Mike Davis knew the questions were coming concerning the most recent time the U.S. Open was at Shinnecock Hills, so he planned a goofy little play on words.
“We’re happy we have a mulligan this time,” Davis, the CEO of the USGA, said Monday out at the venerable track on Eastern Long Island, where the national championship will return in mid-June after they bungled the course setup in 2004. “It was certainly a bogey last time, probably a double-bogey. It’s great to be back to one of the greatest courses on the planet, and I think that if you can’t tell, we are incredibly excited to be back.”
Back 14 years ago, it was Davis standing beside the seventh green during Sunday’s final round monitoring the grounds staff watering the putting surface that had become almost entirely unusable. Putts were rolling off the surface as the grass wilted underneath the glaring sun and wind.
Davis was not the man in charge of setting up that golf course and wouldn’t take over that position until 2006. But now, in his current role, he hopes he has learned from the black eye of that day.
“I would just say it was 14 years ago, it was a different time, different people,” Davis said. “We as an organization learned from it. When you set up a U.S. Open, it is golf’s ultimate test. It’s probably set up as close to the edge as any other event in golf. I think that the difference then versus now is that we have a lot more technology, more data.
“Frankly, what really happened then was just a lack of water put in. The grass went dormant and there wasn’t enough friction on the greens. Nowadays, we have everything from firmness meters, we’ve got moisture meters in the greens. Obviously, we can tell how fast the greens are running. The technology is better. We not only know where the winds are coming from, but the velocities. And frankly there is better communication between the USGA and the grounds staff.”
Of course, there is no way for the USGA to control the weather when the tournament starts June 14. But that can very well be the biggest determinant in how the golf course is going to play and how the USGA sets it up.
“I can also tell you that sitting here today, we have no idea what the winning score is going to be,” Davis said. “I’m a believer that the difference between soft and still U.S. Open, where it’s been raining, [and] where it’s firm and windy, can be as much as 20 strokes — and I’m not exaggerating, having watched this for about 30 years.”
The USGA did add over 400 yards to the course from 2004, when Retief Goosen held on to beat Phil Mickelson down the stretch. Yet the fairways are also going to play quite a bit wider than they did back then — even though still more narrow than what the members have been playing after a recent renovation.
But the prevailing memory still will be what happened on the seventh green on that Sunday, and it’s going to take quite a bit to erase that.
“We had a situation where on some holes, and particularly the seventh hole itself, we were watching well-executed shots not being rewarded,” Davis said. “In fact, in the case of seven, we saw some well-executed shots actually being penalized. I can assure you, that was not what the USGA wanted.”
And now they get, well, a mulligan.
