Comments about the U.S. Open

I believe that the USGA golf officials need to modify the methods they use to set up the major championship courses in order to provide a fair test for the professional golfers and to better identify not only the winner but the best golfer entered in the tournament.

First, the rant:
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So, Phil screwed up again…Monty puked…all of the contenders choked at the end. I’m beginning to wonder if golfers are actually athletes or just wimpy automatons. We’ve got Tiger and a bunch of misfits. It’s a sorry state of affairs.

The wise old men of golf decided a long, long time ago in a parallel universe that the way to identify the best golfer at a major championship was to increase the difficulty of the course exponentially. For most of the year on the PGA Tour, the pros play on reasonable courses with relatively wide fairways, very little rough and smooth greens. But, when major championships come around, the golf gods decide that they need to toughen up the course. They make the rough taller where the bombers hit their drives. They leave soft sand on the banks of the bunkers so that the pros get fried egg lies when they miss their target by only a few yards. They don’t roll or water the greens.

Sure, sure, other sports have the same problem. Baseball groundskeepers let the infield grass grow or they cut it short depending on the team’s foot speed. Pro basketball officials have widened the foul lane and instituted a three point arc.

However, for the most part, the one constant in most of major sports in the world is that the playing surface is relatively identical no matter the location of the venue. One minor exception is tennis, where some major tournaments are held on clay courts while others are held on synthetic surfaces.

In golf, there have been acceptable differences in golf courses which have been built around the world. Examples of extremes are the wind swept ocean courses in the British Isles, the hilly, tree-lined courses of New York state and the Pete Dye type courses such as the TPC at Sawgrass in Jacksonville, Florida.

The variations in these different types of courses are accepted by the golfing public and the professional players. There are both subtle and extreme variations in these courses which require a different skill set to become a champion at these different types of courses. These variations are part of golf. The professionals know that they have to adjust their skill set to be able to play competently at these different venues.

However, I believe that the officials who set up the U.S. Open have gone too far. They set up the courses to give the journeyman a better chance to win.

It is my theory that if you dummy up a course too much, you are increasing the probability that you’ll get a Rich Beem or a Ben Curtis walking up to the victory stand to accept the accolades of the pundits who inadvertently gave him an unfair advantage over the best golfers of the world. The professionals do not possess the requisite skill set needed to win a tournament if the course is set up significantly different than other regular tour stops. I believe that if one exceeds a certain difficulty factor, the most likely winner will be determined by sheer luck and not skill.

The prime example is to set up the course with slow, bumpy greens. Skill is removed from the equation. On bumpy greens, one makes or misses a putt based on the chance of hitting or missing one of a myriad of imperfections in the putting surface. For example, when my foursome encounters greens that have been aerated, instead of not playing them, we agreed to score a two putt for each green because it is just a matter of luck to make a putt over a foot in length. Of course, professional golfers don’t have this option.

So, how should we set up the U.S Open so that we can determine the best golfer that week and not embarrass the best golfers in the world?

The Solution:
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Make the greens consistently fast and smooth on all holes.

Make the rough a consistent height from tee to green. Gradually increase the height of the rough as the distance from the fringe of the fairway increases but don’t increase the height based on the distance from the tee. This methodology rewards accurate shots while not unduly punishing the long hitters. Remember that distance is one of the myriad of factors which determines the best golfer. A golfer hitting a 340 yard drive down the middle of the fairway is one of the purest forms of golfing prowess. Don’t take that important aspect of golf away from the U.S. Open.

Make the sand consistent on all of the sand traps on the course, particularly the traps around the greens. Avoid soft sand on the inclines at all costs. A professional golfer shouldn’t be penalized for hitting into the wrong section of a sand trap. If the golfer misses his target by only a few yards, he shouldn’t be adversely penalized by hitting into a soft area in the sand trap.

Don’t overly increase the height of the rough around the fringes of the greens. If the rough is too high, a professional only has the option of hacking out and hoping to get close to the pin. If the rough is reasonable, he has a chance to pull off a great chip shot based on skill, not luck or chance.

Anyway, you get my drift. Let’s allow skill, not luck, to determine the next winner at the U.S. Open. I prefer a tiger’s scowl to a journeyman’s g’day.