U.S. Open Golf Championship - The Year’s 3rd Major
Typical USGA US Open setups. This is my least favorite major of the 4. Too much goofy golf. Penalties for shots just outside of excessively small "sweet spots" are excessively punitive.
In typical USGA fashion, they shave par down by two strokes by converting two par 5s to par 4s on a course that has played at par 72 for forever except for the 2014 & 2024 US Opens. Why? The winner will still be the player with the lowest number of strokes. It's just window dressing to make the "under-par" scores look worse.
The USGA often says our setups are "not designed to embarrass the golfers". That pegs my BS meter.
At Shinnecock in 2002, the USGA had to scramble to avoid a last-round disaster. On Sunday, the first two twosomes to play the par 3 7th hole (~180 yds.) combined for 3 triple bogeys and one bogey. They decided to delay play mid-round and wet down the 7th green. They then decided to wet the green between twosomes. Later, they changed that to every other twosome. This caused a lot of controversy because the USGA essentially continued to modify the playing conditions of that hole for the entire round. This is probably the USGA's most obvious CYA moment.
In the future, I expect the USGA to try to find a way to incorporate windmills and clown mouths into their tournament.
Typical USGA US Open setups. This is my least favorite major of the 4. Too much goofy golf. Penalties for shots just outside of excessively small "sweet spots" are excessively punitive.
In typical USGA fashion, they shave par down by two strokes by converting two par 5s to par 4s on a course that has played at par 72 for forever except for the 2014 & 2024 US Opens. Why? The winner will still be the player with the lowest number of strokes. It's just window dressing to make the "under-par" scores look worse.
The USGA often says our setups are "not designed to embarrass the golfers". That pegs my BS meter.
At Shinnecock in 2002, the USGA had to scramble to avoid a last-round disaster. On Sunday, the first two twosomes to play the par 3 7th hole (~180 yds.) combined for 3 triple bogeys and one bogey. They decided to delay play mid-round and wet down the 7th green. They then decided to wet the green between twosomes. Later, they changed that to every other twosome. This caused a lot of controversy because the USGA essentially continued to modify the playing conditions of that hole for the entire round. This is probably the USGA's most obvious CYA moment.
In the future, I expect the USGA to try to find a way to incorporate windmills and clown mouths into their tournament.