Open Friday

OK, kids, sorry abut that... I was ninety minutes into a Thursday post, when family matters intruded.  By the time those waned, i was too  deep into the miasma and the entire morning wave was deep into their rounds, rendering Open picks moot.

The content was mostly USGA-centric, so it remains relevant and I'll it at the bottom of this post.  We'll talk briefly about yesterday's play, then I'll discharge you to start your weekend.

Who Are You and What Have They Done To Winged Foot - That wasn't the Winged Foot of legend, or The Foot they had promised:

MAMARONECK – The gnarly rough was a constant source of aggravation for the wayward and polished green complexes demanded full attention, but there was no carnage at the U.S. Open.

Winged Foot played fair.

Justin Thomas took full advantage of a surprisingly gettable West Course on Thursday, carding six birdies and one bogey to grab the first-round lead with a 5-under 65. It’s the lowest round ever recorded on the storied West Course in a U.S. Open.

During the buildup, there wasn’t a single conversation about records falling.

Fair, Schmair!  C'mon, we demand carnage....

Fuzzy Zoeller had the record here in U.S. Open play, shooting a 66 in the second round of the

1984 championship. Patrick Reed, Thomas Pieters and Matthew Wolff matched that number and are tied for second.

In all, 21 players got into the red on Thursday.

Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood and Louis Oosthuizen were next at 3-under followed by six other players at 2-under.

 Par simply wasn’t good enough on Day 1.

Colin Montgomerie was the lone player to break par in the opening round when the U.S. Open was last here in 2006, but the game has changed.

Reed is a special case... Had I finished my "Who Ya Got?" post, I would have noted that he has the perfect game for this venue... Why?

That's a shot one needs for Winged Foot...

Daniel Rappaport takes a deeper dive on those benign conditions:

Receptive indeed, particularly early in the day. Weather, of course, is the one thing course-maintenance teams can’t control. And on Thursday morning, there was no wind to speak of and

the ground was wet to the touch. One might think that heat would make greens dryer—that’s true in some places at some times, but not in late summer in New York. Because heat brings humidity, and humidity brings moisture. There was hardly any humidity during the practice rounds but it was there on Thursday, and it added an extra bit of moisture that made greens much friendlier to golf balls flying in from 200-plus yards.

“We’re hitting 5-irons that aren’t releasing much,” said Webb Simpson, who teed off at 7:56 a.m. and shot 71. “I don’t know if they wanted them soft on purpose with cooler temperatures and the wind coming, but they’re certainly softer today than they were when I got here on Tuesday.”

OK, the dew's gonna do what the dew's gonna do, but this astute observer knows there's more at play:

The softness helped, but so did the hole locations. Some were in the middle of the green, like on Nos. 3 and 18. Others were particularly accessible, like the par-3 seventh, where there were two holes-in-one. Others, like the first and sixth holes, were placed at the bottom of ridges, allowing players to use the dramatic contours of these A.W. Tillinghast greens to their advantage. “Augusta-like,” is how Rose described them.

“When you hit the right shot at the right time, it’s going to move toward the pin,” Rose said. “Obviously, I played with Rory [McIlroy], who shot three under and made it look relatively easy. Provided you did the right things at the right time, there were some birdies to be made.”

Yeah, those hole locations seemed perfect for...well, the women's Wednesday Night League?  Why?  Basically two logical reasons, the first being:

Why was the USGA, not necessarily known for taking it easy with its course setups, so generous? A few potential reasons. One, given the governing body’s turbulent history with U.S. Opens of recent vintage—remember Chambers Bay in 2015, Oakmont in 2016 and Shinnecock Hills in 2018—there could be a tendency to err on the side of caution.

“The greens are very soft,” Thomas said. “I thought they’d be a little firmer, but I also understood that they need to err on this side so they can get them how they want this weekend.”

Always deserves mention given the USGAs recent history, though I'm guessing this is only the silver medalist.

But this would seem to be the bigger issue:

Another potential explanation is purely logistical in nature. This U.S. Open was initially scheduled for June 18-21, near the summer solstice. The sun rises before 5:30 a.m. and sets around 8:30. The sun rose at 6:38 on Thursday morning and set at 7:02. That’s two-and-a-half less hours for the field to finish. Knowing this, the USGA cut the field down from 156 to 144, but that only corresponds to two less tee times given the threesomes off double-tees on Thursday and Friday. Everyone involved wants to avoid rounds not ending on time (three players have to return to the course Friday morning to finish up their first rounds due to darkness) or worse a Monday finish, and a gentler course setup leads to faster play.

That's wrong, I think.  The risk isn't a Monday finish, the risk is Friday spilling into Saturday morning...  Once the make the cut, pace of play shouldn't be an issue. 

Shall we visit the Daily Tour Confidential on this subject?

Day 1 of the 120th U.S. Open is in the books. Justin Thomas set the pace, firing a five-under 65 to record the lowest round ever at a Winged Foot U.S. Open. But he’s not the only one who went low. Twenty-one players shot under par and 11 more are at even par. Wasn’t this place supposed to be a brutal test? Did Winged Foot play too easy in Round 1, and what do you expect to see come Friday?

Sean Zak: Clearly it played easy, but is there anything wrong with easing our way into this thing? There was no obvious benefit in terms of morning/afternoon draw. They won’t cut the grass again, won’t apply much water, and will toughen up the pin locations. I think today was just fine.

Michael Bamberger: No. They had to get the players around before dark and barely did. This was the day to score. All good.

Alan Bastable: It’s fall golf in New York. With such cool mornings and evenings, this course was never going to be Shinnecock in late June. If there was a miss today, it was the pins. Two aces on the same hole — that ain’t the Open, that’s 16 on Masters Sunday. But give this beast time. The rough will grow over the next three days and no doubt the crew will suck some moisture out of the greens. The Foot might, and likely will, do some a**-kicking yet.

Errr, Alan, may I suggest some specific a***s?

Josh Sens: I would have liked to have seen it play a little tougher, but better to err on the side of forgiveness on Thursday. Get things too firm and fast right out of the gate, and you risk losing the course as the week goes on. There’s still plenty of time for them to toughen it up, which they will. The greens will get firmer. The pins will get less friendly. And the sadists among us will have lots to cheer about. The winning score will be nowhere as deep as where Thomas took it today.

Dylan Dethier: Too easy! The entire idea of this U.S. Open, as stated by Winged Foot’s director of golf courses, was to provide a firm, fast, fair test. The greens were big-time soft; players were shocked by how much their balls were spinning. So I think they missed their mark, though just by a little bit. Still, plenty of time to dial up something a little spicier for the next three days. Also, Bamberger does have a point about the light.

Luke Kerr-Dineen: Yes, it played a little easy, perhaps, but I’m giving the USGA the benefit of the doubt that they’ll toughen up the course over the ensuing days. Ultimately, Justin Thomas is leading because he played really, really well. He was one of just two players (Rory was the other) who ranked in the top 10 in both fairways hit and greens in regulation, so I’m not buying all the U.S. Open-has-gone-soft takes. The truth us, those making that argument are only happy when they get to complain about how unfair the course is.

Nick Piastowski: I think it was fair. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right, Goldilocks. Justin Thomas is at five under. A fair number. Twenty-one players under par. A fair number. And 113 players are over par. It’ll get harder going forward — tougher pins, the mowers might stay in the barn, the greens might get a little thirsty — but, all in all, a fair first day.

We were all interested to see this week as part of the longer-term issues of distance and scoring.  If they're worried about pace of play/daylight, then logically to day needs to look a lot like yesterday.  But then do they turn the amps up to 11 on Saturday?

 Or maybe their hand gets forced today?

U.S. Open weather: Friday forecast calls for much breezier Winged Foot

 Also a titch of rain in that forecast, so perhaps offsetting factors...

I'm not going to dive too deep into the leaderboard, but those hoping for a Tiger or Phil miracle have been dashed against the rocks of reality.  I haven't read this item, but the header is off-putting:

U.S. Open 2020: Phil Mickelson deserved better in his return to Winged Foot

Deserved?  Yanno he deserved the tee time... after that, it's pretty much all on him... I did like this bit from that first piece linked above: 

Phil Mickelson was in trouble up to his calves most of the day, conjuring up images of his final-round collapse in 2006. The six-time U.S. Open runner-up didn’t even hit a fairway until the ninth hole.

Heh!  Phil is very proud of those calves, and we can only hope the three of them will be happy together...

Mike Bamberger has the definitive account of Phil's day, and it's a dreary affair, though deftly handled by a skilled writer:

2 p.m. PMWFT (Phil Mickelson Winged Foot Time): Last time, in 2006, he was Big Phil. He was awshucks Phil. Now he’s badass Phil, with the shades and the calves and the bombs. Oh, he bombed one on the first hole here Thursday afternoon, lefter than left. So left he drew a decent lie. He launched-and-stuffed from there and did not do the Phil nod after making his birdie 3. Not because badass Phil doesn’t acknowledge his peeps anymore. He most assuredly does. It’s just that his people are not here. No Amy. No coach. No huddled masses. Just Brother Tim on the bag, Raja Maltbie in an NBC cart in the rough and a prop plane droning overhead. Phil’s quest, at age 50, was under way. You know what we’re talking about.

To me it was pitch perfect.  His first two tee balls go left-of-left, from whence he makes birdies...  But the astute observer notes that strategy probably doesn't work over the long term, and is immediately rewarded for that astute observation.  See, you too can be a golf blogger...

And this inevitable scene:

6:22 PMWFT: Phil had been playing golf for almost five hours and had just reached the 18th tee. Golf is not supposed to be such a slow sport but it is. It was 14 years and three months since he had played a tee shot from that 18th hole in competition. You likely know what happened on that long-ago Father’s Day. Thursday’s shot was meaningful or meaningless, take your pick. He hit it short and left again.

Though in an act of mercy, the actual trees from 2006 are gone...But a shockingly dreary performance from Phil.  Just no energy to be seen, even when he was -2 after two holes.

Of course, this guy was of interest as well:

U.S. Open 2020: Bryson DeChambeau attacked with bombs, but hardly brought Winged Foot to its knees

 No, but he's not poorly positioned at -1...  I'd call it a push.

Folks are seemingly shocked by the two aces at No. 7 yesterday, but there were four aces on the 6th hole at Oak Hill in the second round of the 1989 Open.  Since you asked, Mark Wiebe, Jarry Pate, Doug Weaver and Nick

I'm going to leave you at this juncture, but remind you of yesterday's content below.  We'll see what we all think on Monday morning

USGA Stuff - Mike Davis was everywhere yesterday, so we'll deal with a few stories for which our governing body is the only connective tissue.  First, a discussion on those very first balls in the air from John Bodenhamer:

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.

Well played, sir.  Just a small thing, but glad to see them flush it...

Then, courtesy of Geoff, the kind of nonsense that sets our eyes to rolling (with Geoff's snarky comments included in italics):

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!

Silly me, I'm still wondering why a governing body has a Chief Brand Officer... But of course I agree that there is no problem in our game that can't be solved by a good brand anthem...

Ironically, in a year of pandemic, the USGA simply cannot cure themselves of a case of chronic Masters envy... Hold that thought, as we'll circle back to it in a bit.

They touched on most of the hot-button issues you'd expect, including this "Next Year in Jerusalem" moment:

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.

The last few months have been so very educational, for which I'm eternally grateful.  For instance, we've learned that lockdown protests are super-spreader events, whereas rioting for social justice poses no health risk.  Good to know...

Similarly, one can work on PSAs and brand anthems during a pandemic, but not on analyzing distance... Because?  Social justice, I assume...

Circling back to that thought I asked you to hold, do you remember the shock of the award of USGA television rights to Fox?  If not, this Ron Sirak classic will refresh your memories, the shock being the USGAs rather unhealthy Masters envy.  I say shocking because any of my readers could explain to Mike Davis in two minutes why the Masters will always out draw an Open, and by a Tigeresque margin...

Dave Shedloski has an item up that should be read as a companion piece to Sirak's, the headline of which will inevitably be this:

It took more than luck. FOX and NBC had to hammer out a deal in which the two sides split nearly equally the cost of the remainder of the FOX contract. Talks wrapped up in early June. But that was hardly the end of it. FOX did not have the right to simply assign the TV rights to NBC. The USGA had to sign off on it, essentially negotiating an exit deal with FOX and closing on a new deal with NBC.

FOX representatives broke the news of their agreement with NBC to Davis at a June 17 meeting at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J. The next day NBC officials visited USGA headquarters at Golf House in Liberty Corner, N.J., to start the process of negotiations.

Awkward.  B=But the fact that these negotiations happened behind the back of the USGA may be the telling detail. 

We probably need to revisit this visual from that Sirak piece:

So Fox will pay half of the inflated value of this contract, and get nothing in return?  Who's got whom by the neck?

We all understand the issues involved with NFL contracts and the like, the complications of which stretch into 2021.  But see if you can suss out the comedy gold here:

“We kept hearing that the Open Championship was going to go from July to September, that Augusta was going to reposition to November and that the U.S. Open was possibly going to go to Riviera and be the third week of December,” Miller recalled. “And we knew that we couldn't handle [the U.S. Open] if it was in December, because we have Sunday Night Football, and it would have also been the same weekend as our Father/Son event. So we didn't really pay too much attention to the U.S. Open. We were just more concerned with the Open Championship.”

There's actually a ton of information jammed into that one 'graph.  For instance, that the Open Championship could have been this week, combined with a  December U.S. Open at Riviera... That could been fun, but once Mr. Slumbers saw the number of zeros on the business interruption claim check...

But Jon Miller, the President of Programming for NBC Sports, said out loud without any sense of shame, that NBC couldn't broadcast the U.S, Open because of the Father/Son event...  Le Sigh!

About That Rota - This mini-obsession is well into the annoying category, because of course there's a rota... or something, really, whatever you want to call it...

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.

You mean that Jordan won't be bragging about his Open at Chambers Bay?

But, gee Mike, who was it that abandoned all those venues? And let's remember that they've already abandoned Winged Foot once... But that you need a focus group to tell you to take your events to your greatest U.S. Open sites isn't terribly comforting...

Bodenhamer had this to say about The Foot's potential inclusion in that rota:

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.

By which I assume he means this:

“Our compensation was based on the number of fans that came to watch the tournament, plus the amount of merchandise that was sold in the merchandise tent, plus the corporate tents that were sold and the rental of the property,” he said. “We’ve had a 90 percent reduction in the revenue going to the club.”

But he took a long view. “When you do business with someone, it’s a partnership,” he said. “You win, they win. You lose, they lose,”

And because there is a U.S. Open in some form, with the television revenue and some advertising dollars from sponsors, the U.S.G.A. can continue funding its nonprofit partners and hope for better next year.

 Only 90%?  As for whether that relationship is truly a partnership, we'll see how they get rewarded...