Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at
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Speaker 1: com and be sure to check them out. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is with John Bodenhammer. John is the senior Managing Director
Speaker 1: of Championships for the USGA. He came on the podcast
Speaker 1: during the quarantine. If you remember back to them, but
Speaker 1: we barely talked about Wingfoot in that episode, so I
Speaker 1: wanted to have a back on and we get into
Speaker 1: the nitty gritty on setup, what to expect at Wingfoot,
Speaker 1: how they go about the process of picking pins, all
Speaker 1: sorts of good stuff. As a reminder, we have a
Speaker 1: ton of Wingfoot coverage. We had Neil Reagan, the club
Speaker 1: historian on Jeff Ogilvie, the two thousand and six champion,
Speaker 1: was on last week on the podcast, and then later
Speaker 1: this week we will have a fried Egg story produced
Speaker 1: by Garrett Morrison and that will be on the seventy
Speaker 1: four US Open at Wingfoot the Massacre Really cool podcast.
Speaker 1: I've read the script and that should be out Tuesday. Oh,
Speaker 1: we've got you covered here and then if you if
Speaker 1: you haven't yet subscribed our newsletter at the Friday Egg
Speaker 1: dot com and you will not miss any of our
Speaker 1: written content on the US Open. So, without further ado,
Speaker 1: here is John Bodenhammer. I miss a green, for example,
Speaker 1: I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker,
Speaker 1: I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball in a brid egg
Speaker 3: Friday Egg, the Dreaded Frida Egg Frida egg, Frida egg egg,
Speaker 3: fridagg bride egg.
Speaker 1: Lie.
Speaker 3: I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Speaker 2: John. It's it's US Open week. We're you're back.
Speaker 3: We're excited to be back. You know, there was a
Speaker 3: time a few months ago we weren't thought. We didn't
Speaker 3: think we or I should say, we weren't sure that
Speaker 3: we were going to play anything this year. And uh,
Speaker 3: you know it was it was just, oh, I guess
Speaker 3: back March thirteenth, sitting in our Merian conference froom at
Speaker 3: Golf House when the world began to shut down, and
Speaker 3: really just wondering what the rest of the year would
Speaker 3: unfold as being and that uncertainty and the unknown was
Speaker 3: really hard, and we've had to navigate a tough journey.
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you what, it feels good to be
Speaker 3: here just a few days before and on the eve
Speaker 3: of the US Open one hundred and twenty thus open
Speaker 3: at wing Foot. It feels really good. We're exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess one of the byproducts of it
Speaker 1: is from agronomic standpoint, you can't beat September in New York.
Speaker 3: You know, we always felt that way, and it's proving true.
Speaker 3: Knock on wood that the weather this week will remain
Speaker 3: dry and relatively warm, a little cooler in the weekends,
Speaker 3: some cool nights heading towards later this week, it looks like.
Speaker 3: But it's going to be a beautiful week in the Northeast.
Speaker 3: And you know the club, Wingfoot Golf Clubs in a
Speaker 3: Magne some job coming through a very hot summer, very
Speaker 3: busy membership to play. I was out on the course
Speaker 3: a lot, but Steve Ravenue to the golf course superintendent.
Speaker 3: Members have told me countless times this place has never
Speaker 3: looked better. It's just in fantastic condition.
Speaker 1: With that, Is there anything given the benefits obviously, the
Speaker 1: cooler nights, the cooler days, less time for the grass
Speaker 1: to grow, obviously, the poe greens, and you know versus June,
Speaker 1: where you have the long days, it can get really
Speaker 1: hot and you know there isn't that much growing time beforehand.
Speaker 1: Is there anything from a setup standpoint that this allows
Speaker 1: you guys to do that you wouldn't have been able
Speaker 1: to do in June.
Speaker 3: Well, we're cautiously optimistic because the answer to that is yes,
Speaker 3: if the weather stays where it's currently forecasted, we'll get
Speaker 3: some dryness, won't get a lot of heat. We're gonna
Speaker 3: get a little bit of heat earlier this week and
Speaker 3: the rough will and then a little bit of humidity.
Speaker 3: And the rough has been growing rapidly here. We've managed
Speaker 3: it just as we came in, oh about ten days ago,
Speaker 3: and we've been up two weeks previous to that. We
Speaker 3: had it right where we wanted. We've been managing it
Speaker 3: ever since, and it is it is. It is a
Speaker 3: lush There'll be a premium on accuracy this week, as
Speaker 3: we had intended right by the plan. But I think
Speaker 3: as we go into the week and we get past
Speaker 3: that little humid spell, we have a little coal front
Speaker 3: moves through, things will cool down. We'll do our last
Speaker 3: cuts this week, and then it'll slow down a little
Speaker 3: bit and it'll kind of maintain as where we are
Speaker 3: going into the weekend. We think that could be a
Speaker 3: good outcome for us come this weekend.
Speaker 1: Talk about how great it is to not have rain
Speaker 1: in the forecast so far, you know, like, what does
Speaker 1: not having any rain in the forecast allow you guys
Speaker 1: to do from a setup standpoint.
Speaker 3: It's truly a wonderful question, because you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of people really sometimes don't recognize that, and especially I
Speaker 3: think at the USJA, but I think all of the
Speaker 3: majors really endeavor it's great, firm and fast conditions. It's
Speaker 3: what the best players want. They want some bounciness because
Speaker 3: the really good ball strikers can control their ball. They
Speaker 3: can get it in the fair way, they can control
Speaker 3: the spin, they can control the trajectory, the left right
Speaker 3: flight of it. And being able to hit onto firm
Speaker 3: fairways and firm greens is you know, the better players
Speaker 3: rise to the top. Softness is the great equalizer. You're
Speaker 3: just throwing darts. Everybody can do that, but when you
Speaker 3: get you know, everybody can throw it up in the
Speaker 3: air and if it just lands where it lands, everybody
Speaker 3: can do that. But the really great players know and
Speaker 3: have a sixth sense and how they control the ball
Speaker 3: once it hits the ground. They can spin the ball,
Speaker 3: they can put the ball where they want it, they
Speaker 3: can keep it below the hole, and when it's firm
Speaker 3: that they have an advantage, and then the cream rises
Speaker 3: to the top. And I think that's why we've always
Speaker 3: tried to do that with the US Open. Endeavored to
Speaker 3: create firm and fast conditions because we do believe that
Speaker 3: it does identify the better player because the better ball
Speaker 3: strikers can control their shots on firm and fast conditions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it magnifies that one groove low miss. It provides
Speaker 1: that little extra bounce. Instead of ten feet, it might
Speaker 1: end up twenty feet away. And you know, you look
Speaker 1: at Wingfoot's greens and the difference between a great shot
Speaker 1: and an average one is definitely evident. Talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the greens and obviously these major restoration that
Speaker 1: captured about forty percent more pinnable areas and many of
Speaker 1: the greens out there. What did you watch past us
Speaker 1: opens at Wingfoot? And if so, is there a you
Speaker 1: know for those that have watched it, are we going
Speaker 1: to see some new pens this year thanks to the
Speaker 1: enlarged greens?
Speaker 3: We are? And yes, I did watch film of every
Speaker 3: single past us open here at Wingfoot from nineteen twenty nine,
Speaker 3: very brief clips of Bob Jones and others all the
Speaker 3: way through fifty nine and seventy four, especially seventy four
Speaker 3: watch Tailor one. But I watched that final round ten
Speaker 3: times in eighty four and certainly two thousand and six,
Speaker 3: about ten times just looking at little nuanced things. What
Speaker 3: whole locations were they using, Where were the rough lines,
Speaker 3: what were they doing out of the rough How was
Speaker 3: the ball reacting, How were the putting greens reacting. You know,
Speaker 3: we've got a different golf course this time at Wingfoot.
Speaker 3: And I say that because a few years ago, about
Speaker 3: three years ago, gill Hans came in with the club
Speaker 3: and restored and that's the key word. It was a
Speaker 3: restoration of Wingfoot to the tilling House design in many ways.
Speaker 3: Of the most important ways is the forty miles of
Speaker 3: drain tile. I guess about half of that on the
Speaker 3: West course. The East course is just it's fabulous here too,
Speaker 3: by the way, for your listeners that they may not
Speaker 3: know that it's wonderful. We've had women's opens and four
Speaker 3: balls and other championships here too. But about twenty plus
Speaker 3: miles of drain tile, the fairways are running firmer even
Speaker 3: if it would rain. But these putting greens used to
Speaker 3: be these old nineteen twenties vintage push up putting greens
Speaker 3: that were pushed up with a clay bass about eighteen
Speaker 3: inches down that were designed to hold moisture. That's how
Speaker 3: they kept them alive in the summer because they didn't
Speaker 3: have irrigation systems really like we know it today. They
Speaker 3: kept the moisture in the putting greens with that clay base.
Speaker 3: The moisture would sit on top of that clay base,
Speaker 3: and when you get into really hot dog days of summer,
Speaker 3: that would create kind of mushy, kind of you know,
Speaker 3: difficult conditions that superintendents today could navigate. True, but it
Speaker 3: was a challenge. And three years ago Wingfoot rebuilt their
Speaker 3: putting greens, all of them to USJA specifications, sand based,
Speaker 3: installed subair system and so they dried down a little
Speaker 3: bit quicker than the otherwise would and we get some
Speaker 3: of that moisture out of the subsurface, and we can
Speaker 3: with conditions without some rain, we can really control the
Speaker 3: moisture that goes into them and how they react to
Speaker 3: will flight into them. Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't answer
Speaker 3: the second part of your question. I would say the
Speaker 3: other part of it is Gil and the club reclaimed,
Speaker 3: and this often happens with older mintage vintage clubs reclaimed
Speaker 3: A twenty three point eight percent of new or an
Speaker 3: old putting green space that used to be here that
Speaker 3: over time with mowing patterns had had shrunk, the great
Speaker 3: putting green footprint had shrunk. I can show you heat
Speaker 3: maps were around men the greens on you know, twenty
Speaker 3: to thirty percent bigger, which did give us a number
Speaker 3: of new hole locations we didn't have.
Speaker 1: In six It's the biggest the greens will be since
Speaker 1: the twenty eight open.
Speaker 3: I believe I had to think about that, but that yes,
Speaker 3: and I believe that's got to be true. And I'll
Speaker 3: tell you why. It's because they used aerials from the
Speaker 3: late twenties circle the late twenties to restore the putting greens, and.
Speaker 1: Boy they look like it with the undulating greens. Obviously
Speaker 1: there's a ton of non pinnable areas that will catch
Speaker 1: people's eye with the.
Speaker 2: Massive grade slope.
Speaker 1: But then you know in the pinnable areas there, you
Speaker 1: know it's a you know, more subtle grade where you
Speaker 1: know it's less than three percent able to pin What
Speaker 1: do those large unpinnable areas provide you, guys from a
Speaker 1: setup standpoint.
Speaker 3: They provide us the opportunity to place holes in areas
Speaker 3: where those that are really rate at reading putting greens
Speaker 3: can use their imagination. I'll give you an example one
Speaker 3: of the iconic greens here at Wingfoot is number fifteen.
Speaker 3: When you watch Wingfoot this week, number one and number fifteen,
Speaker 3: And I think everybuddy green on this on this west
Speaker 3: course is iconic, but number fifteen is very unique. A
Speaker 3: lot of history behind number fifteen. I was out this
Speaker 3: morning looking at whole locations with our team and I
Speaker 3: was in the upper back left part of the green
Speaker 3: and there was a hole down on the very thing
Speaker 3: about this middle of the green, and I could hit
Speaker 3: putts in three different directions and get it down to
Speaker 3: that hole. Could play it up eight feet right on
Speaker 3: a big feature and bring it down to the hole.
Speaker 3: I could play it just about eight or ten inches
Speaker 3: right and bring it down to the hole, but with
Speaker 3: a little more risk of running past or I could
Speaker 3: play it left or right on another feature and get
Speaker 3: it down to the hole. So you just don't see
Speaker 3: that very often. And that's why I said it's really
Speaker 3: a work of art. It's a masterpiece of tilling Hast
Speaker 3: that was not by chance. Those sorts of things were
Speaker 3: done because he had a great eye, and it really
Speaker 3: does play to those that know how to read greens,
Speaker 3: it's fabulous. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The obviously the green reading books have. This will be
Speaker 1: the first time that players at the US Open will
Speaker 1: have green reading books at Winkfoot. But one of the
Speaker 1: things that is unique about these greens is what you
Speaker 1: just hit on is even with the green reading books,
Speaker 1: you still have choices on longer putts as to which
Speaker 1: line you want to take. It's not a this is
Speaker 1: the exact line you have to take, sort of proposition
Speaker 1: that we see most weeks on tour.
Speaker 3: You're spot on, and I think that's what makes these
Speaker 3: putting greens. Everybody will look at them and they the
Speaker 3: rest of the restored putting greens have a geometric shape
Speaker 3: to them. They're more squared off in many way, many
Speaker 3: areas where they had really taken on this roundness, but
Speaker 3: now they've been restored to this more rectangular shape almost
Speaker 3: in many ways. You know, it's true where there's so
Speaker 3: much variety here and the nuances that are here. We
Speaker 3: found spots by looking at the Green reading book, and
Speaker 3: we brought three or four members, good players that know
Speaker 3: this place, that we know well, that had set this
Speaker 3: golf course for the Anderson, set this golf course up
Speaker 3: for the Anderson four Ball, and have found some of
Speaker 3: those spots where you swear that ball is breaking two
Speaker 3: inches right to left and it actually goes maybe an
Speaker 3: inch and a half left to rights. But there's a
Speaker 3: little ridge there that you just unless you know this place,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't see that is all over. It's fabulous.
Speaker 1: That leads it to the prep that players have to
Speaker 1: put in and where it's not a simple Once you
Speaker 1: see it, you know it's not all out in front
Speaker 1: of you. It requires a great study of those greens
Speaker 1: to fully understand them. I've been out there a couple
Speaker 1: of times, and i feel like I'm just scraping the
Speaker 1: surface of even you know, having a clue which way
Speaker 1: some putts are going with that.
Speaker 2: What what is your.
Speaker 1: Week outside of obviously talking to an idiot like myself,
Speaker 1: What does your week look like this week and what's
Speaker 1: the prep lead up for it in the past couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. What are you guys looking now that we're
Speaker 1: a couple of days out from hosting the championship.
Speaker 3: Well, we've been up here in recent weeks quite often. Clearly,
Speaker 3: we're up here beginning last summer really to set our
Speaker 3: preliminary plans for June, and so we had to recalibrate
Speaker 3: for September and not knowing what the weather was going
Speaker 3: to bring. You know, we always wait until game time
Speaker 3: and really begin to look at the long term forecast
Speaker 3: about two weeks out. And if we see, you know,
Speaker 3: wet weather coming and cool temperatures, we'll think one way.
Speaker 3: If we see maybe we've got a chance for some
Speaker 3: for some firmness, we'll think another way. Or if we've
Speaker 3: get a little blustery conditions. You know, that's another thing
Speaker 3: about wing foot that we're seeing this week. We may
Speaker 3: have two or three shifts in the wind direction. The
Speaker 3: way it's looking like now, we may start out of
Speaker 3: with some winds out of the southwest and they'll shift
Speaker 3: to the northeast and then back to the north. That's
Speaker 3: been happening all over the last two weeks. We've had
Speaker 3: the golf course play completely differently with the wind coming
Speaker 3: out of the south as opposed to the north. And
Speaker 3: I think we'll see a little bit of that this week.
Speaker 3: We look at all of that. We try to make
Speaker 3: our decisions at game time based on what the weather
Speaker 3: and the wind especially will present to us. But I
Speaker 3: think you know, it really really we set our plan.
Speaker 3: We you know, we ask for for certain things from
Speaker 3: the golf course superintendent Eeve Ravenue, who is magnificent in
Speaker 3: this team, and they delivered it, and we've come up
Speaker 3: and we've made some adjustments that now just a few
Speaker 3: days out, as I said, we look like we're going
Speaker 3: to get some firmness, possibly little blustery conditions maybe for
Speaker 3: a couple of days, a little cooler temperatures on the weekend.
Speaker 3: And we've got the rough. You know, we had the
Speaker 3: rough pretty healthy coming into this. It's easier to grow it,
Speaker 3: or it's easier to cut it than it is to
Speaker 3: grow it. We can control cutting it, we can't control
Speaker 3: crewing it. That's mother nature. So we try to have
Speaker 3: a little more, a little more to it when we
Speaker 3: come in and then we manage it into what we
Speaker 3: need based on the weather. And that's worked out well,
Speaker 3: I think. But I think it's really coming out every morning.
Speaker 3: I think a couple of the nuanced things would be.
Speaker 3: Now we're out at five point forty five each morning
Speaker 3: this week Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and it was this weekend too,
Speaker 3: and that's in the dark, by the way, with two
Speaker 3: and a half hours less daylight. We're doing. The first
Speaker 3: two holes is set up under led lights. That's never,
Speaker 3: at least in my lifetime, it's never happened with the
Speaker 3: US open before maintenance is being done in the dark
Speaker 3: at the beginning of the morning, because our first starting
Speaker 3: time is beginning today for practice rounds were at six
Speaker 3: fifty and that'll be that's really right as daylight comes
Speaker 3: up and the guys are warming up on the practice
Speaker 3: range under led lights in the darkness because we just
Speaker 3: don't have the light. But it's working on fine, it's
Speaker 3: it's all, it's all fine. But we'll start at five
Speaker 3: forty five and we'll we'll go out and look at everything. Well,
Speaker 3: we'll look at how the green speeds are now ticking
Speaker 3: up a little bit, the firmness is coming down at us,
Speaker 3: and we'll nuance, we'll set our we'll look at the
Speaker 3: nuances around our whole locations and make minor of modifications
Speaker 3: based on the weather. And that's just a constant sort
Speaker 3: of refinement and refinement around here with these budding greens.
Speaker 3: It's it's on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: Do you watch any golf while you go out there,
Speaker 1: like during the day, do you watch how shots are react?
Speaker 1: Are there certain things that you're looking for certain holes
Speaker 1: that you're paying closer attention to than others.
Speaker 3: Yes, great question. In two ways. We have several of
Speaker 3: our staff who are part of our setup team out
Speaker 3: watching golf beginning today. The players all began arriving this weekend,
Speaker 3: most all of them will be here today, and so
Speaker 3: we've got a team of four that are out on
Speaker 3: a sign holes stay watching golf. How balls are reacting
Speaker 3: into certain fairways that have accunt to them. How firm
Speaker 3: are they are they staying in the fairway? How balls
Speaker 3: coming out of out of the fairway are responding on
Speaker 3: the putting green? Are they hitting and backing up? Are
Speaker 3: they bounce, bounced, check, and trickle out? What happens coming
Speaker 3: out of the rough? What are we seeing that'll inform us.
Speaker 3: In fact, we'll talk about that at what we call
Speaker 3: our two thirty superintendent's meeting in a short time here,
Speaker 3: where we'll go through those notes and hear what the
Speaker 3: staff has seen. I think we're still a day maybe
Speaker 3: two away from seeing what championship conditions will be like,
Speaker 3: but we're getting closer, and we do do that. Are adronomus.
Speaker 3: We have three of them here. We'll be watching play
Speaker 3: and taking firmness readings on the putting greens multiple times
Speaker 3: during the day and stimpmeter readings both in the morning,
Speaker 3: the afternoon, and the late afternoon. Because what happens, this
Speaker 3: is a misnomer that a lot of folks don't realize,
Speaker 3: is that in the morning when we prep the greens,
Speaker 3: they're cut in their roll and that's and then generally
Speaker 3: there's a small application of water we call it painting
Speaker 3: the green to eliminate wilts in the afternoon if it
Speaker 3: gets windy, but that's the fastest the greens will be
Speaker 3: all day because they continue to grow, and we want
Speaker 3: to know what that bounce back is. We might start
Speaker 3: on a particular putting green at twelve feet seven inches
Speaker 3: and by one o'clock in the afternoon it's twelve feet
Speaker 3: three inches. That's important to know because we know what
Speaker 3: it is in the morning, that's the fastest is going
Speaker 3: to be. But it's bouncing back for inches, that means
Speaker 3: one thing for a whole location. But if it's bouncing
Speaker 3: back a foot, that means another. And generally, after four
Speaker 3: or five days, you get a consistent pattern of that
Speaker 3: and it really informs our whole location work, as does
Speaker 3: the watching.
Speaker 1: Go in a typical US Open year, would you look
Speaker 1: at being on site somewhere the week of or having
Speaker 1: somebody on site the week of a year ahead of
Speaker 1: time to see what that bounce back is like given
Speaker 1: the time of year or two years out, or is
Speaker 1: it all hands on deck at the current venue.
Speaker 3: It's both. We had plans this year to be at
Speaker 3: the at Tory Pines during the I believe it's California
Speaker 3: Ameter that was going to be played there in June,
Speaker 3: and the Southern California Golf Association was going to set
Speaker 3: the golf course in a way that was really going
Speaker 3: to give us some good intel for next US Open.
Speaker 3: Perortunately COVID required that event to be postponed, so we
Speaker 3: didn't get that until but we and we tried to
Speaker 3: do that last year with an event here at Wingfoot
Speaker 3: called the Anderson the Anderson Foreball, where it's set up
Speaker 3: in a really strong way for good players, good mid anders,
Speaker 3: and so we gathered that intel with what was seen there.
Speaker 3: So we do if there's the opportunity, we'll try to
Speaker 3: gather that and then of course, you know other times
Speaker 3: during the summer and certainly in the lead up, but
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes in the normal year in June it's
Speaker 3: a little tough, especially in the Northeast, coming out of
Speaker 3: the cooler spring, when you get out on the West
Speaker 3: coast a little bit easier.
Speaker 1: What are sub holes that you're most looking forward to
Speaker 1: watching this week?
Speaker 3: Oh boy, that's a great question, because there's so many here.
Speaker 3: I think one thing about Wingfoot that is often lost
Speaker 3: in its brilliance is it's brilliance with the architecture this year,
Speaker 3: I think for your listeners that are going to watch
Speaker 3: on television, you know you talk about you'll see narrowness,
Speaker 3: You'll see you'll see US open rough. In fact, we're
Speaker 3: going to you know, we've got a chance to have
Speaker 3: a good old fashioned US open. You'll see these magnificent
Speaker 3: putting greens, these flash bunkers. But don't miss how much
Speaker 3: wing Foot turns. You've got eleven poles, seven of them
Speaker 3: that turn right to left and four of them that
Speaker 3: turn left to right. Eleven of the fourteen long holes.
Speaker 3: And so when you think about that from a players standpoint,
Speaker 3: and there's can't fairway, can'ts one way or another. Players
Speaker 3: really got to control not just an approach shot, but
Speaker 3: where he plays his ball off the tee into the
Speaker 3: fairways firm and fast cants left to right. On a
Speaker 3: five hundred yard par four like seventeen, he's gonna have
Speaker 3: to land it in the middle or left side of
Speaker 3: that fairway to keep the angle that he wants into
Speaker 3: that narrow putting green. There's a lot of that here.
Speaker 3: You've got to maneuver your ball both ways. In fact,
Speaker 3: Justin Thomas was here a couple of weeks ago and
Speaker 3: played with Tiger Woods. You may have read that he said, Well,
Speaker 3: he told Jason Gore, and that's the other thing I'd mentioned.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll mention Jason in a minute.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you.
Speaker 3: And he told Jason, well, I guess I better go
Speaker 3: out and buy a three what I can turn right
Speaker 3: to left, because there's a lot of that here, you know,
Speaker 3: you think about it. You know, whole number one and
Speaker 3: number five and number sixteen and fourteen, there's just a
Speaker 3: lot of that. But you also have the left or
Speaker 3: eight holes number two and number eight and number seventeen,
Speaker 3: and so there's both. And so the ability to hit
Speaker 3: all those shots. You know, you just don't stand up
Speaker 3: and aim up the right side and get a hard
Speaker 3: drawback to the middle. You've got to think about moving
Speaker 3: it both ways and where you want to land that.
Speaker 3: We think that's brilliant and Jason, you know, I'll just
Speaker 3: mention Jason, that's kind of the second rail of a
Speaker 3: third rail, I guess of our of our data collection,
Speaker 3: so to speak, our intel with the players. And it's
Speaker 3: new for us last couple of years. Really started at
Speaker 3: Pebble Beach last year, where Jason's in constant contact. He's
Speaker 3: out now right now, we'll catch up a little bit later.
Speaker 3: We committed to do this, and Jason is there's nobody
Speaker 3: better than Jason to do it. He loves doing it.
Speaker 3: He talks to as many players as he can. What
Speaker 3: do you think, what are you seeing, what are you
Speaker 3: feeling underfoot? How does this feel? How does that feel?
Speaker 3: Tell me what you think? And then he'll bring it
Speaker 3: back to us and it'll it'll we'll we'll listen to
Speaker 3: it and it'll inform some of our decision making. And
Speaker 3: you know, we're not going to try to you know,
Speaker 3: we'll hear things that we can do and things that
Speaker 3: we can't do that will inform our decisions. But we're
Speaker 3: better for having that intel. And then he'll explain some
Speaker 3: things that maybe you're going to be beneficial that a
Speaker 3: player is wondering about. And you know, we'll even there
Speaker 3: are some whole locations here at Wingfoot that I'm sure
Speaker 3: some of the players just walking around in the evenings
Speaker 3: seeing some of the te's that are left in the
Speaker 3: putting greens where players think we're gonna put whole locations.
Speaker 3: And by the way, they're pretty darn good at that.
Speaker 3: They pretty much know where we're going most of the time,
Speaker 3: not all of the time, and we think about that
Speaker 3: too from a reverse strategy standpoint, but they're pretty good
Speaker 3: at it. And yet there are places in some of
Speaker 3: these greens we're in practice ground. We're just going to
Speaker 3: show them we're not using that, and we're gonna put
Speaker 3: a practice around flagstick there just to show them. Now
Speaker 3: we're not going to force it. You can just rest
Speaker 3: assured we're not going there. And there's some wonderful places,
Speaker 3: but at the green speeds we're gonna have. It's not
Speaker 3: can use it.
Speaker 2: With player feedback.
Speaker 1: Obviously, we've got a podcast coming out tomorrow about the
Speaker 1: seventy four US Open, and even then, players complaining, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the last US Open I'm ever going to
Speaker 1: play in and sure enough that are there back for
Speaker 1: eight more USL it's after that. I think that there's
Speaker 1: always been a little bit of a push and pull.
Speaker 1: Where do you stand on the line of obviously set
Speaker 1: up in determining a champion. Part of golf is a
Speaker 1: mental thing. There should be some aspects of a setup
Speaker 1: that do get a little underplayer skin.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 3: I think that we've always felt that you look at
Speaker 3: the really great, the greatest of the great, they had
Speaker 3: a special ability to block everything else out and just
Speaker 3: take their medicine when they needed to take their medicine.
Speaker 3: You know, you think about Jack and Tiger. I remember
Speaker 3: it's with Mike Davis one time and Jack Nicholas was
Speaker 3: sharing the story. Yeah, I used to walk in the
Speaker 3: locker room at a US Open. In fact that anyone
Speaker 3: it was. She told the story. When we inaugur the
Speaker 3: Jack Nicholas Room in the USJA Museum, he said, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I always loved the USL. It was always my favorite championship.
Speaker 3: I knew it was going to be on the hardest
Speaker 3: course with the hardest setup, and I always love that
Speaker 3: because I felt like I could prevail, I had an
Speaker 3: advantage because I would walk in the locker room and
Speaker 3: I would hear guys complaining about this, that and the other,
Speaker 3: and I just walk by that person and say, I
Speaker 3: got you beat. The next person, I got you beat,
Speaker 3: next person, I got you beat. And it really got
Speaker 3: down to about twenty five or thirty guys that I
Speaker 3: had to be. I guess they were all done before
Speaker 3: it even started because they were in the wrong frame
Speaker 3: of mind. And I think that's a part of being
Speaker 3: a champion. A US Open champion take great pride in
Speaker 3: that it's not our intention to stick it to the players.
Speaker 3: It's our intention to create something special. And when they
Speaker 3: do win a US Open and Hoysset Trophy and climb
Speaker 3: that mountain top, they've achieved the same thing that Bob
Speaker 3: Jones did, and Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer and Jack
Speaker 3: Nicholas and Lee Trevino and Tiger Wood's same thing, no different,
Speaker 3: and they've achieved something special unlike anything else on what
Speaker 3: we think are the greatest courses, and with a setup
Speaker 3: that really requires them to showcase every bit of their talent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the best tournaments obviously, they I think
Speaker 1: you have to deal with more than just shooting a
Speaker 1: low score. It there has to be some sort of
Speaker 1: there's a mental strain when you come off the golf
Speaker 1: course that's different than other tournaments when you're playing at
Speaker 1: the highest level. And I think that's something that the
Speaker 1: us Open. Having never played in one, but having played
Speaker 1: another USGA event, is something that the USGA event evokes
Speaker 1: that's different than from say a State am in my experience.
Speaker 1: In terms of We've talked a little bit about pin positions,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in understanding do you have a thought on
Speaker 1: how you pick pin positions time given days? Is there
Speaker 1: a cadence that you like to, you know, have where
Speaker 1: you know there's a stretch of tough pins and some
Speaker 1: more gettable pins. How do you guys approach daily pin positions.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a combination of where the team area is
Speaker 3: going to be and where the whole location is going
Speaker 3: to be. It's it's not surely just the whole location.
Speaker 3: It has to do with the weather too, It has
Speaker 3: to do with firmness. It's not just the flight of
Speaker 3: the balls. I said, we we want the player to
Speaker 3: think about what the ball is going to do when
Speaker 3: it's on the ground, or how they have to shape it.
Speaker 3: To get it to a certain hole location, And so
Speaker 3: we think about all of those things, and I think
Speaker 3: what we do endeavor to do is really, you know,
Speaker 3: so you don't provide an advantage to any one certain
Speaker 3: type of player, somebody who has a predominance to moving
Speaker 3: it left right or right to left, or you know.
Speaker 3: I think we try to get a good balance of
Speaker 3: right and left and even middle whole locations. And we
Speaker 3: also try to look at what is the carry, what
Speaker 3: does the force carry over a bunker or a feature
Speaker 3: that you know, if it's a wedge, it's it's one
Speaker 3: type of carry where you know you'd be able to
Speaker 3: put a little more spin on the ball, throw it
Speaker 3: up in the air and stop it sooner. Or if
Speaker 3: you've got a four iron and you've got to feature
Speaker 3: six feet in front of something, you get a you know,
Speaker 3: two hundred and twelve yard shot, you know it's not fair.
Speaker 3: We got to leave it a little bit more exposed
Speaker 3: to at least provide the opportunity for somebody if they
Speaker 3: hit a good shot, to reward it. So we think
Speaker 3: about all of those things, and I think it really
Speaker 3: does play into the firmness, the weather, the length of shot,
Speaker 3: that's that's in and what are we trying to what
Speaker 3: are we trying to get the player to do? And
Speaker 3: you know part of it too is tempting the player.
Speaker 3: Jason talks about this a lot. When do you get
Speaker 3: them to really take their eye off the middle of
Speaker 3: that grain and focus on hitting it right, take taking
Speaker 3: dead in right at the flagstick. He asked two players,
Speaker 3: I'll let them go unnamed, yesterday what their go to
Speaker 3: club in yardage was where they would almost always fire
Speaker 3: at the flag stick. And they both said six iron.
Speaker 3: These are pretty long guys, so you're looking at about
Speaker 3: a two hundred, two hundred and ten yard shot. And
Speaker 3: in fact, he even asked them the yardage's at it
Speaker 3: was about two hundred yards. When they get two hundred
Speaker 3: and in they're firing at the flag. Now, these are
Speaker 3: two really good ball strikers, two of the better ones
Speaker 3: in the game. I would venture to say that you'd
Speaker 3: probably hear seven and especially eight iron from most of
Speaker 3: the guys ate everybody with an eight iron in their hands.
Speaker 3: Seven irons kind of the borderline six iron where sometimes
Speaker 3: they're going to fire away from hole. You'll see that
Speaker 3: a little bit on one of the great par threes
Speaker 3: in the game is number ten here at wingfoot in
Speaker 3: the game, and you'll see that takes shape this week
Speaker 3: at wingfoot. You'll see opportunities that we will give to
Speaker 3: tempt the players to go to flagstick and if they miss,
Speaker 3: it's going to be a significant penalty. But if they're
Speaker 3: able to execute a shot, they could pick up a
Speaker 3: shot on the field.
Speaker 1: One of the things I think most compelling about Wingfoot,
Speaker 1: because of those undulating greens, is when you chicken out
Speaker 1: at wingfoot, two putt is not a guaranteed thing, and
Speaker 1: that's the beauty is that it almost I don't think
Speaker 1: it's necessarily that strategic of a golf course tee to green,
Speaker 1: and obviously it's set up very penal with the thick rough,
Speaker 1: but the strategy comes in on that second shot because
Speaker 1: of how intricate the slopes are on the green. Is
Speaker 1: when to push the gas, when to hit the gas
Speaker 1: and go at something versus you know, when to rain
Speaker 1: back and understand, hey, I'm not in the right spot
Speaker 1: to go at something. I think that's where the bulk
Speaker 1: of the strategy comes in here, and I think that's
Speaker 1: the neat thing about here and what you're saying, is
Speaker 1: that tempting the players to do something is where you
Speaker 1: can get so many out here you see no hazard.
Speaker 1: Double bogies are worse, which is I think the most
Speaker 1: frustrating thing is a player.
Speaker 3: I think that's really well said Andy. You know, it's
Speaker 3: I think the place oftentimes you don't want to be
Speaker 3: with some whole locations here at Wingfoot is whole high
Speaker 3: in the wrong place because you've got that six foot
Speaker 3: break and you have what's below it doesn't bottom out,
Speaker 3: and you've got that four or five six foot are
Speaker 3: coming back up the hill for par It's just that
Speaker 3: type of course. You'll see that happen on one fifteen
Speaker 3: a number of holes. But I'll tell you what is
Speaker 3: perhaps even more difficult is when you just miss agree
Speaker 3: here at Wingfoot. These push up greens are all a
Speaker 3: lot of them are built up, and the deep flash
Speaker 3: faced bunkers, and even when you miss the bunkers, the
Speaker 3: thick stands of Kentucky bluegrass off to the sides. It's
Speaker 3: not that you miss a green and you get this
Speaker 3: awkward pitch shot through long rough, but you've got one
Speaker 3: foot of your stance is one puts the foot higher
Speaker 3: than the other and you're kind of standing on this
Speaker 3: tremendous angle in this long rouf to this undulating green
Speaker 3: to pitch and heaven permitted if a short side yourself.
Speaker 3: But I think that may be even more difficult is
Speaker 3: when you just misagreement wing foot and you've got one
Speaker 3: of those awkward stances.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's uh, is not a fun place to
Speaker 1: miss with the rough. What do you consider the line
Speaker 1: between allowing for great recovery shots, which are oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the most thrilling moments in golf versus just
Speaker 1: strictly penalizing for a miss.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we've for our entire history, we've always
Speaker 3: believed that the USA that premium on accuracy off the
Speaker 3: tee is important. The best players really do drive the
Speaker 3: ball in the fairway most of the time much of
Speaker 3: the time. And look, that's you know, that's that's going
Speaker 3: to the first thing that people notice here this week.
Speaker 3: You've got to get the ball in the fairway or
Speaker 3: most of the time. Nobody's gonna get the ball in
Speaker 3: the fairway all the time. But I really would seriously
Speaker 3: doubt if anybody can win the US Open this year
Speaker 3: playing from the rough on a consistent basis, and so
Speaker 3: there's gonna be a premium there. It's narrow, but it's
Speaker 3: just what it was in two thousand and six and
Speaker 3: previous US opens, and it's what Wingfoot is on a
Speaker 3: daily basis. Frankly, we could come here, give us two weeks,
Speaker 3: grow a little bit of rough, maybe add six inches
Speaker 3: eight inches ten inches of the greens when we play
Speaker 3: US Open almost any time during the summer or you know,
Speaker 3: even September now. But you know, I think it's it
Speaker 3: is that, and we also though, recognize that we don't
Speaker 3: want people just pitching out every time. You know you're
Speaker 3: gonna see that. You're gonna see a lot more of
Speaker 3: that this year than you've then you've seen in recent years.
Speaker 3: It's not a little bit of it pebble, not last year,
Speaker 3: not a lot, but you'll see more of it, you'll
Speaker 3: than you have in recent years of the us OPA.
Speaker 3: But at the same time you'll see I think it's
Speaker 3: eight holes that we have what's been known as graduated rough.
Speaker 3: It's about it. It's narrower than it was in two
Speaker 3: thousand and six, not by a lot, but by a little.
Speaker 3: It'll be a three inch cut of rough, which is
Speaker 3: as about as most of what the guys will see
Speaker 3: all year. But seven or eight out of ten times
Speaker 3: that ball is going to sit up and the guys
Speaker 3: are gonna be able to get a club on it
Speaker 3: in a pretty solid way and get their ball up
Speaker 3: by the green or on the green, but they're not
Speaker 3: going to be able to control it perfectly, and so
Speaker 3: that is going to go all over the place. And
Speaker 3: so we've given them the fairway, and we've given them
Speaker 3: on the longer holes, holes like number one and number
Speaker 3: two and number eight or you know, it's for eighty
Speaker 3: four ninety five hundred, given them a little more leeway.
Speaker 3: But they're not going to be able to control their ball,
Speaker 3: and they do really miss it wide right or left,
Speaker 3: they'll get a maybe maybe three out of ten times
Speaker 3: to be able to go to green. The other seven
Speaker 3: they're gonna have to pit.
Speaker 2: You out with. Uh.
Speaker 1: With no fans and no infrastructure, that's got to be
Speaker 1: somewhat it's you know, it's it's a huge bummer. Everybody
Speaker 1: wishes there are fans there, but from a setup standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's got to be like the biggest luxury that you've
Speaker 1: ever encountered.
Speaker 3: It's pretty amazing. Uh you know it go it cuts
Speaker 3: both cuts both ways, like you you said, Uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I think the players feed out the energy of fans
Speaker 3: and and uh you know there there we would much
Speaker 3: rather have fans, certainly we all would. And let's hope
Speaker 3: next year we'll be able to get back to that.
Speaker 3: And but it was when we got here about ten
Speaker 3: days ago and and planted roots through the US Open
Speaker 3: and to be out on the golf course and not
Speaker 3: see any grand stands or any concession stands and ropelines
Speaker 3: that are very wide, it was surreal. Really, it's just
Speaker 3: the television towers and the laser measuring equipment and that's
Speaker 3: really about it. I've never seen anything like it before.
Speaker 3: It was a bit surreal. And it was so quiet
Speaker 3: even now Monday. Normally we'd have fifteen eighteen thousand people
Speaker 3: out here watching at eight o'clock this morning, nobody quiet,
Speaker 3: just the players just does a few caddies ahead of
Speaker 3: their players. And you know what, though, the vistas that
Speaker 3: the players see, it's going to be spectacular in its
Speaker 3: own way, because I think fans watching on the broadcast
Speaker 3: are going to see wing Foot come to life without
Speaker 3: fans and really see wing foot in its truest sense,
Speaker 3: like they wouldn't otherwise it'll be more pure wingfoot than
Speaker 3: the grandstands and the fans. So there's good and bad
Speaker 3: in both of that. I think for the broadcast, ask viewer,
Speaker 3: it'll be pretty cool to see this place as you
Speaker 3: would see it if you were playing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The grand stands have a tremendous impact on the scale,
Speaker 1: you know, it just they just shrink everything around them.
Speaker 1: And the thing that is the most impactful aspect of
Speaker 1: Winkfoot is the grand and grandness and massive scale of
Speaker 1: the greens, and it should allow viewers to see it
Speaker 1: so much better. The other thing is that you know,
Speaker 1: oftentimes when you miss big in the US Open, you're
Speaker 1: in the best spot rather than a small miss because
Speaker 1: you're in where all the trample down rough is and
Speaker 1: there should be very little of that this week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great point. We've talked a lot about
Speaker 3: that this week, and you know, we have setting up
Speaker 3: those TD towers and all the cabling and all of
Speaker 3: that for NBC and Golf Channel. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: car traffic and we've kept the rope lines very wide,
Speaker 3: but you know, you get it offline here this year,
Speaker 3: there aren't fans trampling down that rough, and boy, beware,
Speaker 3: if you get it outside those rope lines, it's going
Speaker 3: to be brutal. Because I'm gonna tell you what. We've
Speaker 3: already stopped cutting it so and these rope lines are
Speaker 3: much wider, you know. Mike Davis, he was with us,
Speaker 3: came out and looked at our plans Saturday and he
Speaker 3: made the comment to me, he said, you know, I
Speaker 3: think we might have had the rope lines a little
Speaker 3: narrow in two thousand and six because the guys were
Speaker 3: hitting it outside the ropes a lot, and we're on
Speaker 3: that trample down rough. And one of the guys on
Speaker 3: our team said, you know, that's interesting. I wonder if
Speaker 3: if the rope lines would have been wider and Phil
Speaker 3: would have been in that long, thick rough, if he'd
Speaker 3: have just pitched out to the fairway instead of trying
Speaker 3: to take the heroic shot to the green. One will
Speaker 3: never know, but it is interesting thought.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: I mean, that hoole might be have been played over
Speaker 1: more times than people's heads than any any hole.
Speaker 3: You know that.
Speaker 1: Do you wonder if VANTI, if VJ hadn't been in
Speaker 1: grand stands if Monty would have hit a better shot
Speaker 1: and not made a double two.
Speaker 2: With uh.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's one of the coolest things I think
Speaker 1: about Wingfoot is I think in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: six of the eight hardest holes for the last six holes.
Speaker 1: So you get this reverse Augusta effect of where you know,
Speaker 1: the guy that gets in the house and posts a
Speaker 1: number actually has some like Augusta. You know, somebody posts
Speaker 1: ten under and everybody's oh, ten unders in, but then
Speaker 1: twenty minutes later it's completely irrelevant. Here you post a
Speaker 1: score and everybody's coming back to you.
Speaker 3: It's the middle stretch of holes here at wing Put
Speaker 3: that you have to get it six through twelve. You
Speaker 3: have to get it six through twelve. You won't get
Speaker 3: it generally one through five or thirteen through eighteen that
Speaker 3: you can't make Birdie, but especially thirteen. The brilliance of
Speaker 3: They call it old White Mule because Tilling has a
Speaker 3: favorite mule. They didn't have typical construction equipment back in
Speaker 3: the twenties. They had mule pulled drags that would drag
Speaker 3: out the greens and such, and Filling Hass used his
Speaker 3: favorite Old White Mule on number thirteen and that's where
Speaker 3: it starts coming in coming home. If you've got to
Speaker 3: lead and you're on thirteen, I think there cannot be
Speaker 3: any other stretch in golf that is any more demanding
Speaker 3: than thirteen through eighteen at wing foot. Every one of
Speaker 3: them can't. There's just no letup. It's just wonderful, and
Speaker 3: every hole has got its own character to it. You know, thirteen,
Speaker 3: the putting green there, it's not overly long. We'll played
Speaker 3: it around two hundred, you know, And fourteen and fifteen
Speaker 3: are not long, four fifty and four twenty, but the
Speaker 3: putting greens, they are amazing. Then you get to a
Speaker 3: backbreaker five hundred yard par four dog legs left with
Speaker 3: a narrow green on sixteen, another five hundred yard dog
Speaker 3: league right par four seventeen with an narrow green where
Speaker 3: Jeff Oil will be chipped in on. Then you got
Speaker 3: that four under the seven yard par four hole with
Speaker 3: that amazing green on eighteen. It's just you're right. You
Speaker 3: might have a five shot lead coming into those final
Speaker 3: stretch of holes. You got your work cut out for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I hope for something similar to six, where we have
Speaker 1: some players in the mix, but it will even be compelling.
Speaker 1: If you've got a guy that's four or five shots
Speaker 1: out in front, just getting it into the house is
Speaker 1: a task on itself. You know, it's not not a
Speaker 1: four gun conclusion. With it being the US Hope a week.
Speaker 1: And you've been a part of a lot of US
Speaker 1: Opens as a fan and as a organizer. What is
Speaker 1: one or two of your favorite US Open moments?
Speaker 3: Oh? Goodness? Well, growing up, you know, I think that
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty two US Open that Tom Watson shipped in
Speaker 3: on eighteen. I was at an age event. I was
Speaker 3: twenty one years old, and to watch that was just
Speaker 3: you know, inspiring to me growing up. And he he
Speaker 3: said something that was really hit home with me that
Speaker 3: you know, my dad told me when I was a
Speaker 3: young man, a young boy, that if you could ever
Speaker 3: win the National Open, you'd really achieve something because you
Speaker 3: would have wanted on the toughest course of the year.
Speaker 3: And that always that always meant something. Tom he talks
Speaker 3: about that a lot. I've talked to him about it.
Speaker 3: It's true. He uses it a lot. You know, his dad,
Speaker 3: I think his dad made him memorize all of the
Speaker 3: names on the US Open trophy. I mean, it meant
Speaker 3: so much to him. When he raised his arms making
Speaker 3: that birdie put on eighteen, you could just see the exhilaration.
Speaker 3: Something he had dreamed about his whole life. And for
Speaker 3: American you know, many of them talk about it being
Speaker 3: the most important championship for them, and you know, we're
Speaker 3: we're building on that, and I think that was one
Speaker 3: In fact, I dates me a little bit, but that
Speaker 3: year I got within one stroke of a playoff and
Speaker 3: in final qualifying to get to Pebble. Didn't make it
Speaker 3: in the Seattle area, but that also whole special. That's
Speaker 3: close to ever we got to playing in and Open
Speaker 3: and that Uh.
Speaker 1: One thing about Watson is that his first fifty four
Speaker 1: hole lead in a US Open was seventy four, and
Speaker 1: nobody knew who he was.
Speaker 3: That fact. He had a couple of two or three
Speaker 3: leads I think at various times in the Open and
Speaker 3: then and here at seventy four. That's right, he he was,
Speaker 3: and he was he was really an unknown and and
Speaker 3: look what happened, you know, you know years later, but uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's right. Uh, And you know that's what I mean
Speaker 3: about wing foot. You look at well even Irwin, it
Speaker 3: was his first US Open he wasn't a household name
Speaker 3: at that time, goes on the wind two more and
Speaker 3: all that he's won, And I mean, but that's what
Speaker 3: that's what happens. Even Casper in fifty nine, he wasn't
Speaker 3: a household name at that time. He was one of
Speaker 3: the better players, but it wasn't until the sixties that
Speaker 3: he really became dominant. Wingfoot just there's a there's a
Speaker 3: knack for the cream rising to the top, and it's
Speaker 3: because of what this golf course brings out in the players,
Speaker 3: you know. And I think that's that's the thing that
Speaker 3: we get excited about. We're fans. We want to we
Speaker 3: want to we want to showcase this great golf course.
Speaker 3: What you're going to see here, even the clubhouse. When
Speaker 3: you walk on property and this granite stone clubhouse, like
Speaker 3: Tilling has talked about, it comes out of the ground,
Speaker 3: just like all the granite stone around the property. It's
Speaker 3: just you you walk on and you walk by this
Speaker 3: thing and just awe inspiring. It's it's amazing in itself,
Speaker 3: and then you see some of what's here at this
Speaker 3: golf course. That's that's what we want to showcase. And
Speaker 3: then I want to showcase how good these players are.
Speaker 3: You know this golf course is. It's not our hardest,
Speaker 3: it's certainly one of them. And these players are so
Speaker 3: great and have so much talent. We're just gonna we're
Speaker 3: just gonna set it up as wing foot is. Let
Speaker 3: wing foot be wingfoot, Let it showcase itself. We don't
Speaker 3: have to talk about it, and then just get out
Speaker 3: of the way and let the players shine. That's our strategy.
Speaker 3: Just let wing foot the wing foot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, when he got a course like this one,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty simple. You don't have to add anything
Speaker 1: to it. Big views out of Pinehurst last week. From
Speaker 1: your standpoints as a setup guy and you know, championships guy,
Speaker 1: what benefit does having these anchor venues such as Pinehurst
Speaker 1: provide you from a setup standpoint, I think.
Speaker 3: It's for there's a lot of benefits and it's not
Speaker 3: a Rota andy as you said as you yeah, it's not.
Speaker 3: But really what we even ever to do? And I
Speaker 3: think you and I have talked about this before. If not,
Speaker 3: I'll just put it out very quickly. But two years
Speaker 3: ago we have a gentleman on our Championship committee, on
Speaker 3: our board of Directors or USHA executive committee by the
Speaker 3: name of Nick Price for world number one, multiple major
Speaker 3: winner and one of the finest human beings I've ever known.
Speaker 3: And we were sitting in Championship committee meeting two years
Speaker 3: ago and he said, he said, he looked over at
Speaker 3: me and he said, John, it's important where players win
Speaker 3: their US Open, you know, and you think about that.
Speaker 3: It's so obvious that to win it Pebble or Oakmont
Speaker 3: or Shinnacock or wing Foot or Pinehurst, and so really
Speaker 3: hit home with us. And so do you think about
Speaker 3: going back? And if we know we're going back multiple
Speaker 3: times over the long period, well why not develop these long,
Speaker 3: long term relationships with these iconic reviewed clubs. By the way,
Speaker 3: over the last two years, we've had literally hundreds, if
Speaker 3: not thousands of conversations with players. Jason and I are
Speaker 3: currently are constantly asking players where do you want to
Speaker 3: win your US Open? Where should we go? And you know,
Speaker 3: you or your listeners, you could develop your own list,
Speaker 3: but it's not a long list. It's not an overly
Speaker 3: short list because some places want to host US more
Speaker 3: often than others. But it's a pretty consistent list. And
Speaker 3: where do you want to win your US Open? And
Speaker 3: so we're endearting to do that and Pinehurst was one that,
Speaker 3: you know, think about it in a pandemic year, we
Speaker 3: were able to put together what we put together. We
Speaker 3: didn't think this would really come about until next but
Speaker 3: the thought to bring five US opens, and what we
Speaker 3: really didn't talk a lot about were the other championships
Speaker 3: that will go to Pinehurst, US Amateurs, US Women's Amateurs,
Speaker 3: or junior championships, others that they're so willing to host,
Speaker 3: and even down the road at pine Needles with our
Speaker 3: women's Open in twenty two and other other opens and
Speaker 3: and amateurs at that great place which you know Kelly
Speaker 3: Miller and and U and her rashus partner of have
Speaker 3: have also you know, they have Midpines now and they
Speaker 3: they have Southern Pines. It's really it's really in that
Speaker 3: area is you know two other Donald Ross Gems. Midpines
Speaker 3: is magnificent and so we're talking with them too. But
Speaker 3: Pinehurst with the opens, we were able to go to
Speaker 3: the state of North Carolina and say here, here's what
Speaker 3: we're considering doing. Can you can we partner with you?
Speaker 3: This is good for the state more than two billion
Speaker 3: dollars of economic impact. We demonstrated that just with with
Speaker 3: the additional four opens that weren't scheduled, and they said,
Speaker 3: you bet, we want some of your jobs with your
Speaker 3: new test center, we need to build a new one,
Speaker 3: and they wanted us. And eighteen million dollars later, that's
Speaker 3: what's happening, and we're excited about it. We think going
Speaker 3: to the home of American Golf and expanding on a
Speaker 3: footprint of staff we already have there. Our Open Championships
Speaker 3: team is there, and expanding on that and more championships
Speaker 3: North Carolina and Piners will be great for the USJ
Speaker 3: and our stakeholders.
Speaker 1: Any I know you probably don't want to answer this question,
Speaker 1: but what are a few other courses you'd like to
Speaker 1: see as anchor points if you if you were, you know,
Speaker 1: not saying they're gonna happen, but you'd like to see.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know, I think that there are a lot
Speaker 3: of places that you know, I think there'll be very
Speaker 3: few anchor sites that will be willing to host the
Speaker 3: US Open on such a frequent basis. You know, some
Speaker 3: place some places want it. Some places wanted every twenty years,
Speaker 3: some wanted every ten, some wanted every five, Some wanted
Speaker 3: every year they can get it. We're not going to
Speaker 3: do that, we know that. But so every one of
Speaker 3: them are different. Every one of them have their own personality,
Speaker 3: their own thoughts, and I think we're thinking about it strategically.
Speaker 3: You know, they're there, are there are, there are different
Speaker 3: reasons we'd go in different years and some of those things.
Speaker 3: So I think, really again it gets back to where
Speaker 3: do the players want to go? That really, you know,
Speaker 3: part of our strategic thinking is really placing the players first.
Speaker 3: If the players say the US Open is the most
Speaker 3: important championship in which they in which they play and
Speaker 3: for them to win, it will be plain and simple.
Speaker 3: And so it starts with where we go. And if
Speaker 3: we go where they want to win, and it's important
Speaker 3: where we go, and it's important when they win and
Speaker 3: how they win, then that will continue to build momentum.
Speaker 3: And that's what we endeavor to do. You know, I
Speaker 3: think it's just depends on the site and it depends
Speaker 3: on their you know, some great places that might not
Speaker 3: want us either. There's some great places that just don't
Speaker 3: have the length to host us. And but I I
Speaker 3: it's it's not an overly long list, but we're looking
Speaker 3: at quite a few places. How many we end up, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, going to and we're not going to go
Speaker 3: out twenty years with with a whole bunch of different sites,
Speaker 3: but there'll be a small number that we'll we'll carve
Speaker 3: out some long term relationships and then we'll leave some
Speaker 3: open years for others that maybe we'd go to once
Speaker 3: or once over you know, every twenty or thirty years.
Speaker 2: Awesome. Yeah, that's it's exciting.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think everybody, every golf fan has
Speaker 1: created their own anchor anchor list. I've seen hundreds of
Speaker 1: them online. So we'll look forward to watching this.
Speaker 3: You know, where do you want to when you're US amateur?
Speaker 3: Where do you want to when you're US Women's Open.
Speaker 3: It's not just the US Open that we talked to
Speaker 3: play talking to you know, we did a survey of
Speaker 3: over four hundred of the best players in the women's
Speaker 3: game a few months ago. We asked them the same question.
Speaker 3: We're having the same discussions and you know, we think
Speaker 3: about it as to this notion of the players journey
Speaker 3: starting with the juniors up through the amateurs and the
Speaker 3: Open on both the men's and women's sides. You know
Speaker 3: where where where Where do they want to Where do
Speaker 3: they want to win their US Girls Junior and their
Speaker 3: Junior Ameter or the Women's Ameter. You know what is
Speaker 3: you look at the great champions that have come out
Speaker 3: of the Women's amter and and the US Amateur and
Speaker 3: and to point back to, hey, I want it such
Speaker 3: and such. You know that's you know, you talk to
Speaker 3: the players that have won a US Amateur and they
Speaker 3: take great pride in the courses that they've won at.
Speaker 3: And you look at our lineup there over the next
Speaker 3: several years where we announced I think it was six
Speaker 3: of them in a row with a Ridgewood Country Club
Speaker 3: and and and Hazel Team and maryon and so on
Speaker 3: and so forth, the Olympic Club. It's you know, everybody
Speaker 3: would be thrilled and honor to win at any of
Speaker 3: those sites and others. And that's so it's it's not
Speaker 3: just the US Open. Where do they where do where
Speaker 3: do all of our champions want to win? We're thinking
Speaker 3: about that a lot players first.
Speaker 1: And that's a that's a great point because it matters
Speaker 1: a ton and you know, even if they don't go
Speaker 1: on to becoming one of the next great professionals, they'll
Speaker 1: always remember where they played their US Junior or US
Speaker 1: girls junior. I think that I mean, and that's a
Speaker 1: special achievement, you know a lot of times one of
Speaker 1: the best achievements of their you know, young lives.
Speaker 3: So I like you talked to the to the Jay
Speaker 3: s Tiggles when he was an ameitor, or the Vinnie
Speaker 3: Giles or the Jimmy Hulk Creeds or or or the
Speaker 3: Nathan Smiths or or the Nathaniel Crosby's or you know,
Speaker 3: you pick your lifelong amateur and they you know where
Speaker 3: they won. It means the same thing. It's it's you
Speaker 3: know where they win as important to them.
Speaker 1: All right, John, I I don't want to take any
Speaker 1: more of your time. You've got a very busy week.
Speaker 1: I am looking forward to it, and I'm sure all
Speaker 1: everybody else is really looking forward to it. And wish
Speaker 1: you the best. And it looks like a great week
Speaker 1: of weather. And can't wait to watch the twenty twenty US.
Speaker 3: You unity, it's always good to be with you. We're
Speaker 3: looking we're excited. It's uh, we just feel fortunate and
Speaker 3: grateful to play. It will be funny. All the best
Speaker 3: with your with your new little one enjoy m hm m.
Speaker 1: M m hm
Speaker 3: Hm