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Mark Roberson: USGA made a mockery of the U.S. Open

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Houston, Tx, June 19, 2018 —– Imagine a town in West Texas. It’s a Friday night in late September and the town of 10,000 is gathered in one place, the high school football stadium. Parents, grandparents, and siblings file into the stands, working to secure their seats before kickoff. The home team is among the best in the state, and on track to make another deep playoff run.

The young men, eager to impress in front of the home crowd, charge out onto the field. Instead of the usual, celebratory trot to the sidelines, the players begin to slip and fall. They realize the field has been sabotaged, soaked with water and other slippery substances that will make it nearly impossible to play their game.

Gathering in the stands is the conference board of commissioners, the men responsible for making sure things in this particular West Texas conference run smoothly. They start to pat each other on the back, smiling as if having achieved some kind of victory. The players, searching for those responsible, notice the commissioners laughing. Having realized the spotlight has shifted, one of the more boisterous league officers shouts, “I hope you boys are planning to be more graceful after kickoff! These conditions out here might just bring you back down to earth!”

Of course, this is all fictional. In what world would those responsible for safeguarding competition between young men deliberately sabotage and undermine the same young men they are charged to protect? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is this world. The perpetrator of this unconscionable deed is the U.S. Golf Association. This act did not unfold on a football field in West Texas, but rather on one of the great stages of golf, the U.S. Open.

This past weekend featured the playing of the 118th U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York. One of the most prestigious venues of the sport, it has hosted five U.S. Open tournaments, the first of which was held in 1896. As you might expect, the golf world was rife with anticipation leading up to this year’s tournament.

Dustin Johnson had just recaptured the top ranking in the world with a commanding victory at the Fed Ex, St. Jude classic the week prior. Tiger Woods, playing in his second major since 2015, arrived to New York aboard his yacht, on which he planned to stay for the duration of the tournament. The old guard and the new, ready to compete in what is touted as golf’s toughest tournament.

What took place over the weekend was nothing short of a disaster. The U.S. Golf Association, the governing body responsible for running the tournament, decided it would push the limits of difficulty to never-before-seen heights. The revamped course, coupled with impossibly thick rough and powerful winds, did not allow a single golfer to finish the tournament under par. In fact, it was so bad that by the fourth day of the tournament the USGA was putting pin locations in easy to reach places so that the golfers could score more easily and gain back strokes.

Stabbed in the back by the USGA, the world’s best professional golfers trudged through what appeared to be one of the most difficult set-ups in the history of golf. The players were upset, the fans were upset, and the USGA was forced to concede its error prior to the final day of the tournament. The lowlight of the tournament was when Phil Mickelson, one of golf’s greatest ambassadors and most prominent figures, decided to hit his ball while it was still moving in an attempt to save it from rolling off the green. An error that cost him a two-shot penalty and the ire of many golf fans around the globe.

I don’t blame him for what he did. It’s easy for anyone to yell from the sidelines, but he is one of the best to ever walk between the ropes. He was not in contention and he weighed the consequences with the benefits and made the decision. But this decision certainly gives us some perspective on the tournament. How could it go this far and get so out of hand that a player could seriously contemplate breaking one of the most obvious rules of golf so that he could prevent further carnage? The difficulty of the course and the disappointment of the players ruined this event.

The lone bright spot was Brooks Koepka’s victory. The first player in 29 years to win back-to-back U.S. Open championships, he showed tenacity and resilience in the face of adversity. To win this championship, you have to hit long and you must be accurate. Koepka led the field in driving distance and was among the leaders in fairways hit and greens in regulation. He kept his head down, battled through the rough conditions of the weekend and emerged a champion for the second time despite the terrible conditions. Congratulations to him. With any luck, he will be the last champion to have endured through the ridiculous conditions created by the USGA.

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