74 gd | us open 2019
andrew redington/getty imagespart in a boycott]. Absolutely.
another major champion:
I was one of them.
multiple pga tour winner:
I would have boycotted if it had
come to that. If it wasn’t a ma-
jor, I wouldn’t play it, and a lot
of other guys feel that way.
multiple pga tour winner:
I figure we needed about 25
guys, and I think we could have
gotten there based on what
I was hearing from players.
Really, just one would have
done it, but Tiger wasn’t play-
ing at the time. Without us,
they don’t have a tournament.
multiple major champion,
including the u.s. open:
I was in those meetings. It was
a lot of emotion of guys sup-
porting another player. And
yeah, guys actually searched for
where that money was going,
thought it was maybe a little bit
fishy that the purses weren’t
going up, given the amount of
money they were taking in. But
then they came in and raised
the purse. I think guys still
would like to see it raised more.
Clearly the revenue generated
is a lot more in a major.
multiple pga tour winner:
Finally we went to Jay Monahan
[now the PGA Tour commis-
sioner] and asked him to inter-
vene on our behalf, because we
didn’t want it to come to that.
It wouldn’t have been good for
golf, good for anybody. Cooler
heads prevailed.
multiple pga tour winner:
I still don’t know where [all
the additional money from
Fox] goes. I’ve tried a thousand
times to get an answer. The
USGA is making about $100
million a year that we know
about—that’s just U.S. TV
revenue, not international TV
money, merchandise and sales
and so on. If you can show us
how you’re using that money
to grow the game, we’d be
all about it. But they haven’t
shown us that.
winner of more than 10 pga
and european tour events:
They came to us a year later
and gave a fifth-grader’s pie-
chart breakdown of where the
funds were going. We counted
$23 million that was under
“other.” We asked what the
“other” is, and I don’t think we
got an answer.multiple pga and european
tour winner: I never thought,
I’m not gonna play, though.
I wanna win a U.S. Open.
winner of more than 10 pga
and european tour events:
If I held that trophy, I’d be de-
lighted. But I’d quite like to win
it and not play it again. You’d be
an absolute dick if you did that,
but it would make a statement.
winner of more than 20 pga
and european tour events:
If they f--- up Pebble Beach,
I can see players not going back.
That’s America’s St. Andrews.TOUGH VERSUS FAIR
multiple major winner,
including the u.s. open:
The players want tough, but
they want fair. When I played,
a lot of players complained,
but it was fair. It was tight fair-
ways, deep rough and hard, fast
greens. But those greens ran at
9½ [on the Stimpmeter]. Now
it’s 14½, or more.multiple major champion,
including the u.s. open:
The Stimp is a culprit in all of
this, because there’s a common
ambition to get the greens as
fast as possible. It’s no wonder
the longest rounds of the year
are at the U.S. Open, because
you can’t go tap in a two-footer.
You have to mark it, and youhave to be careful and take your
time and concentrate.
former u.s. open champion:
Everything that goes wrong at
the U.S. Open, the genesis is
their obsession with the players
not shooting under par. [The av-
erage winning score since 2001
is 3.39 strokes under par, includ-
ing 16 under by Rory McIlroy on
a soggy Congressional in 2011
and 16 under by Brooks Koepka
on the wide fairways of Erin
Hills in 2017, when anticipated
high winds failed to blow.]
multiple major champion,
including the u.s. open:
They publicly say they aren’t
trying to chase a score, but it’s
pretty obvious that they are.
winner of more than 10
european tour events:
I get the feeling they’re lying.
[Laughs.]
winner of more than 20
european tour events:
Par as the winning score—they
have to get rid of that immedi-ately. The game has changed.
The Masters tried to do that
years ago and failed. The event
was boring for a few years, so
they put the excitement back.
former u.s. open champion:
The Masters is clearly the most
successful professional tourna-
ment in the world, by a mile.
swing coach for a major
champion: Augusta’s greens
are stupid, but they put the
pins in places that minimize
the stupidity. The USGA never
does that.
winner of more than 20
european tour events:
We used to know that, if you
shot 65 on Day One of the U.S.
Open, the pins would be in silly
places the next day.
coach of major champions:
Why is there this desire to make
the best players in the world
look stupid? Nobody at Wim-
bledon wants to go watch Roger
Federer and Rafael Nadal have
32 unforced errors. The USGA
seems to want carnage.
multiple major champion:
It’s just one week. It doesn’t
matter—I don’t care if I shoot
700 over par if I’m lifting the
trophy. So if we just said, Hey,
here’s a hole, now go beat every-
body, and had no par, our mind-
set would be different, right?
multiple european tour
winner: I played with two
leading Americans in the first
two rounds last year. One
whined for two days. The
other’s caddie had to tell him
to shut up at one point, he was
being such a pain. He said it
was “clown golf,” but it wasn’t.
He was just hitting it bad.
multiple european tour
winner: The U.S. Open should
be a test of temperament as well
as execution and technique.
european tour winner:
I’ve played in three U.S. Opens
on three classic courses. I never
had a problem at any of them.
I thought the USGA did a fan-
tastic job.
multiple european tour
winner: Is it a major test
when you’re hitting it to five
feet on every hole? My idea of
a good shot is hitting a 5-iron
into a firm green to 30 feet.
multiple major winner:
I’ve hit shots into terrible spots‘PHIL HAS HAD A THING WITH THE USGA FOR A LONG TIME. THAT
WASN’T A RASH DECISION.HE’S BEEN WANTING TO DO THAT FOR 10
YE ARS.’ —MULTIPLE MAJOR WINNER, INCLUDING THE U.S. OPEN
▶ controversy at shinnecock
“If we got a mulligan,” Mike Davis said after the third round,
“we would have slowed the greens down.”