US Open Running Thread

Who the fuck wants to play golf in Texas mid-June heat? Shit, who the fuck wants to WATCH golf in Texas mid-June heat? I was at Southern Hills in 2001. It was unbearable. I do think it should alternate between east and west coast at least.

 

The USGA can pursue its mission of finding public courses without ever having to go back to the circus course at Chambers Bay.

The course is too easy - Spieth won 275, which is the fourth-lowest total in 25 years. The other three were Tiger at Pebble, Furyk at Olympia Fields and Rory at Congressional.

The latter should never host a major tournament again after what Rory did to it, and I hope it doesn't. I'm pretty damn sure Olympia Fields won't - it's switched to the women's PGA Championship. And Tiger's performance at Pebble is the best tournament of golf any of us are likely to ever see.

Chambers Bay has to be tricked up to not yield a glut of 65s and 66s. It's not worth it. Find somewhere else.

Beyond that...I find it kind of ironic that we have all these hallowed golf courses in America - turf cathedrals - but the one damn tournament that anybody theoretically can play in, that's when we're going to go find some 8-year-old course out in a suburb. I mean, never mind that playing at Oakmont or Shinnecock is an extraordinary reward for making the US Open...

It all seems little like phony PR to me. The vision of one guy who treats the tournament like Oregon's uniforms and spackles an "environmentally friendly" line on it like golf courses are helping restore God's creation to its natural state.

I like my US Open to be the functional equivalent of Michigan vs. USC. Sue me.

 

What McIlroy did to Congressional was a fluke. Period.
Coolish temps. Rain. No wind.
That course is not that easy.

 

The US Open, in my 50+ years has meant a grinding course, where 4 fters for par is what separate the winners from the rest. At times we get Lucas Glover types, but mostly you get Hale Irwin/Speith/Janzen types., straight guys who get up and down for par. That's what makes the career Grand Slam winners so amazing, they won on all types of courses with the most hype and hardest fields, Masters (aggression with immaculate touch); US Open; the Open (windy adverse conditions with birdies available), PGA (can you go low?).

 

After what the USGA did to Shinnecock, it should never be allowed

Castle Pines?

 

Cherry Hills just hosted the BWM two years ago, and guys did there what they usually do to Torrey Pines. They shoot low scores and the winner is like -15. If you put US Open rough and greens at Cherry Hills, I don't think you'd need to make it 8,000 yards. The guys at the BMW were struggling like hell to figure out what club to hit because of the altitude. That would certainly bring more rough into play too. They won't go back for a US Open, I'm sure. But I don't think it's because the course isn't long enough. Merion wasn't long, and Rose won that at +1. You just have to punish the long hitters even more severely than normal for missing the fairway, which is what Merion did.

 

I covered that Open. It's never, ever cool, wet and in the 70s in D.C. in mid-June, but it was that week. Jason Day shot -8 that week and lost by eight strokes. You can't blame the course for that. It was set up well.

 

The really great US courses can be set up by the USGA so that par is a winning score more often than not. Cherry Hills certainly qualifies. They want to use public courses and as a public player I'm down with that, but they have to be discerning.
Merion will always be tough. Ditto the Country Club, Oakmont, Pebble, Olympic, Winged Foot, etc.

 

I would like to see the USGA rotation go public, private, public, private. I feel like that's at least realistic. That way the great private course of yore are still part of the rotation, and we can still get all weepy as we remember that time Miller won at Oakmont, but we actually bring the championship to real courses around the country and don't pretend golf exists only in about seven states.

Pebble should be our version of The Old Course. It should host every five years.

Eventually they should figure out a way to put one at Bandon Dunes (Pacific course). They're playing the US Am there in 2020, and that's how they gradually got Chambers Bay ready, giving them a US Am first.

 

That'd be awesome, but don't forget the first mission of the Open is to be the USGA cash cow. Bandon's just too far from any major city.

 

Probably, and sadly, very true.

 

Not in the same ballpark as Bandon, but Pinehurst is a good 70 miles away from Raleigh, the closest major city. (Fayettenam doesn't count.)

Others in the Am rota in upcoming years: Oakland Hills, Riviera, Pebble, Pinehurst.