This is the subject of a post at the golf.com Press Tent blog just before the Open Championship. The Open is hosted at Royal Birkdale, a place of which Peter Dawson of the R&A declared that the game had moved on from, but came back there anyway after lengthening is, despite saying in 2005 that the distance gains in the golf ball had stopped. (I could go on with the contradictions all day.)

Interestingly enough, it was the Open Doctor Rees Jones who said this:

Rees Jones, the golf course architect, was saying the other day that in flat, still conditions, a true par-5 for a Tour player must be at least 600-yards long, and even that might not be enough. The traditional post-War World II American golf course — par 72, with four par-5s — is now dead.

Very curious that Rees would be saying this considering that he has been behind par 5 conversions to excruciatingly long par 4s in recent years for major championships. No wonder he is declaring the concept dead – most of the time, he prefers to be lazy and convert holes to 4s instead of doing something imaginative with the 5s. Thank God for Mike Davis keeping 18 at Torrey as a 5.

Jones was also pimping out his work that will be on display next month at Oakland Hills.

“To have a true par-5 for the Tour player,” Jones said, “you have to present them with something very penal in the landing area of the missed second shot, water or waste bunker or something else, at about the 575 mark.” That, Jones explained, is how you get the hole in the head of the elite player. Otherwise, it’s bombs away.

The best we can do is a bunker or a hazard to get into guys’ heads? Really?! How about a dogleg, or an oddly aligned green? Perhaps a two-tiered fairway that is filled with rough between 300 and 350 yards? Rees loves rough, so why not encourage him to use it. How about sloping fairways and uneven lies?

Or even stranger – maybe it’s ok to give guys the incentive to go for it on a lengthy par 5. How about Tiger Woods at 13 at Torrey? He had big enough of an ego to go for it, and he paid.

Weirder is that Rees appears to be contradicting himself. The American Society of Golf Course Architects spoke with him on the eve of the US Open and he said this:

The 18th hole will play at 550 yards, giving most players the option of going over the pond and to the green in 2. This should create a lot of drama on this final hole! We also rebuilt the bunkers, repositioning them and making them deeper. Their shapes and slopes will render an unpredictable lie from a player’s errant shot.

So, there are things that can be done with a hole that is shorter than 600 yards that could determine if a player goes for the green or not. In addition, he mentions the importance of lie in a player’s decision to go for a green. This should apply not just to the bunker, but also to the fairway.

It all comes out of a San Diego Union-Tribune piece by Tim Sullivan.

First, some news on future US Open sites in 2016-2018.

Mark your calendars for June 2018. Mark them in pencil, though, because the invitation has just been issued and the approval process can be prolonged.

The next two Open openings, in 2016 and 2017, are expected to be filled by Oakmont Country Club, the suburban Pittsburgh site of the 2007 Open, and the new Erin Hills (Wis.) Golf Course, site of the 2011 U.S. Amateur.

The USGA will consider those courses at its October championships and executive committee meetings in New Jersey. Based on the commercial and theatrical success of the 108th Open, however, Torrey Pines could also be considered for fast-track approval.

Of course, none of this is set in stone. The clubs have to negotiate with the USGA and come to an agreement for an official announcement to be made. Also, in the case of Torrey, the city of San Diego has to agree to the contract as well as various side organizations that are related to Torrey – no Friends of Torrey Pines this time, though. Just the hotels and such. Keep your fingers crossed, San Diego, and stay classy.

Then Sullivan shifts his conversation with David B. Fay, executive director of the USGA, to revenues and payments. Apparently, he is not too happy with Jon Show’s reporting of the profits of the US Open.

Whether auditors will conclude that the city broke even on the 2008 Open will depend on the size of their imagination. The city stands to collect only $500,000 in cash for an event that could be worth up to $50 million in profits to the USGA, according to Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal.

Though Fay says that estimate is a distortion – “the guy who parsed the numbers together for Sports Business should receive an advanced degree for making accounting a creative art!” he wrote – the USGA typically books enough profit to pay millions to the Open site.

Unfortunately, though, no where in the piece does Show mention anything about payments to the city or the Friends of Torrey Pines. Actually, the piece that talked about how the city of San Diego was getting ripped off was reported in the Union-Tribune. The city may only get $500K, but the total payout comes close to $6 million. About 12% of the Open’s profits were given back to the course or the city.

Keep in mind, though, that the Friends of Torrey Pines was an organization created specifically for being the intermediary negotiating between the city of San Diego and the USGA. And they got $5.37 million from the USGA. The city got $500,000 plus another $700,000 in reimbursement for expenses and public safety. Unfortunately, though, the city put in a whole lot more than that.

Meantime, the city’s golf enterprise fund will make no direct money from the U.S. Open, while about $3 million has been spent on projects related to the Open, according to Golf Manager Mark Woodward. That work includes the acquisition and installation of one million square feet of kikuyu turf, the moving of trees, repainting the clubhouse and restrooms, and the construction of new cart paths to minimize damage to the grass.

Also, the problem with the Friends of Torrey Pines has been detailed in the past, but some may have forgotten it. So, let me rehash it. It all starts with the Chris Millard piece that ripped a new one into Walter Driver:

One current example of this trend is the case of Cameron Jay Rains. Rains is the co-chairman of the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. He is also a member (since 2003) of the executive committee. This circumvents the time-honored practice in which local championship chairs report to USGA staff. When asked whether the arrangement presents a conflict, Driver says, “He was the chair of the ‘08 Open before he came on the executive committee, and we essentially screened him off from any potential conflict.” Pressed to admit Rains’ dual interests could at least raise some eyebrows, Driver is dismissive. “Doesn’t work that way,” he insists.

Some observers aren’t so sure. “The person negotiating on behalf of the city of San Diego [Rains] is also on the USGA executive committee,” says Shackelford. “He’s on both sides of the table. So when San Diego [officials] want to know how many hats were sold and what their cut of the revenue is, this isn’t a problem? Who is [Rains] looking out for? It’s just astonishing.”

In the end, Rains did raise about $3.5 million through the creation of Friends of Torrey Pines for various course projects that eventually led to the Open coming to Torrey. This was private capital, though. That private capital investment is being paid off by the USGA in the form of $5.37 million. In effect, they will make a $600K profit from their investment.

The funny thing is that they estimated last year that they would make $2 million less – a break even investment, so to speak:

Rains said this week he believes the Friends of Torrey Pines will receive about $3.5 million from the Open – $2.5 million in corporate sales and the $950,000 the city reimbursed it for the South’s reconstruction.

It almost sounds a loss of money here for the FOTP because of the $1.2 million that goes back to the city from the Friends. The Union-Tribune reported the $5.37 million number from Rains the week of the Open:

The Friends reported they would receive $5.37 million from the Open, largely from rent payments and corporate hospitality shares through the USGA. Most of that – $3.4 million – will go back to the families and businesses that paid for the renovation of the South Course in 2001. They have said they will contribute that money to charity.

There is no legal obligation for the 30 investors that make up the Friends to donate the money to charity. I suppose they could consider it reimbursement for their investment. Still, this means that the city will lose a few million dollars on the deal with the USGA. And, as I read it, it also means that the Friends will make back their investment plus $600K. Basically, money that could have gone to pad the cost for San Diego will go to private hands instead. That is a solid return on investment for Friends of Torrey Pines – almost 20%.

And I will close with a quote from a Tod Leonard piece already quoted in this post from Rains:

“The money that comes back will be given to charity,” Rains said. “I don’t want anybody to say we made money off a public golf course.”

Though Rains said he will leave it up to the individual donors on how they donate their share, he intends to encourage funding a project that will enhance the experience for city golfers. He said he could not be more specific at this time.

So, what about that $600K again? And going from a $1.2 million loss to a $600K profit in the course of a year?

…that got out of hand really quickly.

Unlike some of Tiger Woods’ other major championship wins, this one was not a masterpiece. Rather, this was a championship in which Woods played well enough for the right stretches of time to stay in contention, take the lead, and ultimately win his 3rd US Open. Phil Capelle slapped an interesting term on what Woods did this weekend. He calls it a “scoring binge.”

Tiger Woods orchestrated two scoring binges covering 11 holes in which he knocked eight shots from par. Oddly, both were kicked off by wildly errant tee shots where he was lucky to escaped disaster.

On Friday, his tee shot on the first hole (his tenth of the day) was a classic wide right that stopped just to the left of a tree. He took full advantage of this break by lofting an 8-iron onto the green and canning a 20 foot birdie putt. He then birdied the second with a 25 footer, parred the third, then rolled in a 35 footer on the fourth. His birdie binge culminated with a twisting 18 foot putt on the fifth.

Woods’ second binge came on the back nine on Saturday. When he teed off on the par 5 thirteenth he was one over for the tournament and several shots back of Mediate. He pushed his drive at least 60 yards off line, but naturally drew a very playable lie in the rough. His iron shot landed within a foot or two of the hole before rolling just off the back edge 65 feet from the cup. No problem. His cross country putt broke at least five feet before diving into the cup, setting off an enormous explosion from the gallery.

After a bogey and three pars Woods hit another patented miss far right of the seventeenth fairway. Once again he drew an open shot, which he knocked up next to the green. He then hit his pitch way too hard, but it bounced once and dove straight into the cup for a much undeserved birdie. Woods concluded his binge with a 40 foot eagle putt on 18.

You can tell that Phil is not a Tiger-homer at all, so that may offend you if you are. But, the point should be well taken that Tiger did not own Torrey or the field for 72 holes. In fact, he probably actually led the championship for fewer holes than any of his major wins. It goes to show, though, that the only hole that matters is the last one. Or the last one plus another 18, plus another.

What a treat today was. We got 19 holes of spectacular golf in a playoff. Both players matched each other and the course, shot for shot, to fire a round of even par 70. Rocco got caught in a fairway bunker on the first hole of sudden death and that awkward lie was pretty much all she wrote. Even despite that situation, Rocco still had a chance to extend the playoff.

That was the story of the day for Rocco. At times, particularly on holes six through ten, it seemed like he was out of it and that this would end a rout. Still, Rocco had holes left and found a way to rally on the backside. He came back with birdies on the back side at 13, 14, and 15. The guy would not go away and that his a tribute to the kind of guy that he has been his entire career. Though the payoff is not in victory, it is in an immeasurable amount of respect.

Woods, to the contrary, looked as though he was coming up just short. Something appeared to be off about Woods all day long. Holes 11 and 12 let Mediate back into the championship. Still, like yesterday, he summoned just enough of his own talent to be able to survive until he could win. It is the mark of a champion. This is the 14th time that we have seen that talent end in a major title, and certainly the most dramatic of them all – no disrespect to Chris DiMarco or Bob May.

Thousands of words could not do this playoff justice, although I am certain someone is going to write a book about this week. (John Feinstein, maybe?) So, I will try to sum it up in one: incredible.

I’m beginning to think that Mike Davis is onto something much larger than a brilliant Open setup. I think he could be opening up the concept of modular golf. This is going to be far out there, but I want your thoughts on it.

Today, 14 played as a 267 yard par 4. It could have easily been a very lengthy par 3 – still short of Oakmont’s #8 last year. Why not play it like a par 3 and change par to 70 for the day?

How about taking the 18th hole and bumping it down to 470 and a par 4 for a round and throwing in the Sunday Buick Invitational pin? Originally, it was the idea to make 18 into a par 4 for the Open. It would not have hurt to throw that bone in for a day.

Why not coming up with an ultra short tee for a hole like 13? Tiger and Lee Westwood were made to look like fools from 290 yards in the fairway. If that were the tee, and the hole a par 4, would most golfers have given that a stab? I think so. If not, they would have a 100 yard or less pitch that is awkward up the hill.

Certainly, not every course could play this way. But, it might be worth a chance. If par doesn’t matter – and, really, it doesn’t in major championship golf – then the Mike Davis’ of the world can do anything that their imagination conjures.

Consider this from Jim Furyk:

“As far as protecting par, I firmly believe the USGA wants to make the golf course as difficult and as testing a golf course as they can without going overboard,” Furyk said. “For the best players in the world, that’s going to be shooting somewhere around even par. But if it’s 5 under or 5 over, I don’t think it really matters.”

My hope is that the rumors of introducing forward tees at Augusta National will be true. If that is the case, there may very well be some relief for the disease of Par-itis at the Masters.

I said after last year’s US Open at Oakmont that the USGA was heading in the right direction with its setups and that it was beginning to surge ahead of the Masters in my ranking of major championships. Despite another winning score of +5, I said that Mike Davis and Jim Hyler were going in the right direction with short par 4s, holes of greatly varying lengths, and an aesthetically pleasing course. Yes, the rough was dreadful. Players complained a lot. But, it was a means to set up the suits at Far Hills for what was coming this year.

Torrey Pines was to be the setup that made or broke Mike Davis as the setup guy for the national championship. He replaced Tom Meeks, who ushered in a new era of Open design that was almost universally hated and practically indefensible for a national championship. Davis had a low bar to beat from his predecessor, but after the last two Opens, some may have been getting impatient.

In reality, there was no reason to be worried. As golf writer Jay Flemma put it in his blog:

The rough and greens at Oakmont and Winged Foot are the toughest in the world. You’re naturally going to have higher U.S. Open scores there. Torrey is not in the same category of difficulty; there is no excuse for a +5 winning score here. He also knows +5 at Torrey would be viewed as a more manufactured result than a +5 at Oakmont.

Davis made sure that he had a lot to work with for this Open at Torrey Pines – only the second daily fee course to host the championship. He had seaside views, big crowds, and awesome hand picked threesomes. He had the longest course in US Open history at his disposal. There were greens rolling at perfect speed being played into from modestly shaped fairways.

Best of all, though, Davis also made sure that he had lots of tees at different angles so that Torrey would play a little different every day. He offered a taste of his genius when he opted to play the par 3 third hole at its shortest 142 yard tee. Then he did not choose to play the monster 13th hole at its longest tee – he waited until Sunday to do that.

And what a Sunday setup. He went for the tees up in the final round. The course played almost 400 yards less than its maximum. In particular, two holes told me that Davis has convinced the brass at the USGA that he makes good sense. He shortened the 435 yard 14th hole to 267 yards and enticed almost 75% of the field to go for the green despite a canyon off of the back of a mowed fringe. That hole played shorter than #8 at Oakmont last year…and that was a par 3. Then, he moved up the tee on 18 to 525 yards and just begged for players to go for it in two. Unfortunately, lousy drives from the final two groups did not allow that to happen, but it made for such intrigue anyway.

This is what the Open is meant to be – tough, long, but fair. There were birdie holes out there. The players may not have made many birdies, but it was because of them, not because of the course. What a treat.

I want to publicly congratulate Mike Davis and the USGA for turning things around at the Open. For as much as I hate corporate sponsorships and not acting on technology that is hurting the game, they have earned my respect for believing in where Mike Davis was going long before it ever manifested itself. The payoff for Davis comes in the form of one of the greatest Opens ever – of course thanks to a man from Greensburg, PA, and the greatest golfer today.

That query was made thousands of times on the Internet – particularly on Google – this evening during coverage of the US Open Championship from Torrey Pines. How do I know? My blog was the beneficiary of plenty of hits from inquiring minds wanting to know what would happen in the event of a tie after 72 holes at Torrey. The answer is what we will see on Monday.

Tomorrow, starting at about 9am Pacific time, the world’s greatest player Tiger Woods will take on Rocco Mediate, ranked 158^th in the world. Just in case you are not familiar, Woods will be vying for his 14^th major championship and his third in a playoff. In the two prior occasions in which Woods has faced overtime, he has come out victorious.

Most recently, he did so in 2005 when Woods had the chip-in of the century amidst a tough battle with Chris DiMarco. In the end, though, Woods’ putter did the talking and he won his fourth green jacket.

The other playoff was against another relative unknown in Bob May. He was the last man to force Tiger Woods to birdie the 72^nd hole to extend his quest for a major championship. May, a long time journeyman player on the European Tour, held his own with Tiger Woods even into a playoff. Eventually, though, he succumbed to time and destiny at Valhalla in the 2000 PGA Championship.

Now, Woods will take on Rocco Mediate. Mediate last won on the PGA Tour in 2002 in Greensboro at what is now the Wyndham Championship. He has a handful of PGA Tour wins in total. The last – and really only – time he ever seriously contended for a major championship was the 2006 Masters. It was then that the problem that has plagued his career, an erratic back, caused him to fade away before Phil Mickelson ultimately won his second green jacket.

Last season, he began the year as a commentator on the Golf Channel’s coverage of the PGA Tour. Part way through the year, he got his game and his life in order and came back to the Tour as a player. By the end of the year, he had made more than a million dollars and finished at 65^th on the money list. The guy is a hell of a golfer.

He is also a hell of a person. Given the pressure of this situation – in the championship that he wants to win more than any other – Mediate was the absolute coolest customer. Honestly, he looked like a man who was playing a four ball scramble at his club that just happened to have 50,000 onlookers that day. He was smiling and having fun, both of which are not generally synonymous with the US Open. The measure of his inner peace was best expressed after he holed out for par on 18 to become the first man in four years to finish the US Open under par. He simply looked at his caddy and said that was the best he could do. It certainly was, and he looked more than satisfied.

Tiger Woods, though, was the total opposite of Mediate. He looked hurt, stressed, and angry throughout the day. The best player in the world was cussing like a sailor and throwing golf clubs. The man was frustrated that it could all be slipping away from him – another chance to get closer to Jack Nicklaus.

It was in stark contrast to his own utter disbelief during his Saturday round for the ages. The knee was clearly bothering him in terms of pain and how it may have limited his play. He blocked the ball. He hooked it badly. Woods missed putts that we would normally consider perfect for his stamp. Had they only counted the best twelve holes, Woods should have lost the US Open. Still, somehow, Woods summoned enough to match Rocco Mediate. With a scintillating scramble birdie on the 72^nd hole, Woods ensured an 18 hole showdown.

The tee time tomorrow morning could not feature a larger contrast in Woods and Mediate. It is the battle of a man with absolutely nothing to lose and a man who has no time to lose in catching history. A win tomorrow for one could mean retirement – Mediate has said as much half-seriously – and for Woods it would just mean another notch on the belt. Rocco will enjoy every single second of the experience tomorrow and Woods will probably only truly enjoy the experience in retrospect, and only if he wins.

For any fan that can watch tomorrow, they will have two clear choices and rooting interests. There is the everyman in Mediate, from a small town in Pennsylvania (that I have been in and am getting to know), and someone who loves this process. Then there is the man that has done everything there is to do, yet still found a way to surprise us with his final three rounds this weekend. It is quite the tale of the tape.

No matter the result tomorrow, this US Open will go down as one of the greatest in history. It is not only because of the amazing combination of golf played, but because of the people involved. This game is nothing without the characters that make it such a dramatic experience. Tomorrow, rightfully so, two of the game’s greatest characters will be rewarded with the stage and, for one, our national championship.

You know which one I am talking about, right? Anyway, I noticed this on TV and I’m glad that Lorne Rubenstein could verify it for me on the ground.

It was so special that the United States Golf Association put Woods’s and Mickelson’s names on the top of the leaderboards on the course throughout their round, although they were nowhere near posting the lowest scores. Woods did get back to one under par after nine holes, overcoming a double bogey on the first hole, but he “three-whipped” the last green, as he put it, to get in at his one-over-par score. Three-whipped for par, to be sure.

Courtesy USGA. All rights reserved.

Also, I found this to be very interesting:

Scott was on a [press] podium answering a question. But Woods then moved in and a USGA official abruptly said the Scott interview was over. It hadn’t lasted more than a couple of minutes.

What else was new? This day was more about Woods than anybody or anything. It remains to be seen whether the entire championship will be about him.

Can you exactly blame the USGA for trying to capitalize on the second time in which their championship served as the return for Tiger back to competitive golf? Then when you consider that it would have been in incredibly bad taste to do so last time – Winged Foot in 2006 after Earl Woods’ passing – it was bound to happen.

Steve Elling makes a great point about the possibility of a birdie (or eagle….GASP!) winning the US Open on Sunday evening. It has not been done in 82 years, as Elling explains in a May 12 article:

Mike Davis, the director of rules and competition for the USGA, has fielded feedback from staffers, players and a number of helpful critics and conjured up the most enticing news at an Open venue in decades. The tee on the 18th, he said, will be positioned to allow even medium-length hitters a chance to reach the green in two.

“From a personal standpoint, nothing would please me more than to see giant swings in scoring on this hole,” Davis told CBSSports.com. “A player eagling the 72nd hole to win would be a dream come true.”

The last time a player won the Open by a shot with a birdie on the 72nd hole was in 1926, when Bobby Jones turned the trick at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio.

Eighty-two years? Relatively speaking, the days when amateurs like Jones ruled were when dinosaurs walked the earth. But since closing par-5 holes have been few — the Open has mostly featured a tough par-4 as its closing hole — opportunities for winning birdies have been greatly reduced. Indeed, there was considerable dissent within the USGA ranks about whether to convert the 18th at Torrey into a long par-4 hole in keeping with tradition over the years, but Davis’ side won the spirited argument.

I am very happy that the USGA left 13 as the hole that will basically play as a lengthy par 3 for most players and kept the drama at 18.

The web feed at US Open.com has experienced some severe difficulties today. Actually, the whole website has been problematic with real time scoring. Hopefully the kinks will be worked out, or everyone will be laughing about teaming up with IBM for the website.

Scoring should be a lot better than it has been today. Right now, Kevin Streelman – who had a great time playing with Woods in the Buick Invitational – leads the tournament at -4. I am predicting that is the winning score. In recent memory, though, the winning score at a US Open never goes lower than the first round leader’s score. Maybe -4 could win, but I would bet -2 at this point.

More to come later…