Analysis: Pebble To Host 2023 Women's Open, 2027 U.S. Open

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An early and pleasant surprise arrived today with the USGA Executive Committee and the Pebble Beach Company finally committing to a U.S. Women's Open date and another men's Open.

The move is intriguing, assuming you are concerned with the dealings of major championship golf a decade from now. Which most aren't. Nonetheless...

--It's been a long time coming for the Women's Open at Pebble Beach. Discussions have been "tabled" for some time.

--This marks a 8-year turnaround to Pebble Beach for the U.S. Open after most recently going 10-years (2000-2010) and 9-years (2010-2019) between men's Opens.

--2027 will be year-one of the USGA's next television contract.

--This certainly rules out Olympic Club as a U.S. Open venue for 2027 and could suggest the Lake Course may have a PGA and Ryder Cup in its future.

--The USGA has cooled on new and unproven venues.

--If this is the makings of a rota with a few fun ones thrown in from time to time, it's quite a good rota!

For Immediate Release:

Venue to host its first U.S. Women’s Open Championship, seventh U.S. Open

FAR HILLS, N.J. (October 24, 2017) – The USGA today announced Pebble Beach Golf Links as the site for the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open and 2027 U.S. Open Championships, the 14th and 15th USGA championships in the course’s storied history.

Pebble Beach, which is already scheduled to host the 2018 U.S. Amateur and 2019 U.S. Open Championships, will host the 78th U.S. Women’s Open – and its first – from June 1-4, 2023. The 127th U.S. Open – the seventh at Pebble Beach – will be contested June 17-20, 2027.

The legendary course on the Monterey Peninsula, designed by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant and opened in 1919, has produced several of the game’s memorable moments in its previous five U.S. Opens. Jack Nicklaus’s 1-iron tee shot that struck the flagstick in 1972, Tom Watson’s chip-in to thwart Nicklaus in 1982, Tom Kite’s pitch-in en route to victory in 1992 and Tiger Woods’ record 15-stroke victory in 2000 are all stamped in the game’s lore. 

“We are incredibly proud to bring the U.S. Women’s Open to Pebble Beach for the first time,” said Diana Murphy, president of the USGA. “The USGA is committed to bringing our championships to golf’s greatest venues and the opportunity to have the best players in the world, female and male, compete at this iconic course will provide a fantastic showcase of the game. Our friends at the Pebble Beach Company have always been wonderful partners and we are excited for all of our upcoming championships with them.”  

During the course’s 98-year history, it has hosted five U.S. Opens, four U.S. Amateurs, two U.S. Women’s Amateurs and one PGA Championship. These will be the 14th and 15th USGA championships contested on the course, moving it to fourth all-time among host sites.

The 1972 U.S. Open Championship at Pebble Beach was the first to be played on a course that is open to the public. It is one of six public-access courses to host a U.S. Open.

“The USGA’s relationship with Pebble Beach dates to the 1929 U.S. Amateur and it has proven itself time and again during the 11 previous championships,” said Mike Davis, CEO of the USGA. “Pebble Beach Golf Links is a national golf treasure and our partners at the Pebble Beach Company have committed to hosting four USGA championships in the next 10 years, including the 2018 U.S. Amateur and 2019 U.S. Open. The commitment from their hardworking and dedicated staff and the support of the Monterey Peninsula region, as well as our faith that Pebble Beach will consistently challenge the best players in the game, make it an ideal venue to host USGA championships for years to come.”

“We take great pride in our special, longstanding partnership with the USGA,” said Bill Perocchi, CEO of Pebble Beach Company. “This announcement is a milestone in the history of Pebble Beach and one we are thrilled about, especially as we prepare to host the U.S. Amateur in 2018 and U.S. Open in 2019 during our centennial celebration. To be entrusted with hosting our seventh U.S. Open, and to be given the honor of hosting our first U.S. Women’s Open, is truly special and exciting for all of us here at Pebble Beach.”

To download course images of Pebble Beach Golf Links, visit: Pebble Beach Images

Other future U.S. Women's Open sites are: May 31-June 3, 2018 at Shoal Creek in Shoal Creek, Ala.; May 30-June 2, 2019 at the Country Club of Charleston (S.C.); June 4-7, 2020 at Champions Golf Club in Houston, Texas; and June 3-6, 2021 at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, Calif.

Other future U.S. Open sites are: June 14-17, 2018 at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y.; June 13-16, 2019 at Pebble Beach (Calif.) Golf Links; June 18-21, 2020 at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y.; June 17-20, 2021 at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, Calif.; June 16-19, 2022 at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.; June 15-18, 2023 at The Los Angeles (Calif.) Country Club; June 13-16, 2024 at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club in the Village of Pinehurst, N.C.; June 12-15, 2025 at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club; and June 18-21, 2026 at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y.

USGA Championships at Pebble Beach Golf Links
1929 U.S. Amateur: Harrison R. Johnston def. Dr. O.F. Willing, 4 and 3
1940 U.S. Women's Amateur: Betty Jameson def. Jane S. Cothran, 6 and 5
1947 U.S. Amateur: Robert H. "Skee" Riegel def. John W. Dawson, 2 and 1
1948 U.S. Women's Amateur: Grace S. Lenczyk def. Helen Sigel, 4 and 3
1961 U.S. Amateur: Jack Nicklaus def. H. Dudley Wysong Jr., 8 and 6
1972 U.S. Open: Jack Nicklaus def. Bruce Crampton by 3 strokes
1982 U.S. Open: Tom Watson def. Jack Nicklaus by 2 strokes
1992 U.S. Open: Tom Kite def. Jeff Sluman by 2 strokes
1999 U.S. Amateur: David Gossett def. Sung Yoon Kim, 9 and 8
2000 U.S. Open: Tiger Woods def. Ernie Els and Miguel Angel Jimenez by 15 strokes
2010 U.S. Open: Graeme McDowell def. Gregory Havret by 1 stroke
2018 U.S. Amateur
2019 U.S. Open
2023 U.S. Women's Open
2027 U.S. Open

Go Figure Files: China State School Teaching Golf Edition

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It's tough to fully grasp the Chinese government's ratched-up war on golf, but as The Telegraph's Neil Connor writes, one state school in Shanghai is teaching golf as an important social skill developer. And now other state schools are following suit.

Jingwulu Primary School, in Jinan, in the eastern Shandong province, introduced the sport to “foster children's strong determination, self-discipline and manners,” headmistress Ji Yankun said.

“I don’t think I am being over dramatic in calling it a gentleman’s sport, as there is so much good etiquette involved,” she told The Telegraph.

The school has installed practice nets in its grounds and drafted in coaches from Shandong Gold Golf Club to provide compulsory training to nine-year-old pupils.

The golf club is also consulting with four other schools to roll out the training across the province.

“Many children have fallen in love with the sport, which has been called 'the green opium',” said Shandong Gold's Jiang Chunqiu, using a phrase which is often used in China to portray golf as highly enjoyable, but a dangerous foreign import.

Well it can be addictive.

This Will Actually Be A European Tour Event Title: The Shot Clock Masters

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We knew next June's Austrian Open was going to take slow play seriously with shot clocks and penalties and referrees. But this? The Shot Clock Masters...near Vienna. Psychoanalysis free of charge.

Alistair Tait fleshes out some of the details for Golfweek.com but does not reveal what the winner's jacket might look like. A track suit jacket perhaps?

Every player will be timed on every shot in Austria. The other big difference from GolfSixes is that the event will use the Tour’s official timing policy. Each player in the 120-man field will have 50 seconds for the first player in a group, with 40 seconds for subsequent players. A one-shot penalty will be handed out to players going over the time limit, and a red card will appear beside their name on the leaderboard.

What Is Tiger Up To, Files: The Stinger And Now A Podcast?!

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Ok a few swing videos and Mr. Stubborn is even forgetting all of the pleas to just hit the darned stinger and even putting that back in the repertoire. Someone is feeling it! Hashtagging Star Wars? Next thing you know he'll be rolling out emojis, GIFs and doing podcasts. (Paul Doyle with the details of Tiger's interview in the can with UConn coach Geno Auriemma.)

And the responses were just as fun:

HatCam The Next Golf Television Innovation?

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Fun stuff here from Golfweek.com's Martin Kaufmann on the recent PGA Tour trial of HatCam, a technology similar to one Golf Channel tried earlier this year.

While the current version looks way too big for today's players to safely feel comfortable wearing on the brim of their caps, a smaller one is in development and, at the very least, could be pretty cool on a caddie's cap.

HatCam weighs just 65 grams, and Greg Roberts of ActionStreamer said a smaller version “about the size of a money clip” is in the final stages of development. HatCam has a self-contained battery, is controlled remotely and has MEMS gyroscopes that minimize the bouncing effect in point-of-view transmissions.

Golf Channel tested a similar idea in January, attaching a tiny camera to the hat of Mark Zyons, Billy Andrade’s caddie. It was a worthy experiment, but the constant movement was disorienting. The HatCam seems much more promising, based on video it captured at the Web.com Tour Championship. Scott Gutterman, VP of digital operations for the PGA Tour, said HatCam could be used more in the future in pro-ams and practice rounds, though no decisions have been made.

A demo from the Web.com Tour Championship:

Top Aussies Chime In On Ways To Solve Golf's No. 1 Problem

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Evin Priest does a nice job for Golf Digest Australia (thanks reader AM) talking to Adam Scott, Jason Day, Rod Pampling (Rampling in the online version) and Geoff Ogilvy about the best way to get kids into the game.

It's Junior Golf Week on Morning Drive so there are bound to be good ideas galore, but the four Aussies all have some great ideas. We'll just bite our tongues when Jason Day says the game takes too long. (He wants loops of holes designed into routings to foster shorter round options.)

Adam Scott on par-3 courses:

“I think growing up on a par-3 course was really beneficial. When you’re 5 or 6 years old and the holes are 80 or 100 yards, you can actually play them. It’s very hard to get a young kid, even 10 or 11, to play a 420-yard par 4 – it just seems like an unattainable goal to get it into a tiny hole at the end of that.

Day:

“Golf’s biggest challenge in the modern day is it just takes too long; young families with little kids don’t want to spend four, five or six hours on the golf course. They’d rather play a few holes and an hour is all they can possibly give up. Maybe if there were three-hole and four-hole loops on courses where they can go out for an hour and come back, they’d get on board. That’s how you can get introduced and fall in love with the game. And those who like it will transition into the 18-hole side."

Loved this from Ogilvy:

“I was so addicted when I was a kid because I had access. And is there a better place to drop your kids off in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon, considering the alternatives? Rather than the local shopping mall, terrorising the place. If they’re at the course, they’re hanging around generally respectable people learning how to behave around adults.”

Korean Press Greets Commissioner With Some Tough Questions

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With the inaugural CJ Cup at Nine Bridges over and another nine playings on the docket, Commissioner Jay Monahan and tour EVP of Global Business Affairs Ty Votaw traveled to Korea. They kindly sat down with the assembled media before Sunday's final round and took some interesting questions.

Q: It’s great that we have got another event in Asia. From the next season, 2018-2019 season, you are going to make some big changes with possibly the playoffs coming soon  and the PGA Championship moving. It looks to me as though you are going to free up more dates in the fall, in the post-labor day area. Are you planning more tournaments in Asia? Japan or China?

Jay Monahan: I would answer that by confirming that we have what you just mentioned, which is we have the commitment to move the Players to March and PGA Championship to May. You were right in that it does freeze some time in the fall. The next step we are going to take in order affect change is to essentially complete other parts of our schedule the tournaments that exist in that pre-labor day window in the U.S.

But we are a global game. If you follow the logic trail of being here, you look at the fact that you’ve got 3.5 million participants and 36 million rounds of golf played, we love what we are seeing in terms of emergency screening technology, the fact that we’ve got such a rich number of players.

Wait what? Uh, I'm chalking "emergency screening technology" up to a translation gaffe. Go on...

As you look out into the future, the reason that we are putting so much resource into key international markets is so that we are prepared when an opportunity presents itself to expand to be in the right position. But to say something is imminent would be a miscalculation and a mistake at this point.

We'll put them down for no further Asian expansion at this time.

Q: Are you surprised to see only a few foreign press covering the event, given that this event is quite significant? Why do you think that there aren’t many global press covering this event here?
Ty Votaw: There is no question that we are very excited about the opportunity to be here, first time being an official event. The media landscape in all countries is changing and as you know, the golf media in the US is also changing with decreased budgets and decreased stabilities to cover even some domestic events in the US. We now have opportunities with other platforms and other areas.
Opportunities!
I know that our own platforms are here covering extensively for the US and for other countries around the world. I will say that, much like the reactions of our players, when they go home and talk to other players about their experience here, I think you will see over the next 10 years when we are coming to South Korea and to Jeju for this event that a broader swath of media coverage will follow.
Actually, probably not.
Q: The Korean fans are grateful that Sang-moon Bae and Seung-yul Noh were given exemptions, given their situation with the national service, and that PGA has shown a lot of respect for the Korean golf. However, given that is a Tier 1 tournament with a decent sum of prize money, don’t you think that we are missing a lot of the top-class players? For example, Hideki Matsuyama and Ernie Els pulling out and not many players from the top 20?
Ty Votaw:As I mentioned earlier, I think that the experiences of the players who are here this week, when they take those stories and those experiences back with them to the PGA tour it’s going to be very positive story that they are going to be telling. As any PGA tour event on our schedule, our players choose their schedules according to what fits their specific need and their specific goals and desires. Certainly, we have added a third event in Asia this year and there has been a significant support of all three events by the top players but, perhaps not all three events by the top players.
Uh, no way.
I think what you are going to see is, the ability for players to evaluate what their experience was this week and last week in CIMB and in HSBC, and they will set their schedules accordingly. I think we are very pleased with the feel that we have this week, as commissioner mentioned earlier, our ability to have our Fedex Cup champion, our rookie of the year, former number ones Jason Day and Adam Scott plus all the other great players who are on the field this week. It’s a great start to a long term commitment by CJ and I think we will continue to do everything we can to make sure that our players support these important sponsorships.
All fair points, but it's hard to read this and wonder about the impact on up to four sponsor-less U.S. stops and many other domestic events get poor fields because players may now skip those for $9.2 million purses in Asia.
Q: I think there are a few things that can be improved in the future. The tournament is over at 3pm and it seems to feel a bit loose and it’s difficult for the gallery. Would it be possible to increase the field?
Monahan: This is just the first of our ten-plus years here. One of the things we knew going into this week was that we're going to do our very best to execute a world-class THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES, but when we left at Sunday night there’ll be a number of things we could learn from over the course of the week, and our constant pursuit to improve and get better and do the best we can in South Korea.
That’s exactly what will happen. We’ll look at every facet of the tournament. We'll make significant improvements in any facet of this event. We're not done yet. This tournament will be finalized in the next several hours but I would say that at this point on Sunday, what has happened on the grounds here, the response that we received, the things we learned from the fans here, we’re really pleased with where we are.
First on tap, ordering extra satellite time!

JT Wins The First CJ Cup In Playoff Interrupted By Expired Feed

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First, the good news. Justin Thomas won the inaugural CJ Cup in a playoff over Marc Leishman to cap off a breakthrough season (Will Gray's report here). Wait, no, to kick off the new season. Either way, he's very pleased to be shutting down for a while to enjoy a well-earned vacation.

Also, wasn't it great to see CJ Group Chairman Lee Jay-Hyun on the 18th tee to help with the playoff draw? Still fresh off a pardon and a little time in the slammer, the Chairman seems to have recovered from a kidney transplant.

The highlights:

 

On the not so positive front, there was the collapse of Golf Channel's feed as players were headed to the second playoff hole and the announce team was reiterating the "big feel" of the event. Unfortunately, someone at the event forgot to extend the satellite window.

A statement from Golf Channel:

The satellite path of the television feed provided by tournament organizers stopped feeding at 2:30 a.m. ET. Golf Channel personnel immediately alerted the tournament production group to the problem. We apologize to our loyal viewers who stayed up late to watch coverage live. The CJ Cup at Nine Bridges playoff will be available shortly in its entirety via Golf Channel Digital and will be replayed on Golf Channel today from 6-10 p.m. ET.

Video: Thornberry Hits Field Goal Shot In Front Of Full House

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This is a remarkable shot on three levels:

A) Hitting a football (well) with a golf club is quite difficult without hurting yourself.

B) Doing so in front of a full stadium with your collegiate peers is no easy bargain.

C) Having the audacity to pull off a little Chi Chi sword-return-to-its-sheathing.

Nicely done NCAA men's individual champ and recent Walker Cupper Braden Thornberry pulling this off at halftime of the Ole Miss home loss to LSU (Kevin Casey with more details here at Golfweek.com):

 

Video: Thomas Shows How Today's Pros Can Handle Stymies

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Every time we talk stymies in a pro match play so many of you are concerned about the agronomic impact, but as Justin Thomas demonstrated at the inaugural CJ Cup in Korea, a dreadful skeech mark was no obstacle!

@justinthomas34 can do it all.

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Colonial Likely Searching For A Sponsor Again...

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Mac Engel reports for the Star-Telegram on a likely early departure for Dean & DeLuca after two years sponsoring the historic Colonial. The food company has four years left on its contract.

Engel obtained a letter to members signed by club president Rob Doby.

“While certainly disappointing, it is not a situation that we as a Membership and Staff are unfamiliar with,” Doby wrote.

The board is scheduled to meet with Dean & DeLuca representatives as early as Thursday about potentially renegotiating the terms of the contract, but at this point the club is preparing to look elsewhere for a title sponsor.

A PGA Tour statement said the Dean & DeLuca is still the sponsor as far as they are concerned but that they are in conversations.

Engel shares several other interesting details, including this:

The PGA wants a little more than $11 million per year from a sponsor for this event, which, per multiple sources, effectively eliminates several companies from landing Colonial. The price tag is roughly $3 million too rich for many companies.

Losing a sponsorship here leaves two Texas stops searching for a sponsor as the 2017-18 schedule is already underway. The Houston Open has yet to secure a sponsor after Shell ended their long run.

Video Roundup: Stymies Versus Backstopping

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In this week's Golfweek digital and now posted online, Brentley Romine and I debate the men's pro golf backstopping practice.

On Twitter, I've gotten a very frequent reply that goes like this: you want the stymie back but you are offended when players leave a ball down (in a form of silent, possibly creepy collusion that does not protect the field.)

Yes. I am offended by backstopping and hope we return the stymie to match play.

Because in match play, golf would be faster and far more confrontational if players could clean their ball, then leave it down the rest of the way to the hole. Foursomes, four-balls, individual matches, you name it would all have occasional moments of social-media-friendly drama. Virality, baby!

But backstopping suggests an element of rule-bending and collusion that can only damage perceptions of a clubby sport that is generally very honest, but does strike some as too fraternal at times.

The stymie is only interesting in match play, where we never see backstopping occur. Furthermore, a ball stymied by a match play opponent is an overtly hostile gesture, while backstopping is a mysteriously complacent act of notifying the competition that you are willing to assist them, free of charge.

For those who are not familiar with the stymie's place in the game and not owners of Bobby Jones' Golf Is My Game (1960), I can at least steer you to some video thanks to the wonders of YouTube.

Graphic viewing warning: these clips are all in black and white while involving evidence of people playing the game (well) prior to the year 2000.

First up, check out Sam Snead beating Johnny Palmer in the 1949 PGA at Belmont. At the :28 second mark watch how Snead tries to stymie Palmer, to no avail. The complete opposite of backstopping. 


Next, check out Charles Coe vs Nick Chapman at the :20 mark for a fantastic stymie and one that would freak out today's backstoppers in the 1951 British Amateur final, one of the last played with stymies in effect:

Also in 1951, the USA retained the Walker Cup in spite of a delicious stymie situation viewable at the 1:22 mark. The sun has continued to rise in the east since. 

At the :15 second mark of this 1948 PGA Championship highlight reel--when the event was still contested at match play--Ben Hogan is stymied and you can just feel Hogan’s enthusiasm as he pulls out wedge on a green. But what great entertainment and competitive edge this brought to the proceedings!

And at the 1933 Ryder Cup highlights, go to the 1:28 mark for a delicious reminder that the stymie was once part of the Ryder Cup, and dream of the possibilities today before remembering that we live in a golf culture where the players seek to help their friends, not clash competitive with them.

Royal Birkdale Gets Jordan Spieth's Driving Iron

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Because of course there is no club that better recalls Jordan Spieth's epic 2017 Open Championship win, even if he was not satisfied with his shot from Birkdale's range. It was the driving iron that took center stage and no one who watched the scene unfold will ever forget it.

Since it's the club he used to hit the recovery setting up an epic unplayable lie-bogey and eventual win over Matt Kuchar, Spieth admirably donated it to Royal Birkdale. They received the club today, to go with their incredible clubhouse collection of memorabilia from past champions.

(Todd Lewis took us on a rare tour during this year's Open and I can concur after a tour from former club champion Ethan Davies that it's as good a display of historic clubs as any in golf.)

The question remains, does Spieth's drop warrant a plaque? I say yes, even if only the driving range attendants will be the only ones who see it!