"Exit Poll"

As promised, here is my Golf World review from Congressional looking at the various elements playing into the setup, soft conditions and low scoring.

Comments

[Joey]

The purpose of the US Open is to identify the best golfer. It did. All the rest is a bunch of blustering.

[rmppia]

Joey is right on. There are hundreds if not thousands of courses that could hold a US Open if the purpose is to make fairways 15 yards wide, gorw rough to six inches right up to the greens , and bake the greens to hardpan consistancy and put in some tees to make them 7,700 yards long. The winning score could be around par "whatever" that is. What if we just had a tournament and said the low total score wins, then who cares how far below or above par that score is. Or, make every hole on the course a par four if you really need some relationship to "par" to judge a winner by. "Par" for todays elete players is certainly different than "par" for the players of the 40s and 50s, so quit trying to compare todays scores to yesterdays. Enjoy the fact that the best player this week was twice as good as the next best player and get ready for The Open.

[HoselRocket]

Joey, rmppia and others that are "contributing" to this discussion: no one is contending that course setup resulted in the correct winner, furthermore, I don't care what the winning score is in relation to par (please stop pounding us over the head with these two painfully obvious points, he hit 86% of the fairways and missed 10 greens fer gawds sake STOP)

This is about the 2004 US Open scare resulting in Mike Davis erring on the other side: Ie - bad shots being rewarded...

The original goal of graduated rough was to not penalize good shots, which is a noble worthy goal. But this year, graduated rough allowed easy pars and occasional birdies, sure Rory only missed 14% of his fairways, however, his score should reflect that fact and it doesn't (except his double on 18...LOL).

The evidence supporting this screwup is everywhere: players joking whether this is a US Open or not, Mike Davis and his crew backpedaling on setup, number of rounds under par, birdies/pars made from the rough....

When evidence like this pops up around the tournament that is supposed to be the "toughest test in golf", of course there is going to be discussion.

I for one miss the days of being able to predict bogey when a player misses the fairway, because the driver is the toughest club to hit straight under pressure (arguable cuz for me its putter...LOL). But the one thing I was sure of was that missing the fairway was going to be punished...not so much anymore...

which saddens me...im not sure why...prolly cuz i remember different times...ima go cry in my french roast now

[Geoff]

Hosel,
Did you not watch last year's U.S. Open?

[HoselRocket]

Geoff,

I have been away from the game for a few years, work has had me too busy to watch/play. I'm going to assume based on the question that the rough did its "job"

Help me remember...somewhere/someone from the USGA mentioned a goal of missed fairways resulting in one added shot. This is from years ago (Tom Meeks maybe?) and I'm wondering if the USGA has changed this objective.

I'll go check out the 2010 open now and shaddap :)

thx

[HoselRocket]

also, there was a comment by Brandel Chamblee about sight lines of Congressional being off because of the lengthening of the course?

the point was reconfiguration of the golf course didn't make the course play as the original designers intended (hazards were out of place for the shots)

can you comment more on this?