Friday, August 13, 2021

Late-Week Laments

I have exactly two hours available for blogging, with far more than that to cover.  So, commence speed-blogging....

Anchor This - The USGA is in Western Pennsylvania this week, and is not at all put off by the weather:

On Wednesday morning at Oakmont Country Club, host of this week’s 121st U.S. Amateur, the U.S. Golf Association held a press conference to lay out its future plans to continue its commitment to
bring both men’s and women’s major championships to the nation’s most iconic venues. Get ready to see a lot more golf in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Oakmont, the famed course near Pittsburgh, will be a second “anchor site” for future USGA championships and will host the U.S. Open in 2025, 2034, 2042 and 2049. Across the state just outside Philadelphia, Merion Golf Club in Ardmore was also awarded the U.S. Open in 2030 and 2050.

Pinehurst Resort was named the USGA’s first anchor site last year.

Here's a complete listing of the events involved:

Oakmont Country Club

2021 U.S. Amateur*
2025 U.S. Open*
2028 U.S. Women’s Open
2033 Walker Cup Match
2034 U.S. Open
2038 U.S. Women’s Open
2042 U.S. Open
2046 U.S. Women’s Amateur
2049 U.S. Open

Merion Golf Club

2022 Curtis Cup Match*
2026 U.S. Amateur*
2030 U.S. Open
2034 U.S. Women’s Open
2046 U.S. Women’s Open
2050 U.S. Open

The asterisks denote events that had previously been awarded.  

The commitment to Oakmont will surprise no one, though this bit of choosing venues 2-3 decades out feels a bit forced.  But color me shocked about their commitment to Merion, a club that's played an important role in U.S. Golf history.  But, as iconic as the venue may be, that 2013 U.S. Open wasn't much to anyone's liking, as Shack recounts at his Quadrilateral ( given, as my readers will of course know, that the Impregnable Quadrilateral, from which Geoff's new venture was named, was secured at Merion).

Geoff had these thoughts at the aforementioned Quad:

And what about glorious Merion?

It’s America’s Prestwick only still (barely) able to host a men’s major thanks to silly back tees, lots of O.B., some cool creeks, plenty of fertilizer and members willingly turning their backyards over to hospitality tents. The East Course also has the mesmerizing and terrifying quarry:

When the famed Ardmore club returned in 2013—a whopping 32 years after last hosting the U.S. Open—the East proved to be the anticipated logistical nightmare. In a world where players don’t like parking far from the clubhouse, imagine the shock of having to go well down the street to put on your shoes and warm up. Or to have player dining in someone’s house—with the family joining you for cereal.

And, as I recall, two of the East Course's holes, including the famed 11th where famous handshakes took place, are so low-lying that two holes on their second course had to be maintained to U.S. Open standards in case of flooding.

The USGA can be inconsistent in their treatment of their own history.  Back in the aughts, most of us assumed that Merion and the Country Club's days of hosting U.S. Opens was well behind them.  But if you were going to take the 2013 U.S. Open to one of those two, wouldn't you have thought it would be Brookline?  Because I have this vague memory that something memorable happened there in 1913....

The observant reader would have noticed that the dates for those Merion Opens is not at all random.  That 1930 Open is the centennial of the Bobby Jones Grand Slam (Impregnable Quadrilateral in the phrasing of Jones muse O.B. Keeler), though purists will recall that 1930 win was in the Amateur, not the Open.  That 1950 date will be the centennial of Ben Hogan's epic comeback from his devastating accident, including perhaps the most famous golf photograph ever.

But the kids fact check everything these days, including that one-iron, as per Mike Bamberger:

I once asked Herb Wind about the confusion over the club Hogan hit into 18. Herb said he believed it was a bent and delofted 2-iron that played like a 1.5-iron. Herb said, “But if Hogan says it was a 1-iron, it was a 1-iron.”

The piece linked above is in the form of an open letter to John Capes, III, Merion's Club Historian, with this ultimate objective:

For future U.S. Opens, pros should be treated to a true Merion experience

Shall we see what he means by that?

I’m sure you remember Jaws, that line when Chief Brody says to Cap’n Quint, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Riffing here. For these Opens to work? You’re gonna need a slower ball.

You just are. The first, one of the most iconic starting holes in all of golf, at 350 from the back, with the first tee a spilled lemonade from the porch? You can have players think about hitting driver there, that’s fine. But not reaching. Merion, as a par-70, not even 7,000 yards, all stretched out, is meaningful when the driver maxes out at 300ish. Elite golf needs a slower ball. Period. The second, 560 up the hill? It should barely, barely be reachable in two for the longest hitters. It would be easy to go right through the card. Eighteen should be a driver and a 2-iron, maybe a 1. Merion should test a player’s skill with about seven clubs off the tee, and double that into the green. And then the good times begin.

You know this better than anyone: You go to Merion to slow down time, to live in the present but remember the past. That to me is the point of bringing all these events there.

While Mike arguing for a rolled-back ball is no surprise, the use of Jaws as his appeal to authority I'll admit that I didn't see coming...

Mike reacted to that '13 Open much as Geoff did:

As a four-day total, Justin Rose’s 281 at the ’13 Open looks good in one of your display cases. Par should be meaningful. But the way the USGA got there last time was through trickery. The fairways looking like deer paths through the dunes, they were so skinny. The rough was so heavy (and, nobody’s fault, so wet) rounds would not have finished, were it not for the work of volunteer ball-spotters. The pace was painfully slow. That’s not what Hugh Wilson, inspired by the game as it is played in the motherland, envisioned. Merion’s defense has always been her high-seas greens and deep-faced bunkers. If 268 wins, so be it. Merion has to play like Merion. Not many courses have shorter green-to-tee walks. A round of golf should have a flow to it.

On that same note, the players have to experience Merion. Like they’re playing in the Hugh Wilson Invitational. You use the club driveway. You change shoes in the clubhouse. Everybody starts on one and finishes on 18, even for the first two rounds. If you play in four hours, in the long days of summer, that should not ever be an issue, getting everybody in. If you need a slightly smaller field (144 instead of 156), and a smaller corporate footprint, to make that happen, that’s fine. Do what you need to do. But you go to Merion to experience Merion. Trevino, 1971, after beating Big Jack in the playoff: I fell in love with a girl named Merion, I just didn’t know her last name.

We're all struggling with that underlying point.  That a course that had to be tricked up to control the bombers in 2013 would be awarded the 2050 Open is just hard to understand what that might look like.

But Mike gets in one more bit of history, at least the 1950 version thereof:

BTW, and I know you’ve tracked down most everything there is to track down, but do you have Trevino’s gag snake somewhere in the attic?

How about Hogan’s 7-iron?

OK, it's quite the obscure reference, but here's the payoff:

Ed. note: Hogan, famously, didn’t carry a 7-iron at the ’50 Open at Merion. He said, “There are no 7-iron shots at Merion.”

You can say that when you're never out of position on a golf course, though Hogan was probably that last guy for whom that was true.

Think it's an over-reaction to worry about Merion in 2050?  Have you seen what the kids are doing to Oakmont in 2021?  

While occasionally glancing over at Golf Channel where the U.S. Amateur is running in spurts, I saw a few U.S. Amateur players in the next Oakmont fairway over. I didn’t think much of it other than to mention on the lastest State of the Game to help the drinkers in our audience.

But then GolfChannel.com’s Brentley Romine explained in this story how players see no reason to flirt with Oakmont’s bunkers. He posted depictions of the surprising ways he’s seen U.S. Amateur contestants attacking the storied course.

If you click on the images you’ll see players are avoiding boundaries or severe penalties by aiming at the next fairway over. Including avoidance of the Church Pews. Blasphemy!

With the ability to carry robust distances thanks to those college yoga classes and armed with rangefinders that grab a distance from any old place, the players have no reason to fear going for wider landing areas. And as long as no one is killed in the process, it’s all above board.

Now, if the carry distances were in proportion to the designs and players were restricted from pulling out an expensive pair of binoculars to help deaden any negative impact from their offline plays, this embarrassing stuff would not be happening.

Nothing like multi-layered mockery of rulemakers at one of their most storied events!

Whether this taking of shortcuts and outs will happen at an Oakmont U.S. Open—with more spectators and no rangefinders—I don’t know. But we’ll find out in 2025 when many of these same players will be back, armed with their experience and of course, many more pounds of muscle.

Here's the Brentley Romine tweet that Geoff embedded:

I can see the effect of the rangefinders for sure, but I also wonder if the soft conditions are a factor as well, given that the ball will stay where it lands.  It seems quite the conceit to have confidence that we'll know enough about how the game will be played in 2050 to be confident that Merion, a venue that has no place to grow, will still be a worthy major venue 29 years from now.

The Amateur - I've been able to catch a bit of it, but they're having a God-awful week of weather.  Probably the best of it was this, though I don't believe it was available to TV viewers:

12 players for 1 spot?! Here’s how a wild U.S. Amateur playoff unfolded

Twelve golfers played 36 holes at the 121st U.S. Amateur in 143 strokes. There was room for
only one to advance to the match-play bracket. Their fates were to be decided by a playoff. The prize? A matchup with white-hot Mark Goetz, a local favorite who made just one bogey in 36 holes en route to medalist honors.

Peter Bradbeer struck his drive first, and his three playing partners — the 12 players were broken into three foursomes — followed. The first group walked down the fairway and a vast assemblage of fans joined in pursuit. With no ropes serving as a barrier, patrons could roam as they pleased. The only thing to stop the sea of people from swallowing the players was an imaginary line extending from the outstretched arms of an overmatched USGA official.

“Stay behind me, please!” he shouted.

David Nyjfall was the survivor, but the prize was actually a prize as, just like at Westchester last week, the medalist was defeated in the Round of 64.

Equally significant was the role played by the weather:

But Mother Nature’s wrath has not just impacted the championship’s schedule. The weather also affected the makeup of the 64-player match-play bracket.

As first pointed out by Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine, just three of 78 players who played Oakmont Country Club in Monday afternoon’s brutal conditions advanced to match play.

Temperatures rose to near 90 degrees for the afternoon wave as winds blew steadily, drying out the already brutish course. Oakmont’s scoring average for the day was 77.2 while the other stroke-play host venue, Longue Vue Club, played considerably easier at 71.7. Cole Sherwood was the lone player to break par at Oakmont during the first round.

It's a great event and far more intriguing than the Wyndham.  But the TV schedule was already chopped up due to Golf Channels commitments to the big Tour, but now hopelessly off schedule the TV windows don't really work.  It's still elite players going at each other in match play, but any sense of continuity in the event has been lost.

I'm running quite short on time, but before leaving this storied event I'll link you to this item on the importance to The King of his 1954 U.S. Amateur title.

Dylan's Fever Dream - Dylan Dethier proposed a format for Team golf in the Olympics before the event started, and now he's back to inform as to how it all turned out:

Day 2: THE SCANDINAVIAN SURGE

Denmark throws down a glistening second round thanks to a 63 from Emily Pedersen and a 64 from Nanna Koerstz Madsen to surge into the lead after an 18-under 195. Sweden slips from the lead but hangs onto silver medal position thanks to three rounds in the 60s.

Nelly Korda singlehandedly keeps USA 1 in contention with a 62 (even with double bogey at the last) while Schauffele’s 63 keeps USA 2 within striking distance.

Further down the board, Japan and Ireland post 197 each to climb into the mix. And China, hardly an established golf power, posted 198 to move into sixth.

36-hole leaders:

400 — Denmark

405 — Sweden

406 — Japan

406 — USA 1

407 — Ireland

410 — China

410 — USA 2

411 — Mexico

412 — Australia

413 — South Korea

Of course it's a fatal conceit to just assume that play would have conformed to what happened in the absence of a team competition, but the lost opportunity is quite clear.  Dylan limits himself to this stroke-play format, though acknowledges that team match-play could take it to a higher level entirely.

Of course, those in charge don't seem to share our urgency to turn the event into something more substantive and fun, otherwise we'll wake up and find that the IOC has decided it can live without our little game.

A bit brief, but I really am out of time.  I'll see you good folks on Monday.

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