How do they make the US Open more difficult.

600+ yard par 5's didn't do it.

They cut the gorse to silence the whiners.

Cant count on the weather.

How do they make even par a good score?

Let's see...

- Impose a no workout policy - out of shape players only,

- ban the use of Trackman and any club fitting,

- ban swing coaches,

- roll back the course grooming conditions to pre 1970 standards,

- windmills and clowns noses on every other hole.

The elite player on Tour now is just that good. Par is no longer relevant or obtainable unless weather conditions intervene.

When they make par a good score the USGA gets ripped for embarrassing players and tricking up the course. When -12 leads after 3 rounds we hear about how par should be the winning score. It largely depends on weather, if it were dry and the wind blowing this week could have been a giant cluster fudge. They get it right most of the time, it's mostly up to Jesus once the tournament starts though. It's golf, it's played outdoors over 4 days, and the week's best player always wins.

Let's see...

 

- Impose a no workout policy - out of shape players only,

- ban the use of Trackman and any club fitting,

- ban swing coaches,

- roll back the course grooming conditions to pre 1970 standards,

- windmills and clowns noses on every other hole.

 

The elite player on Tour now is just that good. Par is no longer relevant or obtainable unless weather conditions intervene.

Nah. Thick rough everywhere would do it. Miss a fairway, chop out. Miss a green, no chance of controlling the spin or speed. Makes for a shipshow but it can be set up pretty easily. Thankfully the current USGA doesn't like that approach.

I actually think they had the right course at Erin Hills to really test the players. But it needed wind and dry, fast greens.

Unfortunately Mother Nature never cooperated. It happens.

I'll take care of that today with 17 MPH winds. And I'm thinking of throwing in some 25 MPH gusts once in a while too...just to make it interesting !

xo, Mother Nature

I think scores will be very different today.

Hello wind!

600+ yard par 5's didn't do it.

They cut the gorse to silence the whiners.

Cant count on the weather.

 

How do they make even par a good score?

Why do they need to?

drn92

Change the scorecard... Par 70 >> Par 72. Take 6 strokes away from everyone (8 after today's round), and we'll have a winner at or close to par.

Rough around greens would help!!! Unless the pro has the yips they are getting up and down no matter how tight the lie...

I know exactly what to do fellers.

Over compensate next year and have another nearly unwatchable event at Shinnecock

^^^^

I expect this to happen and will be disappointed if 155 misses the cut. I enjoy years like this year, and also enjoy the occasional bloodbath.

This course could have been a death March if they really wanted. You give the pros 7700 yards and cut the fairways by a third and make that third rough. Give them a yard of the first cut and 5 yards of the second and then fescue fields for the rest.

They couldn't do it or wouldn't do it because of Chambers Bay- they want the pros to want to come back here so perhaps they will trick it up next year or....

Think of this...next year is Shinnecock and that course is a murderer. Perhaps this is a gift before the massacre.

I think today will be closer to what the usga was hoping for all week. 15-20 mph winds. Not enough to really hinder these guy but just enough to get them to think twice before pulling the trigger

Firm greens and don't mow the rough just because Kevin na complains.

Has anyone in their sheer genius measured the course as the crow flies? These guys are not really playing it at 7700...their landing spots and carry distance negates many of the regular obstacles. First time I played Ross Bridge in B'ham, AL they were then playing The Regions tourney their on Champions tour. I played it a month after they were there and a friend had been to the tourney and watched the guys get 50-60 yards of roll in the fw. We got zero...saturated by irrigation to the point it was lift it and clean it.

Again I applaud the fact the place is reasonable daily fee golf course...and it is fun to watch the guys use contours to their advantage. Also remember RM made Congressional look like a chip and putt.

Rain and no wind has made Erin Hills as easy as it will play. If we would have had dry conditions with 15 mph winds this week, the winning score would have been closer to par. There's nothing wrong with the golf course or the setup. It's just that conditions happened to fall the way they did. No need to change anything really. The course and the entire event was presented very well this year by the USGA.

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Rain and no wind has made Erin Hills as easy as it will play. If we would have had dry conditions with 15 mph winds this week, the winning score would have been closer to par. There's nothing wrong with the golf course or the setup. It's just that conditions happened to fall the way they did. No need to change anything really. The course and the entire event was presented very well this year by the USGA.

For all the talk about rain I've been watching tee shots run out all week, yet the greens are receptive.

I don't think the USGA set the course up properly.

I don't think the paying fans want to see an excruciating march to even par. Well, there are a certain number that take pleasure in pros crashing and burning. I was at the 2008 Masters (Immelman won with a 75 on Sunday - best score was 71) and it was the dullest ever. No excitement. No roars. Just a bunch of pros scraping it around for the occasional birdie and trying to not make double. DULL DULL DULL.

Today we might see some train wrecks if the wind holds, but it would be a shame if the Open is decided by who gets the luckiest lie in the fescue.

You could narrow fairways and add 6" rough everywhere. That would make it brutal and only sadists would watch and enjoy.

A better way is to come up with methods to create indecision. Create tee boxes that do not aim the player at the preferred line of play (make them circular or very wide and short where the tee markers can be moved each day lateral to the fairway introducing new sight lines). Make the horizon look featureless (nothing to aim at). That is why players miss the first fairway at the Old Course. Make the rough dry and wispy where the ball will go to the bottom, but still offer a shot. You will gets lots of flyers or not (indecision). Mold greens with lots of subtle breaks around hole locations. Place rough around the greens on mounds around the green surface so the ball hangs in that rough rather than feeding the ball back onto the green. Make greater use of grass bunkers instead of sand. All these features promote uncertainty in how to play the shots. Nothing destroys a round of golf like uncertainty and indecision eroding a golfer''s confidence.

Only wooden bats in MLB; only wooden woods on PGA Tour.

Exact league specs for footballs, baseballs, tennis balls, soccer balls; exact specs for tour balata balls.

No fairways...at all

Just rough everywhere....

-Chris

I don't think the paying fans want to see an excruciating march to even par. Well, there are a certain number that take pleasure in pros crashing and burning. I was at the 2008 Masters (Immelman won with a 75 on Sunday - best score was 71) and it was the dullest ever. No excitement. No roars. Just a bunch of pros scraping it around for the occasional birdie and trying to not make double. DULL DULL DULL.

 

Today we might see some train wrecks if the wind holds, but it would be a shame if the Open is decided by who gets the luckiest lie in the fescue.

Completely agree. Scratching and Clawing to make or save par on every hole Is not what most golfers want to see, myself included.

I just don't understand why the "par is a great score" mentality at an Open continues to persist. No thanks. I'll take a 3-4 under per round average any year.

The ability to scramble and recover from bad lies is a skill too. Some shots require brute strength or the ability to route the club steeply. Others require high, low, left and right ball flight. If you want to test the entire game of a player you have to make the possibility to hit into bad places a real possibility.

It also requires a lot of imagination and you see some of the most amazing shots

If you want fairways, light rough and greens thats what we see week to week.

I like to see the players ability to recover from trouble.

Good instruction as well as I am usually hitting from some strange places.

Change the scorecard... Par 70 >> Par 72. Take 6 strokes away from everyone (8 after today's round), and we'll have a winner at or close to par.

I get changing par to 70 would raise the score. But they'd also have to move up the tee boxes on two of the par 5's. I don't care what conditions are you can't have a 600+ yard par 4. There's already several 500+ par 4's on this course (I call those kind of holes par 5's in these parts). One of the courses I play a lot in these parts has a 488 yard par 4. It's a little downhill but almost always plays into the wind. I have never made par on this hole. Not once. Why can't we just accept that these guys are good? I played a course yesterday that had all four par 5's on it that were under 500 yards from the tips. Heck, one of them was only 420. It was also downhill and downwind. We were hitting half wedges into it with our seconds (playing scramble format with my kids as we always do to keep a brisk pace). As a group we still only made par. Those guys are so much better than the average player it's rediculous. I'm not great but better than the average weekend hacker. I top out shooting par on a 6k yard course. If the field in the US Open were to play that course there wouldn't be a single one over par. None. Someone would top the all time scoring record, easily. Almost all of the par 4's would play as threes for them and the 5's are their normal 4's. My top end is even par there but I can also easily be around 100 if I'm having an off day. Even Willett would be under par there. I can't imagine my score on a 7800 yard course. I'm thinking 100 would be good for me and 120 not out of the question.

Let's just accept that these guys are really good and if they can get to 15 under or so on a 7800 yard course with crazy long rough that absolutely punishes you if you find it, they deserve it. I for one love this course. It's very fair. What more can you ask of it? Who cares if the winning score is well under par? Everyone's playing the same course.

The ability to scramble and recover from bad lies is a skill too. Some shots require brute strength or the ability to route the club steeply. Others require high, low, left and right ball flight. If you want to test the entire game of a player you have to make the possibility to hit into bad places a real possibility.

It also requires a lot of imagination and you see some of the most amazing shots

 

If you want fairways, light rough and greens thats what we see week to week.

I like to see the players ability to recover from trouble.

 

Good instruction as well as I am usually hitting from some strange places.

I agree that. I don't agree with the thick knee high fescue that has been beaten down by spectators and a player finds himself under something like that (fescue by its nature is usually fairly thin and free standing - here because of the wet conditions has become thick and high). That is more than just hitting it in a bad place and having to deal with the consequences. I don't know if that will happen today, but it would be a shame if something like that costs a player a win.

Change the scorecard... Par 70 >> Par 72. Take 6 strokes away from everyone (8 after today's round), and we'll have a winner at or close to par.

 

I get changing par to 70 would raise the score. But they'd also have to move up the tee boxes on two of the par 5's. I don't care what conditions are you can't have a 600+ yard par 4. There's already several 500+ par 4's on this course (I call those kind of holes par 5's in these parts). One of the courses I play a lot in these parts has a 488 yard par 4. It's a little downhill but almost always plays into the wind. I have never made par on this hole. Not once. Why can't we just accept that these guys are good? I played a course yesterday that had all four par 5's on it that were under 500 yards from the tips. Heck, one of them was only 420. It was also downhill and downwind. We were hitting half wedges into it with our seconds (playing scramble format with my kids as we always do to keep a brisk pace). As a group we still only made par. Those guys are so much better than the average player it's rediculous. I'm not great but better than the average weekend hacker. I top out shooting par on a 6k yard course. If the field in the US Open were to play that course there wouldn't be a single one over par. None. Someone would top the all time scoring record, easily. Almost all of the par 4's would play as threes for them and the 5's are their normal 4's. My top end is even par there but I can also easily be around 100 if I'm having an off day. Even Willett would be under par there. I can't imagine my score on a 7800 yard course. I'm thinking 100 would be good for me and 120 not out of the question.

 

Let's just accept that these guys are really good and if they can get to 15 under or so on a 7800 yard course with crazy long rough that absolutely punishes you if you find it, they deserve it. I for one love this course. It's very fair. What more can you ask of it? Who cares if the winning score is well under par? Everyone's playing the same course.

With the USGA, par is a funny thing.

It is really a Par 5 if a guy can hit two #3 woods to it?

Is it really a Par 4 if a guy can fly a #3 wood on the green?

#8 at Oakmont CC last year was a Par 3 at 312 yards. At Erin Hills CC this year, 288 yards = a Par 4.

I remember Hale Irwin's winning score at Winged Foot GC being +7, so the USGA was crucified by the players.

You won't be hearing any complaints from the players this year.

Require players to randomly swap bags with each other, so they get that uneasy ho feeling while they play