USGA Clusterf#<k!

[Rick Dandy]

FUBAR, SNAFU, Charlie Foxtrot

Conditioning all looked good but the way the course was "set up" as the National Championship was indicative of the DC summer standard member/guest or club championship. They kept cutting grass and cutting grass around fairways, bunkers, and green complexes and then blamed it on the lack of rain, when the rough didn't grow back!

My grape vine is fat, how is yours.

If it was the rain then why did the sub-air system fail to "dry the place out? Remember grass is 99% water. If you cut it you cut it!

This is the ultimate examination of the "best players in the world" for our Nation, so just imagine how an expert player would feel on tuesdays practice round when all greens are available from secondary rough. I'd say sleeping pretty well Tuesday nite.

I'm not even mentioning the bunker grasses that were cut down to standard member height. Game plan Wednesday nite: You bomb it like your playing from Alcatraz Point and the go attack every pin that has a red flag on it.

Congressional owns one of the most sophisticated watering systems in the world, and 20 players went under par!

Tale of the Tape Rory missed 20 fairways but hit 62 greens

27th in Driving Accuracy McIlroy 36/56 Fairways 64.29%

1st Greens in Regulation McIlroy 62/72 Greens 85.11%

1st in Birdies McIlroy 19/72 holes


I know,.....Rory has the best "swing in the game" and the best left hand that ever held a putter.

Let's be brutal for a our examination of the National Championship.
Now have at it.

 

[birly-shirly]

Totally agree. + 100%. The idea of identifying a champion by having everyone play the same course is so last century. Champion golfers should be identified by internet forum discussion.

 

[Rick Dandy]

"It's not a true U.S. Open test out there, to be honest," said Graeme McDowell, who won at Pebble Beach last year at even par. "I'd like to see it tougher."

 

[mgranato]

I also can't believe they let them roll it everywhere. My grape vine told me they seriously contemplated selling mulligans on 1 and 10 tee. It was crazy how EASY that course was, evident by not a single player missing the cut.




Come on, let's reel it in a little.

 

[johnnymarlboro]

"I'd like to see it tougher." said Graeme McDowell who finished 14 shots back of the leader at T-14.

 

[noobie]

The best player this week won. Not sure you can ask for much more in a tournament setup.

 

[bgoodyear]

No doubt the best player won the tournament.

I agree with the OP, this was no US Open track. Did you guys watch Yang hack the course up that final round? It seemed like he played out of the trees all day. He had no control (relative to his usual skill) and yet managed to shoot par on Sunday. Come on, that's not a US Open test. If he brought that game to any other recent Open he would have limped out of there with an 80.

 

[Hayes9801]

This was not the historically normal US Open set up, but I'm not so certain that the usual set up does a good job of identifying the game's greatest players. Are any of these all time greats....Ed Furgol, Jack Fleck, Dick Mayer, Orville Moody, Tony Jacklin, Lou Graham, Andy North, Scott Simpson, Lee Janzen, Corey Pavin, Michael Campbell, Geoff Ogilvy, Lucas Glover? They're very good players, but they're more just players who had a good week of US Open style plodding around the golf course. Some won two US Opens and really not much else. That's no small feat, but if they're great players why aren't they winning Masters, British Opens and PGAs? Why don't they have 20 tour wins?When the Masters went to the US Open style plodder set up, they got a couple of plodder champions, too....Zach Johnson and Trevor Immelman. Thank goodness they've eased up a bit.

I think when you have set ups that stifle historically great and style-diverse players such as Snead, Faldo and Ballesteros and limit a guy like Palmer to just one victory, you're doing something wrong.

 

[BIGBALL]

I'd have to say you make some good points. I want a tough test, but some of it does border on ridiculousness in my opinion. I like good risk reward golf, and most of the opens it seems the rewards don't justify the risks, so you don't see a lot of chances taken, and that makes it honestly boring to watch sometimes.

Again, this is all just an opinion

 

[faux_maestro]

I'd have to say you make some good points. I want a tough test, but some of it does border on ridiculousness in my opinion. I like good risk reward golf, and most of the opens it seems the rewards don't justify the risks, so you don't see a lot of chances taken, and that makes it honestly boring to watch sometimes.

Again, this is all just an opinion

I think somewhere between the typical setup and what we had this week would be ideal. My least favorite opens to watch? '04 at Shinnecock and Winged Foot '06. Last day conditions dictated par and bogey. I'd like to see the best in the world make a couple of birdies if they hit good shots. The scoring was definitely too low this week, but I'll take that over the greens/fairways being "unhittable".

 

[bgoodyear]

The scoring was definitely too low this week, but I'll take that over the greens/fairways being "unhittable".

I'll take that as well in any tournament but this one. That's the separating style of the US Open. There are tournaments all year long where players drop birdies with ease. This one is supposed to be different. It gives a different kind of player an opportunity to grind out a win. And it gives us something new to watch - a real last survivor type of golf. Seeing pros struggle up the fairways out of position is interesting because its a game that most of us can relate to in our own experiences.

 

[faux_maestro]

I'll take that as well in any tournament but this one. That's the separating style of the US Open. There are tournaments all year long where players drop birdies with ease. This one is supposed to be different. It gives a different kind of player an opportunity to grind out a win. And it gives us something new to watch - a real last survivor type of golf. Seeing pros struggle up the fairways out of position is interesting because its a game that most of us can relate to in our own experiences.

So, if the best golfers in the world hit a great drive or a great iron, you want them to miss the green? That is what I'm talking about. I can remember opens where a great drive was hit and landed in the left side of the fairway and due to slope and speed it would run into the rough on the right. "Unhittable" fairways and greens. Meaning no matter how good a shot is, it won't hold the fairway or green. This has been the case at many opens. If a pro hits a good shot, it should be rewarded, not punished the same way a poor shot is.

Just so you know, I'm not advocating Bob Hope Classic setups. I would like to see somewhere between -3 and -6 win. Now this week, without Rory (who was on a different planet), -8 wins. That is with rainfall and the USGA being mindful of not killing the greens like they did at Shinnecock and others.

 

[mjstrong]

Was there a lot of controversy when Ernie won in 1997? He shot 276 when he won, as did Jason Day (solo 2nd) this year. Apart from one guy going nuts, it seems like the rest of the field was probably not unlike the last visit to Congressional. I'm sure there are significant differences in the course layout, but it still seems reasonable enough to me.

Personally, it felt like a "refreshing" US Open, to see lower scores. I don't mind a break from the annual beat-down once in a while.

 

[faux_maestro]

Was there a lot of controversy when Ernie won in 1997? He shot 276 when he won, as did Jason Day (solo 2nd) this year. Apart from one guy going nuts, it seems like the rest of the field was probably not unlike the last visit to Congressional. I'm sure there are significant differences in the course layout, but it still seems reasonable enough to me.

Personally, it felt like a "refreshing" US Open, to see lower scores. I don't mind a break from the annual beat-down once in a while.

Ernie shot 276 on a par 70 (280), this time it was par 71 (284), so Els was "only" -4. That is another way that the USGA has artificially protected par. They take at least one par 5 and turn it into a long almost unfair par 4. Par is really the wrong way to look at things I guess. Total score for Jason Day and Ernie were the same, Rory was on a different planet.

This time they went the opposite way with the par 4/5 stuff. I think maybe the 6th hole was a par 5 this time and was a par 4 before. Also, they lengthened the course overall quite a bit BUT moved the tees around a lot so it never really played close to the full yardage. I kinda like that, makes the players think off the tees on the 4's and 5's, not able to hit the same club all week off the tee and lines/targets change depending on length/angle/club hit.

 

[Kevin Shields]

Players are too good and fields are too deep now that you have to make the course stupid to keep the score at even. Can anyone remember a US Open that even par won that the course wasnt ridiculous? Guys are too consistent to put up that one bad round as well. 8 under is really not very low when you consider its 4 rounds. For the best players in the world, playing their best, to only average 2 under a round....now thats a hard course. I agree with the poster that the US Open produces some really suspect winners and watching last year, to me, was terrible. Ive hated the last 3 opens at Pebble because they have to destroy the course to trick it up up enough to "protect par". They should hold the thing every year at Firestone and let the rough grow just a bit and get the greens running at 12.5 and you'll get a good winner every time. Probably 5-8 under.

 

[BrendanC]

Michael Campbell at Pinehurst in 2005 won with even par. Retief Goosen started the day at -3 but shot 81 in round four. Campbell was playing reasonably well then but he is very inconsistent and arguably a weak winner.

My favourite US Open recently was Oakmont in 2007 when Cabrera won with some phenomenal shots on the final day.

 

[scotly]

I like to see the Open played as a tournament of attrition. But it does produce some odd winners.

 

[Rick Dandy]

You don't know what you're looking at.

Tom Watson, commented on the 2011 U.S. Open:

“When I played the U.S. Open before this change, there was no first cut of rough,” said Watson, who missed last year’s inaugural Classic while playing in the Senior PGA Championship. “Now, you have the first cut of rough and then the primary rough. The first cut is usually pretty playable.

“Plus, they’re making it shorter. You couple that with soft greens and it makes for low scores. I don’t care if the course is 8,700 yards long, these guys are going to shoot low scores.”

 

[Rick Dandy]

When given the chance to stop at nothing to protect par the USGA did nothing. After all that, thisfact: Rory hit seven wedges into greens on the front nine.

 

[Rick Dandy]

Saturdays round had 26 players under par a RECORD.

Mike Davis' rough "graduated" and Rory as Valedictorian.