn about.
And The Fried Egg offered this vignette and discussion of the venue:
Olympic Club And Rouillard: In Praise Of A Course Setup Audible
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We’ve been through a lot of course setup mistakes over the years and while some were repairable, others could not be adjusted last minute without heavy watering or finger-pointing.
So it’s worth highlighting Kent Paisley’s GolfDigest.com story on Shannon Rouillard’s last minute decision to tweak some mowing heights, intermediate cuts and approach to Olympic Club following the practice rounds. I’ve seen enough of these events to know this is not easy for a setup team to do, especially since Rouillard has an extra-special tie to the venue. But she was also working with an adaptable grounds team and superintendent in Troy Flanagan at Olympic Club, which helps. And as we saw from the outcome, got it right.
Yes, the course went from being the hardest thing in the history of golf—a familiar early week major refrain—to surprisingly scoreable for players on their game. However the score dispersion suggests it was still very brutal for most. Those last minute tweaks meant admitting error or at least, miscalculation.
Anyway, check out Paisley’s piece on the “late tweaks” here. And one key graph from the story after explaining the decision to lower the rough height, no small task:
Additionally, after saying as late as Wednesday morning that she would not have an intermediate cut on the course, Rouillard added one before play began on the par-5 first and par-5 16th holes.
On the remaining holes, however, Rouillard stuck to the decision not to include an intermediate cut, instead leaving fairways in place that were 10-15 percent wider—and even 20 percent on the fourth hole—than when men’s U.S. Open was played here in 2012
“I understand why it got a lot of chatter because we typically have an intermediate pass at this championship,” Rouillard said.
Given the sidehill nature of the course it was the right call. For a nice change of pace, an Olympic Club major ended up focused on players instead of questions about the setup.
"How misguided course setups are holding back women’s golf"
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I’m not sure about that headline to Beth Ann Nichol’s Golfweek look at the role of course setup on the LPGA Tour and how it could be impacting views of “the product.”
There is a lot to chew on in the piece and Nichols covered many bases for what is a tricky topic. I came away feeling for what the LPGA staff faces in trying to set up a course.
Because having seen the PGA Tour rule staff evolve and make so many adjustments off of ShotLink data, they’ve gotten so good at finding that balance between risk and reward. But without similar data, combined with pace and distance disparity matters greater than the PGA Tour, and the job the LPGA Tour staff faces preparing courses appears really tough.
On the data issue, Nichols writes:
The USGA used volunteers and paid caddies a stipend during the 2014 U.S. Open to collect over 50,000 data points to determine how players approached each hole on No. 2. On average, there was a 25-yard difference between the men and women in terms of approach shots.
They set out to create similar hole locations and green speeds for both championships. But green firmness was the biggest change from week to week, given that women, as Kirk noted, do not hit the golf ball as high or create as much spin.
And this part on information is particularly interesting but also discredits the headline’s “misguided” reference since much of the issue may be “misinformed” setup. This is a teaser with more at the link to consider:
It’s difficult to tell the story of an LPGA players’ game beyond the final score because only the most basic stats exist on the women’s tour, making the jobs of rules officials, broadcasters and players all the more difficult.
Santiago Carranza, a former software engineer who now makes a living in finance, started a detailed stats project out of necessity to help girlfriend Gaby Lopez look for areas of improvement. It has since turned into ABX Tour, a Golf Analytics system aimed at helping the entire tour.
Carranza, who doesn’t work with the tour but met with officials late last year, collects round-by-round data from dozens of players, including nine 2020 winners, to create a benchmark of standards so that players can put context to their own personal stats.
Genesis Third Round Recap: Sunny Skies And A Play Stoppage
/We were primed for such a perfect day but the winds and gusts were too much. But so were the green speeds, which I wrote about here in The Quadrilateral.
Saturday’s 2021 Genesis was called due to wind gusts around 10:07 am and resumed after a four hour delay. Here was tournament director Steve Rintoul explaining what happened.
GolfChannel.com’s Rex Hoggard explains how it unfolded and shares some player views.
The forecast called for winds in the 10-15 mph range at 10 a.m. with the worst of the conditions not expected to arrive until 4 p.m., which would have been about an hour after play was scheduled to finish. Forecasts aren’t perfect, though, and as the field mulled around the iconic clubhouse searching for shelter, they weren’t looking for someone to blame so much as they just wanted to get back to work.
“It was just very extreme,” said Wyndham Clark, who was on the 16th hole when play was halted for the day for darkness. “We weren't to the really hard holes. I mean, seeing some of the pin placements and how they played after we went back out and how tough they were, it was definitely unfair I think earlier, for sure.”
Heading into Sunday’s 6:50 am restart and final round Sam Burns holds a two-stroke lead over Matthew Fitzpatrick and a three-stroke margin over Wyndham Clark, Dustin Johnson and Max Homa.
Clark is the most surprising given the loud grunt he let out on the first tee after tweaking his back during pre-round warm up exercises. Rex Hoggard here on Clark’s view that he might have withdrawn if not in such good position.
Fitzpatrick put on a wild show Saturday, with seven birdies in the 17 holes he played, as Daniel Rapaport notes here for GolfDigest.com.
Here was the leader Burns making an impressive birdie at the par-4 10th during more wind gusts:
Without fans and without play midday, we lucky few on site saw some things this tournament has not witnessed in its 95 years. A few of my photos:
Players and caddies lounge on the range during the play stoppage
Rain delay evacuation vans on a sunny day
Players and caddies wait out the winds including Francesco Molinari
After Play resumption, Patrick Rodgers prepares to use wedge from the 10th hole putting surface (He did)
Athletes! Waialae Gets Last Minute Internal OB To Prevent Shortcut
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18th at Waialae From Google Earth
The jocks have come flying out of the gates early in the season, fresh off their wintertime speed work to make up for equipment that all leveled off years ago. Couple that with a missing 18th green Sony Open grandstand, and PGA Tour officials installed in-course out-of-bounds Wednesday evening at Waialae. The goal: stop players from driving down the 10th fairway and having a short iron into the green.
From Brian Wacker’s GolfDigest.com story:
The out-of-bounds stakes run from adjacent the 10th green all the way back up the hole to within 30 yards of the 18th green. Someone must have forgotten to tell Rory Sabbatini, though—or he simply hit a bad tee shot—because he ended up going out of bounds and made bogey on the hole.
A year ago, Brendan Steele was clinging to a one-shot lead on the final hole when he over-hooked his approach and his ball landed on the 10th. He got a free drop because the grandstand was in his line of play but could only make par. When Smith birdied the hole, it forced a playoff, with Smith taking the title on the first extra hole.
After seeing the stakes on Thursday, Steele believes his ball still would have been in bounds, although he thinks the stakes will be an appropriate deterrent.
“But if you know it's out-of-bounds, you probably don't hit it over there, either,” Steele said.
Internal OB is always a last resort. It’s particularly unusual when it has to be installed the Wednesday prior to a tournament starting Thursday and on a course the Tour has visited annually since 1965.
But this is life in the world of launch angle golf.
One other eyebrow-raiser from Wacker’s story involves the Redan-ish 17th, which was softened last year after Tom Doak’s restoration and is playing tougher this year for a different reason. From Cameron Smith, last year’ runner-up:
“I think 17 and 18 are the biggest ones,” Smith said. “With how firm [17] green gets, sometimes you can use that grandstand as a bit of a backboard to a back pin. So I think it makes the hole tougher definitely for sure.”
The notice posted regarding the 18th:
Augusta National Sports Higher Rough And It Doesn't Look Good
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2020 Masters: Jon Rahm in the 11th hole rough
Given the time of year, Augusta National was never going to be agronomically perfect for the rescheduled Masters. So we’ll gladly look past the thin rye grass and the weak tee turf given the tricky window for laying down rye seed and uncertainty this event would be played.
But in the grand scheme, the clunky rough (a.k.a. second cut) grown is obviously higher this year and no matter the height, contradicts the well-stated philosophy of Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie, the tall stuff looks so shallow and unnecessary on a masterfully-designed course highlighted by width and certainly never embellished by artificial tall grass.
The rough looks curb-like while giving off a grow-in look that is unbecoming of a masterpiece.
The tall stuff is also functionally problematic. From Michael Bamberger’s Golf.com account:
(File this under weird-but-true: Augusta National had long, wet rough. Stu Francis, the USGA president, was walking through the long, wet rough on Thursday as he followed the Woods group. If you call the rough here the “first cut” you must be the proud owner of a club dictionary. Woods calls it the rough. He calls his green jacket a coat. He calls the pitcher’s mound at Dodger stadium “the bump.” If you follow his lead on these matters, it will serve you well. Really, if Augusta National is going to go down this we-actually-have-rough road, they should probably give the players a “courtesy cut,” a pretentious term of the biz to describe the narrow path of short grass that takes a player through the rough from tee to fairway.)
Today In Swell Ideas: Bryson-Proofing With Progressively Scaled Rough Density
/Since we apparently can’t roll back athleticism or change equipment rules to maintain the relevancy of tournament courses, cockamamie ideas surface from time to time in the name of protecting imaginary bottom lines.
Though I have to say, in twenty years of hearing what efforts golf courses must go to not to act, this falls into the extra-kooky category. Not reptiles-in-the-rough-crazy, but close.
From Rex Hoggard, reporting on a Golf Central podcast conversation with Mike Schy, Bryson DeChambeau’s longtime swing-coach, when asked how you Bryson-proof a course.
“I’ve thought through this and I think I have the answer,” Schy explained on this week’s Golf Central Podcast. “I believe the rough should be scaled so that the closer you get to the green the thicker the rough becomes. Let’s say 60 yards out the rough is 7 inches deep and as you go back [toward the tee] the rough is scaled [shorter].
So, an inch lower every 20 yards? Do you paint a line at each stage, maybe go all grid-like?
Rossie, did he just find six inch or is he still in the five inch patch? That could be huge for his chances to his this lob wedge close!
Sorry, continue…
“You could actually narrow the fairway just a little bit, scale the rough and that brings back all the old golf courses. The courses that are potentially becoming obsolete [to Tour players], like Pebble Beach.”
Takers? Anyone? Just send the bill for new mowers, fertilizer and manpower to the USGA or R&A, attention Distance Impact Fund.
"Inside Bryson DeChambeau’s meticulous process to tame Winged Foot’s rough"
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I’ll leave it up your judgement to decide how you feel about Bryson DeChambeau’s process to outsmart the Winged Foot rough, as outlined by Jonathan Wall at Golf.com. But you have to admire the dedication of both DeChambeau to give himself added confidence, and of the Bridgestone R&D to spend the last Friday night before Labor Day on a Zoom call talking shot pattern standard deviations.
Nice work by Wall and the folks at Bridgestone to piece together this U.S. Open aftermath piece on DeChambeau’s quest to prepare for the high rough and how his 8, 9 and PW would react.
With one of the fastest club-head speeds on Tour, DeChambeau figured he could generate sufficient spin, and a playable ball flight, from the rough to score around the course — even if he wasn’t finding the fairway with a nuked drive.
“If he normally generates 10,000 RPMs with a pitching wedge from a clean lie and knows a flier will knock the spin down to 7,000 RPMs, he’s able to calculate how much longer he’ll hit it in that situation. A lot of players are just guessing when they get a flier. The testing we conducted was all about helping him build those numbers for the clubs he figured he’d use often on approach shots — 8-iron, 9-iron, pitching wedge.
Again, tip your cap to him. But is this where we begin asking if things are maybe not headed in the right direction?
The Importance Of Hitting U.S. Open Fairways Isn't What It Used To Be
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Lee westwood after round 3
Think about all the effort put into juicing the roughs with fertilizer, fine tuning the lines a bit to make the players lay up so the ball doesn’t have to be regulated and the excitement at seeing them punished!
Not happening. At least, not for the 2020 U.S. Open leaders.
The most stout rough we’ve seen in some time is not meaning a darned thing at Winged Foot, as Matthew Wolff takes a two stroke lead into Sunday. Two, also happens to be the number of fairways hit in a 65 that featured two very makeable birdie misses. Wolff has hit 12 fairways after three rounds leaving him tied for 58th. The bottom portion of the fairways hit ranking:
In second place sits Bryson DeChambeau, whose found 17 of 32 fairways, placing him T31 in that category.
To recap: the top two players hit 5/28 fairways but 23/36 greens Saturday.
Yes, two players with a legit shot Sunday are hitting fairways and they may still flip the narrative if 57% is a number that affirms your faith in tee ball accuracy:
Digging into the course stats, note how just four holes saw a higher fairway hit percentage than green in regulation. The other ten driving holes saw higher GIR’s than balls in the fairway, with some showing a huge discrepancy indicating that the short grass means only so much.
Also note how small the cost of rough was Saturday, with only four holes having it cost a half stroke or slightly more.
Third round leader Patrick Reed’s ballstriking struggles did finally catch up to him, so there is that for those wanting to insist there is great relevance in hitting fairways.
But the distance numbers suggest launch angle golf is working and there is no reason to do anything but bomb away. A staggering 38 players are averaging over 310 yards through three rounds with only 7 players averaging under 300.
The 310-and-up club, led 15 players averaging over 322 yards for the week on the measuring holes.
While it should be a fun final round to watch, this week reminds those who’ve forgotten the previous bomb-and-gouge era that juiced rough still does not discourage the strategy. Still, it is stunning to watch the approach work so well on a course rigged to diffuse such an approach.
The madness of it all was summed up at the NBC telecast’s end when Roger Maltbie was asked by Dan Hicks about Bryson DeChambeau’s attacking style.
“Every part of me wants to not like this, that you just reduce the game to power and the fairway becomes less important, especially at a U.S. Open because historically, that’s just not the way it’s been done,” Maltbie said. “But this is impressive and (DeChambeau is) convincing me that he’s not wrong in the way that he’s assessed how to play the game now.”
Paul Azinger then offered this assessment.
“What are you going to do if you want to neutralize these guys, or if you want to make them accurate? Is power going to trump accuracy in this great game? The answer, it seems, is yes…one single club has made the difference, and it’s the driver.”
6th Hole Winged Foot Then And Now: 2020 U.S. Open (So Far) vs. 1929 Playoff
/The short par-4 sixth features such a simple design and yet remains one of the world’s best short par-4’s, even with the fairway shrunken down to counter advancements by today’s physics majors.
Through two rounds of the 2020 U.S. Open, notice how No. 6 played depending on the hole location. The more players tried to drive it, the worse they played it. (3.806 v. 4.028 scoring avg difference).
Yet only a few who laid up in round 2 made birdie, perhaps due to the tricky angle from the fairway center. (The fairway has been moved in on the right.) Those who got their tee shot just in front of the green fared best:
A close up view from round 2 where the best lay-up spot is now rough:
Jump back in time to one of the 1929 U.S. Open’s 36-hole playoff rounds documented by The American Golfer. You can see how much wider the course was and see the role rough plays today for those laying up in what was once fairway. You can also see that Bobby Jones hit a 300-yard drive, to which O.B. Keeler told spectators that it was all in the agronomy. Al Espinosa bogeyed the hole after a tee shot into the fairway bunker.
Be Careful What You Wish For Files: What Would A Winged Foot Massacre 2 Prove?
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USGA
The appeal of hack-out, last-man-standing golf has always been a mystery.
The joy of seeing tour pros brought down to a lower level is deeply narcissistic. To want to watch skills reduced or nullified, to make you feel better about your lousy game is both selfish and terribly simplistic.
But it’s been a while since we’ve heard of a setup so anticipated for the carnage it will inflict. Winged Foot this year sounds legitimately cruel, with spot-fertilized rough, tight fairways, old-style rough, restored hole locations and no fans to mash down the tall stuff.
Players made very clear in pre-tournament assessments that they expect this to be a war of attrition.
The last car not to crash into turn three may prevail Sunday. That last car will have done a lot right to win, but will it be a real display of skill or just a better effort to survive than other contenders?
After some ugly early century attempts to combine old school USGA setups with modern green speeds, they got away from the attrition approach. Things changed at Winged Foot in 2006 when Mike Davis introduced staggered rough cuts and flexible tee placements, including on the par-4 6th. It all went quite well until some setup hiccups in recent years led to the USGA pulling back on some of those advances in course setup.
Many others saw the U.S. Open lose its identity. They were not totally wrong. But some of that identity loss was brought on by equipment advances which can only be offset by so much harvesting of fertilized rough.
Now, John Bodenhamer and Jeff Hall try to balance the best components of the old approaches while appeasing those wanting to see an old school U.S. Open. Not a fun task. Particularly when you factor in the headstrong Winged Foot membership that always seem a tad too bogey blood-thirsty.
The USGA’s setup team will earn their money balancing these desires while also trying to get the tournament in on time. Perhaps the specter of long rounds in early fall days will help justify a sensible setup Thursday and Friday. Because the U.S. Open pressure, Winged Foot’s many elements and a host of top players in fine form should produce a memorable week as long as things stay sane. But push it too far and there could be another massacre. A worthy winner could still emerge, but history tells us as chance enters into the equation, the winners become more surprising.
Golf Digest has been slammed over the last week for publishing a list of “underwhelming” U.S. Open winners. It was a poor choice of words and some of the selections were even worse. But I understood their point: some U.S. Open winners are more convincing than others. That doesn’t mean they are bad people or even unworthy.
But knowing what we know now about the role of setup and architecture, a place like Winged Foot does not need silliness to produce a well-earned, U.S. Open-style victory.
So for those hoping to see carnage at the expense of skill: be careful what you wish for.
USGA News Conference Offers Insights Into The PSA's We'll Be Tired Of By Friday, Effort To Prevent Lost Balls, Distance Update
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The USGA’s annual U.S. Open news conference this year was a roundtable went 47 minutes and highlighted initiatives, corporate sponsors, the high rough and the distance issue.
We learned about the “cadre of social media influencers” helping to bring the tournament to everyone who can’t be there. So there was some humor.
I enjoyed this from John Bodenhamer on why the opening pairing was selected:
We can't wait for two local players, a little special start tomorrow. Brandon Wu from Scarsdale and Danny Balin from White Plains will hit the first shots off the 1st and 10th tees tomorrow morning when we start, and we're pleased by that.
Warning, there is now a brand anthem that you’ll be tired of by Sunday. From Craig Annis, Chief Brand Officer:
Rounds have been up. Golf courses are busy. And it's required us to think about the role that we play in helping to make the game more accessible and welcoming for everyone.
And so what you saw at the beginning was our new brand anthem, for all golf is and all that it can be. It really talks a lot about the special connection that golfers have to the game and what the game means to them. That's a message that we're going to continue to deliver throughout this week and beyond.
They sure love to spend money on PSA’s and early-retire good people. Charming. Wait, what, there is more?
There are two others that I want to share as well. The first is a spot that we're calling "openness," which not only talks about the openness of our championship and the history with that, but also the commitment that we're making as a leading governing body and golf organization to make the game more open, more accessible, and why that's really important.
We’re going to get a public course golfer to fill that empty seat the Executive Committee? Ah I got excited there for a sec.
And then the third is an ad that features Michelle Wie, our champion, as the narrator, and it's an advertisement that's in partnership with SheIS Sport, focused on their "women worth watching" campaign. And it just shines a light on the importance of people celebrating, tuning in, watching and supporting women in sports broadly but also specifically women in golf.
The partners at Barstool can help promote that one!
And now the winning score question…
BETH MAJOR: Another WebEx question for John. You mentioned letting Winged Foot be Winged Foot. Can we expect anything different from 2006, and do you expect an over-par winning score?
JOHN BODENHAMER: You know, I think there will be a few things different because it's September, but that question leads me back to something I read, I spent a lot of time with the club historian here, a wonderful gentleman by the name of Neil Regan, and he shared a quote with me a week or so ago that when asked a similar question back in 1929, before the U.S. Open then, and a member of the media said: Are you going to make Winged Foot tough? Are you going to put all the tees on the very backs of the tees and tuck all the hole locations in the nooks and crannies of the putting greens? And Tillinghast just turned and said: We're not going to outfit Miss Winged Foot in any different way than she otherwise would be. No fancy clothes, no special jewelry, just a simple calico dress, and no furbelows -- that's right, furbelows, I love that word -- and just wash her face up for the party, and she'll be good enough.
And that really is what has inspired us to think of Winged Foot being Winged Foot.
Not sure that pairs up with the “women worth watching” campaign…
As for the rough this week, Bodenhamer answered a logical question about efforts to mitigate lost balls with so much rough and no fans. I’m glad this has been given thought given the conditions and even fears a lost ball could decide the Open:
JOHN BODENHAMER: That's an interesting question. That's something we thought, put a lot of thought into, and we have -- we have got a good game plan. It's not entirely different from what we normally would do for a U.S. Open with volunteers, and we call them stationary marshals or ball spotters, that will be strategically positioned at certain parts of the course.
We have done research in the practice rounds leading up as to where balls are going. We have actually charted that. We know where the more difficult areas of some of the rough grass is. So we're positioning people that way.
We have got about a dozen or more bodies on every single long hole. We have got somebody signalling from the tee into the fairway, and we have got people up on the hole. We have even gone to the extent of bringing in some of the wonderful Winged Foot Golf Club caddies who are doing this on a daily basis when they're here, and they know this golf course better than anybody.
We feel great about the opportunity we have given to find golf balls this year, and we're going to do a great job of it.
That’s good news as any golfer knows there is no worse feeling and it certainly does not make for good TV.
As for Winged Foot’s future in a U.S. Open-rota world, Bodenhamer offered this endorsement:
This is not what they signed up for. And it's just been a real testament to perseverance on Winged Foot's part, and we could not be more grateful. And I assure you that will be recognized within the USGA.
Regarding the idea of “anchor” sites—American for rota—CEO Mike Davis offered this:
As I said, the USGA did research, we talked to a lot of players, we talked to past champions, and there was a consistent theme that they want to go to our greatest U.S. Open sites and they want to go there more often.
So really John and team started first with Pinehurst working on that. So I think let's let the future play out, but there are some treasured sites, as John has said. We have got Nick Price, who was a world No. 1 on our Board of Directors and sits on our Championship Committee, and he has said, you know, it does matter where you win your U.S. Open. And I think we, John and team, all of us took that to heart. And so that's what we're looking at right now. So as they say, stay tuned.
And the proceedings wrapped with a distance question. In case you didn’t know it, there’s more study and dialogue to come. Also known as, we’ll get to it.
And at the very heart of this, the USGA and the R&A do believe that, long-term, we think something needs to be done about distance, because we believe it's going to continue to increase. All the data would suggest that. We don't think that's in the best interests of the game, but we also acknowledge that there are a lot of different sectors within the industry. There's the golf courses that are really the things that have been impacted the most, that have taken the brunt, that have had to spend billions of dollars to continue to change because of what's happened with distance.
But then there's the other things, there's the elite players, there's the recreational players, there's the, you know, individual golfer. We want to make sure the game is enjoyable. We want to make sure it's sustainable. We didn't get here overnight. It took over a hundred years. And our belief is, if we collectively as an industry look at this and say, what is in the best interests of the game long-term, we're going to get there.
So essentially what we did when COVID came out is we have just delayed this project, but we believe -- or in the first quarter of next year we'll put out what's called an Area of Interest Study, which really are the topics we want to engage with the industry. We want to engage with elite players, with equipment manufacturers, with golfers, with golf courses. We want to do it on a global basis and then continue to look at this. Because, again, at the heart of this is what's in the best interests of the game long-term.
