Your Host, Walter Driver
Thursday, June 16, 2005 at 08:57 AM Another dynamic USGA press conference. Lousy question after lousy question, and almost all answered by a (standing?) Walter Driver as Executive Director David Fay and President Fred Ridley’s offered their dual impersonations of Marcel Marseau.
President, err, Vice President Walter Driver, seems to be running the organization, letting Ridley step in for his standard inner-city-kids-stuff and 49 words from Fay.
The setup, we learn from Driver, is exactly the same as 1999 even though we've been told all week that greens are a foot faster on the Stimp, the course is longer (the numbers vary), the rough has sprouted in the miserable heat and fairways are narrower.
WALTER DRIVER: First, it is almost identical in setup to 1999. The length is 92 yards longer. The fairways are approximately the same width. There are a couple that are two to four yards narrower, and the setup was designed to be the same as 1999. Now, this means that this course is not a terribly long U.S. Open course. The game here is around the greens.
Iit’s “not a terribly long U.S. Open course?” Uh, Walter, it ties Bethpage Black as the longest course in U.S. Open history.
WALTER DRIVER: Every green will have a position where you can have a very good makeable birdie putt, but you need to put the ball on the proper side of the hole location to take advantage of that. And if you miss it on the wrong side, you're going to be welcome at the Donald Ross gym here at Pinehurst No. 2. We hope everyone appreciates the creativity that calls for from the players and recognize that that is really the nature of the game here.
The Donald Ross gym? Is that where the guys go to work out to pick up tee shot yardage?
Q. Have advances in technology, the fact that the ball flies farther and straighter, has that made it more difficult to make par a good score? Has that maybe made you push the envelope more on setups?
WALTER DRIVER: This course is set up almost exactly as it was in 1999. We do not try to protect par or push par as a score, good or bad. What we try to do is set it up to make the golf course the most difficult test in championship golf, and we want the players to be tested, but they're going to shoot whatever it is. And if it's 10 under, it's 10 under. If it's 10 over, it's 10 over. I don't know what's going to be the winning score. So the answer to that question is no, although we do know players hit the ball further. You go out in the practice rounds and watch where they're hitting the ball, they're hitting the ball a good deal further than in 1999. But it didn't change our course setup at all.
But you changed the setup? No? Yes? Get this man some talking points.
Q. What exactly in hindsight did you learn last year at Shinnecock that you don't want to repeat?
WALTER DRIVER: Well, we learned that a golf course can change a lot between 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning and how it plays later in the day when you have a strong wind that's a very dry wind. When I personally putted every hole location at Shinnecock on Sunday, I thought they were all playable, and that was at 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. in the morning. But through the day, the conditions had continued to have a very hot, dry wind, coming from not in the prevailing direction, and we learned that we should have gotten ahead of that wind condition more than we did. But we did put water on every green at Shinnecock through the course of the day.
Oh, so it wasn’t that extra rolling that was the problem after all?
Let’s see, the 18th green was redone for the USGA. But Walter, we know to get the Open, Olympic had to, I repeat, had to add length, specifically on holes 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12 and 16. It's even in writing Walter!Q. I'm not sure who is best to answer this, but I want to find out what convinced you guys to go back to Olympic and how much they needed to change some things there, specifically the 18th green. Sort of a related question, there will be three Opens in five years on the West Coast; what drives that, if TV is a factor? Why so many on the West Coast?
WALTER DRIVER: First, Olympic is a great venue, has a wonderful history of national championships and it's a fine golf course, and the membership and the community are very much in favor of having The Open there. I don't remember who it was, but another member of the press found me in February and asked if it was a condition going back on the Open that they change the 18th green. And I said it's never been discussed in the USGA that I heard of. We're pleased with the changes they made at the golf course in terms of opening it up for air movement and crowd movement. But we don't dictate changes in the golf course usually as a condition for having the Open.
Q. Vijay was here earlier and gave quite a lecture on golf course and golf course setup. And one of the things that he said was that basically he didn't think you guys could break 100 on the golf courses that you're setting up.
Now, I'm betting on Mr. Ridley on that to do that. But I'd like to get his comment and Mr. Driver's comment about that. I guess the idea is, it seems that there are players who think you guys don't understand what you need to do to make the golf course work.
WALTER DRIVER: Fred and I will take that bet that we can break 100 (laughter).
FRED RIDLEY: Jerry, you haven't seen me play a lot recently.
What humility. It gets better.
FRED RIDLEY: I think you need to go back to the setup philosophy, the elements that all of you have now seen, and that's really what we go back to. Clearly a number of people in the Championship Committee, Walter included, are highly accomplished golfers, but I think more importantly, we have a championship staff who are the best in the business, Tom Meeks, Mike Davis, Tim Moraghan, our Championship agronomist, and these people are truly professionals. I think the combination of that team work together with the philosophy, which we've tried to be consistent with over the years, I feel very comfortable with that.
Stop laughing! We haven’t even gotten to the race stuff, always a joy. And Fred Ridley was grateful for the question.
Q. I'd like to ask you about the USGA Executive Committee. Currently there are no African Americans on the Committee, there's only two women on the Committee, and yet the USGA proclaims its motto, "For the good of the game." Do you think that's for the good of the game not to have more diversity on that committee and in your office ranks?FRED RIDLEY: Thank you for that question. Certainly the USGA believes, like all you have believe, that golf needs to look more like America . We acknowledge that. You're correct, there are currently no minorities on the Executive Committee. There have been in the past. We've had, during my tenure, our general counsel was an African American. As you noted, there are two women on the Executive Committee. I can assure you in the process of recruiting future Executive Committee members that that is a high priority.
Beyond our Committee, though, there are a number of other committees within the USGA and the USGA staff; we currently have minorities on our staff. We have over 1,300 volunteers; a number of minorities contribute greatly to those efforts or those committees.
The PGA of America, the PGA TOUR, the World Golf Foundation, The First Tee Program, USGA is proud to be the largest single contributor over the history of The First Tee to that program. So we have more work to do. But I'm encouraged that we're joining together, Golf 20/20 is bringing golf constituencies together, and we're working hard, but we have more to do; we acknowledge that. It's going to take some time, and hopefully some of the seeds we're planting today will pay off and we'll be happier on this issue in 5, 10, 15, 20 years. But it's a great question, and I'm glad you brought it up.
Reader Gray Slacks wrote in to let me know that the highest ranking minority above the administrative level is, well, Gray Slacks couldn't think of one. But I wrote back and assured Gray Slacks that the First Tee program is going to deliver Executive Committee members someday!
Q. Last year after the first group went through, I believe, the green on No. 7 was watered. And there were players who felt that it changed the it changes the competition because they're playing under different conditions. Has the USGA addressed that issue in terms of keeping the conditions the same or will they if they have a problem like that, will they continue to do the same thing?
WALTER DRIVER: Well, let's take a step back and look at it in perspective, because many golf courses, whether in championship play or not, you need to syringe the greens in order to keep the greens healthy. Shinnecock aside, that is not abnormal.
Hmmm…I believe Roger Maltbie said it was unprecedented last year when the watering happened. Turned out syringing had happened a few times to keep grass from dying, but it is an abnormal practice during play of any tournament to keep balls on greens.
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