Wednesday At The 2024 U.S. Open
Final prep, the USGA press conference, Tiger gets the Jones Award, Merch, the 9th green and a final video preview.
The players have put in the work, Pinehurst No. 2 will get one more late Wednesday haircut, and the 124th U.S. Open appears primed to present all of the necessary ingredients to deliver a special week.
The greens are in the high 13’s after cutting but appear to be growing nicely during the day, leaving them in the Stimping in the high 12’s by day’s end. They are pristine, true as you could ever hope and still holding all well-struck shots. And at 6,800 square feet on average and pinnable in about half that space, some of the tiniest targets in championship golf.
Coupled with landing areas in the 25-34 yard range, perfect turf, warm weather and little wind in the forecast, and you have the ingredients for excellent scoring. The main caveats: rounds that will be slow and Pinehurst’s greens when missed.
We’ll wrap pre-tournament coverage with items on the USGA press conference, the new first tee tunnel, Tiger Woods receiving his Bob Jones Award, a look at the 9th green, one final good viewing spot and, after much procrastination, a merchandise roundup.
A few last minute need-to-know links:
State Of The USGA Press Conference
An upbeat leadership team spoke ahead of the 2024 U.S. Open and 1000th USGA championship. They covered a wide array of topics, initiatives and golf course matters. The organization is expecting 225,000 spectators for the week and expressed gratitude for the upgrades made by Pinehurst to usher in the “anchor” status that will translate to plenty of USGA championships over the next 25 years.
“We thought that there were so many inefficiencies involved with moving our U.S. Open around that if we could just kind of have a deeper and longer commitment, that long arc of time will allow us to have the clarity that brings the confidence to execute,” said USGA President Fred Perpall in discussing how the strategy has evolved since he joined the Executive Committee.
Mike Whan, USGA CEO, also dropped anchor.
“Our largest U.S. Open build,” he said. “The opportunity to upgrade the experiences for the players. You'll see a new tunnel from the locker room to the 18th green. These are things that we just couldn't do if we were in our one-off mode. So we're really, really happy with how this has turned out. We know that over time, as we lean into this anchor site strategy, we'll continue to improve our main thing, which is running great U.S. Opens.”
The golf course came up but thanks to a wet spring and improved agronomy, there were only a few questions about the impact of Pinehurst’s crowned greens and wire grass-laden areas off the fairways. Those and other topics are included below in the best of Wednesday’s press conference.
Mike Whan on the Sandhills Community College Greenkeepers Apprenticeship Program (GAP) the USGA is helping fund. “We thought it was going to be a fun project for a year. But what came out of a fun project was a program, if you take this class here in Sandhills, you had a job. You were working on a golf course. If you didn't have one when you started, we got one when you started. You didn't pay for this course. Over the course of our first graduating class, every graduate in that class had a salary increase where they were working, and 50 percent of them had a promotion on the golf courses they were working at. The golf course reaction providing much more skilled labor was through the roof.”
On the current television contract structure. “The U.S. Open will provide the most network TV hours of any major: 1:00 to 7:00 on Friday, noon to 8:00 on Saturday, noon to 7:00 on Sunday. On Thursday when we're on USA Network we start at 6:30 a.m. and we go off at 5:00 p.m. On top of that we're going to provide options, supplemental options for people that want to watch in a different way, on our platforms, on USGA website and app, you can watch featured groups all day long. If you like those featured groups, you can literally watch every shot, every day of those groups.”
On reduced commercial interruptions. “On the topic of reduced commercial time, I think you guys have heard me talk about it for two years, we've worked together with NBC, our partner, we've dramatically reduced both the NBC and the USGA promotions - you know how much that hurts me - in order to provide more coverage time than we've provided in years past.”
Whan on players recently saying they can hit the ball all over the driver face and hit the ball normal distances. “When we started talking about changes in the driver or driving equipment, it was just the opposite. Much more significant impact across the board than just at the elite level. I think we said this when we announced, and if we didn't I will just tell you. We shelved it for now because we thought it was time to make a decision and put it on there, but we didn't retire the idea. We just didn't, quite frankly, have an idea that we believed was worthy of going to the market yet. But I would just put a 'yet' on that statement.”
John Bodenhamer on plans to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Payne Stewart’s U.S. Open win. “On Sunday we'll have a special flag on the flagstick to commemorate Payne. And around the mesh on that wonderful amphitheater on 18, you'll also see a little bit of an understated collaboration. Yes, Jeff Hall won't like me very much, but I will tell you, we will use the back right hole location on No. 18 where Payne made that iconic putt.”
Bodenhamer on something a member of the green rolling staff named Andrew said about loving the U.S. Open. “He said, ‘Because it is the one week each year where you can cheer for the golf course.’ We're going to be cheering for the golf course, too, as well as these great players.”
Whan on the $21.5 million purse. “I don't think anybody who wins this week and walks away with $4.3 million, and quite frankly all the other that comes with winning the U.S. Open, is going to question whether or not that was an event that's changing. We're proud of our purse.”
Bodenhamer on the greens. “we'll play in the mid-13s for most of the day. That'll drop down as the day goes on a little bit. But we think with the hole locations we choose and if the weather cooperates, we think that's a good place to be, along with everything else that's here with Pinehurst.”
Whan on the field makeup. “We're going to talk about it this off-season, whether or not there needs to be a path to somebody or somebodies that are performing really well on LIV that can get a chance to play in that way. I think we are serious about that. Exactly what that looks like and how that'll curtail, I'm not just being coy; we haven't done that yet.”
Bodenhamer on course setup transparency with players. “They know us pretty well now that we're going to move it around a lot. It's kind of who we are and what we do. We believe in giving players choices everywhere we can. In 2014 we played a number of holes drivable. You referenced 13. We played 3 drivable twice. We played No. 7 up, way up. We moved par-3s around, giving different yardages, angles. That's what we do. As far as alerting players, I think if it changes, if the approach that a player would -- it would change the architectural approach that the player would have to look at and experience, we would show them what we would do in practice rounds.
Whan on paying amateurs who make the cut*. “We've tried to evolve NIL and amateur status, as the game has, we as the USGA kind of created an NIL and amateur status angle before the NCAA did, so golf was kind of ahead of that time. I'm not sure. You may be right. We may be heading to that path sooner rather than later.”
*Amateurs in the field receive the same $10,000 stipend paid to all professionals.
Tiger Receives The Bob Jones Award
Tiger Woods’ speech at the USGA banquet awarding him the Bob Jones Award:
Entering The Arena
A new locker room for players and members was among the many improvements inspired by Pinehurst’s “anchor site” status. As part of the project, a tunnel has been carved out to allow players easier access to the first tee and practice putting green.
Our athletic moisture-wicking clad gladiators in their anklet socks will enter the arena beneath recessed lighting before stepping up brick stairs to be greeted by a (full) first tee grandstand. The clubhouse upgrade also allows for easy access to a private place for those last-minute symptoms that tend to arise with final pairings in a U.S. Open.
A video look of the walk, minus a two-shot lead and crowd eager to greet the leaders: