John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s chief championships officer, is largely responsible for setting up the course for a US Open. He has been at the USGA since 2011, and before that, he has been setting up golf courses for various championships for four decades. He finds Shinnecock Hills to be as special a challenge to play as it is to set up. He feels both a sense of concern and excitement about the complexity of this year’s national championship, but an overriding desire to get it right, to get to the end of the week with a US Open worthy of a venue he finds “perfect.” We spoke with Bodenhamer on the eve of the US Open, while he was on-site at Riviera for the US Women’s Open. Here are some of his thoughts (comments were edited and shortened selectively for clarity):
Q: Looking back at Shinnecock in 2004 and 2018, were those issues mistakes or something more fundamental about the current state of the game and trying to challenge the best players on historic venues?
A: Well, I would say if you put truth serum in anybody at the USGA, in ’04 and ’18, that neither of those opens lived up to our standards, so that’s why this year is so very important. I do think there are some things that we are thinking about differently. After ’18, our leadership, including [former USGA Executive Director and US Open setup chief] Mike Davis, said, ‘OK, let’s take a look back. Let’s see what happened and dig deeply and get better.’ I was asked to put that together and I did, so I have a pretty deep understanding of what did happen. The short of it is, we didn’t lose the golf course. I know that was reported to have happened, but what we did lose control of were portions around certain holes where the poa annua leaf blade was not hydrated enough, and the surface became less than ideal. It can happen. It’s called wilt. I’ll tell you, Shinnecock’s the type of place, I’d say, unlike any other I have ever been, where that condition can creep up quicker than almost anywhere else.
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Q: What makes Shinnecock so difficult to manage compared to other US Open venues?
A: Shinnecock is just different. You’ve got Peconic Bay on one side, the Atlantic on the other, sandy soils, perched greens and when you combine that with sun and wind, conditions can change incredibly quickly. Moisture levels drop fast, the surfaces can get crispy and if you’re not ahead of it, you can’t catch up. I’ve been to a lot of places, and I’d say Shinnecock might be the most sensitive to those variables of any place we’ve been.
Q: What will be different in how the USGA approaches setup this time?
A: One of the biggest changes is philosophical. In the past, we tried to have the course essentially ready early in the week so players could see what they’d get in the championship. But at a place like Shinnecock, that’s really hard to maintain for seven or eight days. Now, we take more of a buildup approach; we ease into it. The course starts to show itself on Wednesday and by Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it’s where we want it. That’s worked well for us recently and a big part of that is staying in control of the water.
Q: How are you thinking about green speeds this year?
A: Our green speeds will be a little bit slower than they were in ’18. That’s just a conscious decision we’ve made. My team has gone back, we’ve looked at all the information we have, green speeds in ’86, ’95, ’04, ’18, we’ve watched the telecast coverage of each of those opens. I’ve watched them multiple times. You see ball behaviours and I think for us to use the really great hole locations that we want to use, we think that we’ll be playing most of our golf in the 11.5 to 12 range as our peak. It’ll again depend on the weather, but that’s kind of what our target will be. Look, if it needs to be 11.2 or 11, you know, you know a US Open putt when you see it. It’s really not equated to a number.
[Photo: Warren Little]
Q: Has the USGA’s thinking about scoring changed?
A: I think it has. There may have been a time when par was the benchmark, but that’s not really how we look at it anymore. I believe we’re on a bit of a journey right now to a different place. Far be it from us to go to these great cathedrals and put our stamp on it. It should be about those cathedrals and these great players and if the venues are not good enough, then we shouldn’t go there.
Q: How much of this ultimately comes down to weather?
A: A huge amount. Mother Nature always gets a seat at the table and at Shinnecock, maybe more than anywhere else. If we get wind, the course will resist scoring. If we don’t, it won’t and we’re OK with that. That’s part of the evolution in our thinking, being willing to let conditions play a role instead of trying to control every outcome. If players shoot 21 under par, we haven’t done our job, but if they shoot 10 over, we haven’t done it either.
Q: How do you balance making it ‘tough’ without crossing the line?
A: That’s always the challenge. We absolutely push it; we want it to be tough, but we’re very aware of that edge, and we don’t want to go over it. It’s a balance between setup, weather, architecture and how the course is responding. There’s no guarantee you’ll get it perfect, especially at a place like this.
Q: Why does Shinnecock have such a reputation for volatility?
A: Because there really are no guarantees there. You can have a great plan and still be surprised. I’ve joked that it’s almost like there are golf demons on those greens; balls do things you don’t always expect. But that’s also what makes it so special. It’s meant to test you that way.
Q: How will the architecture influence setup decisions this year?
A: We’re very conscious of not imposing ourselves on a place like Shinnecock. That’s why you’ll see wider fairways, 50 yards in some cases, because that’s how the course is meant to play. We’re not trying to reshape it into something else.
Q: Will certain greens, like the 7th, be handled differently?
A: When we set up a golf course to normal green speeds for any of our championships, when we get up over three per cent slope, we start paying attention pretty closely. When we get to 3.5 per cent, we’re really paying attention and kind of considering it a bit of a danger zone. Well, there are entire putting greens at Shinnecock, like No. 7, where I don’t believe there’s a spot on that putting green that is under four per cent.
Q: What kind of overall test do you want Shinnecock to present?
A: We talk internally about getting every club in the bag dirty, the 14 clubs they carry and the one between their ears. It should be a complete examination. Not just execution, but decision-making, creativity and discipline. Shinnecock, with its angles and options, really allows for that.
Q: What ultimately matters most to players about the US Open?
A: We’ve talked to a lot of players over the years to get a sense of this championship, its character and how we were meeting that challenge. It wasn’t just Jack Nicklaus, but it was Jack, it was Tom Watson, it was Andy North, it was Jim Furyk. We asked them specifically about how it was when you won. Did you expect it to get firmer and faster as it got into the weekend? And Tom Watson was like, ‘Absolutely! That’s exactly what we expected. We knew it was coming. You weren’t going to cut the rough, the greens were going to get firmer and the hole locations were going to be good. Then it just became an exercise of what the weather was going to be. I think we’ve really gone back to that, gone back to the kind of old-fashioned kind of crescendo on Saturday and Sunday. It’s also about where you win. Nobody asks how many under par you were; they ask where you won. And places like Shinnecock, with its history and architecture, mean something different to players.
Q: Anything a specific player said that stood out?
A: Curtis Strange said something to me after Shinnecock. He was at the Broadmoor US Senior Open about two weeks after the US Open in Shinnecock and he saw me and he said, John, can we chat? So I went over and we sat up in front of a fire pit for two hours. And I just listened and what he said to me was, John, you know, when I won my US Opens, it was the greatest time of my life. They defined my career, proudest wins by far and I still relive those memories every day. But it’s different today. When I look up and I see the winning score at the US Open is over par, I wonder what happened. Was it the weather? Was it really awful? Or did the USGA do something to force a setup to get to a score and make it about them? And he said, John, you just can’t do that today. When I played, yeah, there were a lot of good players, but he said, today, these athletes are bigger, stronger, faster. They’re better coached, they have better equipment, maintenance on the golf course is better, the ball runs more and there are a hell of a lot more of those great athletes. When they don’t shoot under par at the US Open today, I wonder what happened. And you know what? I think he was right and it’s really kind of changed my thinking about things. Why should we force it to a score and make it about us?
Q: Is Shinnecock still the right place for a US Open after the issues in 2004 and 2018?
A: The magnificence of Shinnecock is the closely mown areas in a lot of ways, which gives the players choices. We’ll maintain them so they can putt, bump-and-run it, or pitch it. And when you read some of the great architects and you talk to some of the players, they’d rather a true or false examination. They don’t like multiple choice as much. Well, we want to give them multiple choices. We want them to have to really think through what they need to do and that has to showcase every part of their game. We love that and I think Shinnecock may do that more than most. When you talk to the players, they’ll say, well, Oakmont and Winged Foot are your two toughest. Pebble Beach is your grandest. But Shinnecock may be your greatest. Let’s just put it this way: after ’04 and ’18, it deserves a great US Open, doesn’t it?
