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.
