John Bodenhamer on Setting Up the 2020 U.S. Open

is with John Bodenhammer. John is the senior Managing Director of Championships for the USGA. He came on the podcast during the quarantine. If you remember back to them, but we barely talked about Wingfoot in that episode, so I wanted to have a back on and we get into the nitty gritty on setup, what to expect at Wingfoot, how they go about the process of picking pins, all sorts of good stuff. As a reminder, we have a

ton of Wingfoot coverage. We had Neil Reagan, the club historian on Jeff Ogilvie, the two thousand and six champion, was on last week on the podcast, and then later this week we will have a fried Egg story produced by Garrett Morrison and that will be on the seventy four US Open at Wingfoot the Massacre Really cool podcast.

I've read the script and that should be out Tuesday. Oh, we've got you covered here and then if you if you haven't yet subscribed our newsletter at the Friday Egg dot com and you will not miss any of our written content on the US Open. So, without further ado, here is John Bodenhammer. I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

we were going to play anything this year. And uh, you know it was it was just, oh, I guess back March thirteenth, sitting in our Merian conference froom at Golf House when the world began to shut down, and really just wondering what the rest of the year would unfold as being and that uncertainty and the unknown was really hard, and we've had to navigate a tough journey.

But I'll tell you what, it feels good to be here just a few days before and on the eve of the US Open one hundred and twenty thus open at wing Foot. It feels really good. We're exciting.

Members have told me countless times this place has never looked better. It's just in fantastic condition.

ever since, and it is it is. It is a lush There'll be a premium on accuracy this week, as we had intended right by the plan. But I think as we go into the week and we get past that little humid spell, we have a little coal front moves through, things will cool down. We'll do our last cuts this week, and then it'll slow down a little bit and it'll kind of maintain as where we are going into the weekend. We think that could be a good outcome for us come this weekend.

flight of it. And being able to hit onto firm fairways and firm greens is you know, the better players rise to the top. Softness is the great equalizer. You're just throwing darts. Everybody can do that, but when you get you know, everybody can throw it up in the air and if it just lands where it lands, everybody can do that. But the really great players know and have a sixth sense and how they control the ball

once it hits the ground. They can spin the ball, they can put the ball where they want it, they can keep it below the hole, and when it's firm that they have an advantage, and then the cream rises to the top. And I think that's why we've always tried to do that with the US Open. Endeavored to create firm and fast conditions because we do believe that it does identify the better player because the better ball strikers can control their shots on firm and fast conditions.

opens at Wingfoot? And if so, is there a you know for those that have watched it, are we going to see some new pens this year thanks to the enlarged greens?

the ball reacting, How were the putting greens reacting. You know, we've got a different golf course this time at Wingfoot. And I say that because a few years ago, about three years ago, gill Hans came in with the club and restored and that's the key word. It was a restoration of Wingfoot to the tilling House design in many ways. Of the most important ways is the forty miles of drain tile. I guess about half of that on the

West course. The East course is just it's fabulous here too, by the way, for your listeners that they may not know that it's wonderful. We've had women's opens and four balls and other championships here too. But about twenty plus miles of drain tile, the fairways are running firmer even if it would rain. But these putting greens used to be these old nineteen twenties vintage push up putting greens that were pushed up with a clay bass about eighteen

inches down that were designed to hold moisture. That's how they kept them alive in the summer because they didn't have irrigation systems really like we know it today. They kept the moisture in the putting greens with that clay base. The moisture would sit on top of that clay base, and when you get into really hot dog days of summer, that would create kind of mushy, kind of you know, difficult conditions that superintendents today could navigate. True, but it

was a challenge. And three years ago Wingfoot rebuilt their putting greens, all of them to USJA specifications, sand based, installed subair system and so they dried down a little bit quicker than the otherwise would and we get some of that moisture out of the subsurface, and we can with conditions without some rain, we can really control the moisture that goes into them and how they react to will flight into them. Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't answer

the second part of your question. I would say the other part of it is Gil and the club reclaimed, and this often happens with older mintage vintage clubs reclaimed A twenty three point eight percent of new or an old putting green space that used to be here that over time with mowing patterns had had shrunk, the great

putting green footprint had shrunk. I can show you heat maps were around men the greens on you know, twenty to thirty percent bigger, which did give us a number of new hole locations we didn't have.

lot of history behind number fifteen. I was out this morning looking at whole locations with our team and I was in the upper back left part of the green and there was a hole down on the very thing about this middle of the green, and I could hit putts in three different directions and get it down to that hole. Could play it up eight feet right on a big feature and bring it down to the hole.

I could play it just about eight or ten inches right and bring it down to the hole, but with a little more risk of running past or I could play it left or right on another feature and get it down to the hole. So you just don't see that very often. And that's why I said it's really a work of art. It's a masterpiece of tilling Hast that was not by chance. Those sorts of things were done because he had a great eye, and it really does play to those that know how to read greens, it's fabulous. Yeah.

much variety here and the nuances that are here. We found spots by looking at the Green reading book, and we brought three or four members, good players that know this place, that we know well, that had set this golf course for the Anderson, set this golf course up for the Anderson four Ball, and have found some of those spots where you swear that ball is breaking two inches right to left and it actually goes maybe an

inch and a half left to rights. But there's a little ridge there that you just unless you know this place, you wouldn't see that is all over. It's fabulous.

for some firmness, we'll think another way. Or if we've get a little blustery conditions. You know, that's another thing about wing foot that we're seeing this week. We may have two or three shifts in the wind direction. The way it's looking like now, we may start out of with some winds out of the southwest and they'll shift to the northeast and then back to the north. That's been happening all over the last two weeks. We've had the golf course play completely differently with the wind coming

out of the south as opposed to the north. And I think we'll see a little bit of that this week. We look at all of that. We try to make our decisions at game time based on what the weather and the wind especially will present to us. But I think you know, it really really we set our plan.

We you know, we ask for for certain things from the golf course superintendent Eeve Ravenue, who is magnificent in this team, and they delivered it, and we've come up and we've made some adjustments that now just a few days out, as I said, we look like we're going to get some firmness, possibly little blustery conditions maybe for a couple of days, a little cooler temperatures on the weekend. And we've got the rough. You know, we had the

rough pretty healthy coming into this. It's easier to grow it, or it's easier to cut it than it is to grow it. We can control cutting it, we can't control crewing it. That's mother nature. So we try to have a little more, a little more to it when we come in and then we manage it into what we need based on the weather. And that's worked out well, I think. But I think it's really coming out every morning. I think a couple of the nuanced things would be.

Now we're out at five point forty five each morning this week Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and it was this weekend too, and that's in the dark, by the way, with two and a half hours less daylight. We're doing. The first

two holes is set up under led lights. That's never, at least in my lifetime, it's never happened with the US open before maintenance is being done in the dark at the beginning of the morning, because our first starting time is beginning today for practice rounds were at six fifty and that'll be that's really right as daylight comes up and the guys are warming up on the practice range under led lights in the darkness because we just don't have the light. But it's working on fine, it's

it's all, it's all fine. But we'll start at five forty five and we'll we'll go out and look at everything. Well, we'll look at how the green speeds are now ticking up a little bit, the firmness is coming down at us, and we'll nuance, we'll set our we'll look at the nuances around our whole locations and make minor of modifications based on the weather. And that's just a constant sort of refinement and refinement around here with these budding greens. It's it's on a daily basis.

the putting green? Are they hitting and backing up? Are they bounce, bounced, check, and trickle out? What happens coming out of the rough? What are we seeing that'll inform us. In fact, we'll talk about that at what we call our two thirty superintendent's meeting in a short time here, where we'll go through those notes and hear what the staff has seen. I think we're still a day maybe two away from seeing what championship conditions will be like,

but we're getting closer, and we do do that. Are adronomus. We have three of them here. We'll be watching play and taking firmness readings on the putting greens multiple times during the day and stimpmeter readings both in the morning,

the afternoon, and the late afternoon. Because what happens, this is a misnomer that a lot of folks don't realize, is that in the morning when we prep the greens, they're cut in their roll and that's and then generally there's a small application of water we call it painting the green to eliminate wilts in the afternoon if it gets windy, but that's the fastest the greens will be all day because they continue to grow, and we want

to know what that bounce back is. We might start on a particular putting green at twelve feet seven inches and by one o'clock in the afternoon it's twelve feet three inches. That's important to know because we know what it is in the morning, that's the fastest is going to be. But it's bouncing back for inches, that means one thing for a whole location. But if it's bouncing

back a foot, that means another. And generally, after four or five days, you get a consistent pattern of that and it really informs our whole location work, as does the watching.

Perortunately COVID required that event to be postponed, so we didn't get that until but we and we tried to do that last year with an event here at Wingfoot called the Anderson the Anderson Foreball, where it's set up in a really strong way for good players, good mid anders, and so we gathered that intel with what was seen there.

So we do if there's the opportunity, we'll try to gather that and then of course, you know other times during the summer and certainly in the lead up, but you know, sometimes in the normal year in June it's a little tough, especially in the Northeast, coming out of the cooler spring, when you get out on the West coast a little bit easier.

putting greens, these flash bunkers. But don't miss how much wing Foot turns. You've got eleven poles, seven of them that turn right to left and four of them that turn left to right. Eleven of the fourteen long holes. And so when you think about that from a players standpoint, and there's can't fairway, can'ts one way or another. Players really got to control not just an approach shot, but where he plays his ball off the tee into the

fairways firm and fast cants left to right. On a five hundred yard par four like seventeen, he's gonna have to land it in the middle or left side of that fairway to keep the angle that he wants into that narrow putting green. There's a lot of that here. You've got to maneuver your ball both ways. In fact, Justin Thomas was here a couple of weeks ago and played with Tiger Woods. You may have read that he said, Well, he told Jason Gore, and that's the other thing I'd mentioned.

I mean, I'll mention Jason in a minute.

drawback to the middle. You've got to think about moving it both ways and where you want to land that. We think that's brilliant and Jason, you know, I'll just mention Jason, that's kind of the second rail of a third rail, I guess of our of our data collection, so to speak, our intel with the players. And it's new for us last couple of years. Really started at Pebble Beach last year, where Jason's in constant contact. He's out now right now, we'll catch up a little bit later.

We committed to do this, and Jason is there's nobody better than Jason to do it. He loves doing it. He talks to as many players as he can. What do you think, what are you seeing, what are you feeling underfoot? How does this feel? How does that feel? Tell me what you think? And then he'll bring it back to us and it'll it'll we'll we'll listen to it and it'll inform some of our decision making. And you know, we're not going to try to you know, we'll hear things that we can do and things that

we can't do that will inform our decisions. But we're better for having that intel. And then he'll explain some things that maybe you're going to be beneficial that a player is wondering about. And you know, we'll even there are some whole locations here at Wingfoot that I'm sure some of the players just walking around in the evenings seeing some of the te's that are left in the putting greens where players think we're gonna put whole locations. And by the way, they're pretty darn good at that.

They pretty much know where we're going most of the time, not all of the time, and we think about that too from a reverse strategy standpoint, but they're pretty good at it. And yet there are places in some of these greens we're in practice ground. We're just going to show them we're not using that, and we're gonna put a practice around flagstick there just to show them. Now we're not going to force it. You can just rest assured we're not going there. And there's some wonderful places,

but at the green speeds we're gonna have. It's not can use it.

it was. She told the story. When we inaugur the Jack Nicholas Room in the USJA Museum, he said, Yeah, I always loved the USL. It was always my favorite championship. I knew it was going to be on the hardest course with the hardest setup, and I always love that because I felt like I could prevail, I had an advantage because I would walk in the locker room and I would hear guys complaining about this, that and the other, and I just walk by that person and say, I

got you beat. The next person, I got you beat, next person, I got you beat. And it really got down to about twenty five or thirty guys that I had to be. I guess they were all done before it even started because they were in the wrong frame of mind. And I think that's a part of being a champion. A US Open champion take great pride in that it's not our intention to stick it to the players.

It's our intention to create something special. And when they do win a US Open and Hoysset Trophy and climb that mountain top, they've achieved the same thing that Bob Jones did, and Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas and Lee Trevino and Tiger Wood's same thing, no different, and they've achieved something special unlike anything else on what we think are the greatest courses, and with a setup that really requires them to showcase every bit of their talent.

us Open. Having never played in one, but having played another USGA event, is something that the USGA event evokes that's different than from say a State am in my experience. In terms of We've talked a little bit about pin positions, I'm interested in understanding do you have a thought on how you pick pin positions time given days? Is there a cadence that you like to, you know, have where you know there's a stretch of tough pins and some

more gettable pins. How do you guys approach daily pin positions.

To get it to a certain hole location, And so we think about all of those things, and I think what we do endeavor to do is really, you know, so you don't provide an advantage to any one certain type of player, somebody who has a predominance to moving it left right or right to left, or you know. I think we try to get a good balance of

right and left and even middle whole locations. And we also try to look at what is the carry, what does the force carry over a bunker or a feature that you know, if it's a wedge, it's it's one type of carry where you know you'd be able to put a little more spin on the ball, throw it up in the air and stop it sooner. Or if you've got a four iron and you've got to feature six feet in front of something, you get a you know, two hundred and twelve yard shot, you know it's not fair.

We got to leave it a little bit more exposed to at least provide the opportunity for somebody if they hit a good shot, to reward it. So we think about all of those things, and I think it really does play into the firmness, the weather, the length of shot, that's that's in and what are we trying to what are we trying to get the player to do? And you know part of it too is tempting the player.

Jason talks about this a lot. When do you get them to really take their eye off the middle of that grain and focus on hitting it right, take taking dead in right at the flagstick. He asked two players, I'll let them go unnamed, yesterday what their go to club in yardage was where they would almost always fire at the flag stick. And they both said six iron. These are pretty long guys, so you're looking at about

a two hundred, two hundred and ten yard shot. And in fact, he even asked them the yardage's at it was about two hundred yards. When they get two hundred and in they're firing at the flag. Now, these are two really good ball strikers, two of the better ones in the game. I would venture to say that you'd probably hear seven and especially eight iron from most of the guys ate everybody with an eight iron in their hands. Seven irons kind of the borderline six iron where sometimes

they're going to fire away from hole. You'll see that a little bit on one of the great par threes in the game is number ten here at wingfoot in the game, and you'll see that takes shape this week at wingfoot. You'll see opportunities that we will give to tempt the players to go to flagstick and if they miss, it's going to be a significant penalty. But if they're able to execute a shot, they could pick up a shot on the field.

of how intricate the slopes are on the green. Is when to push the gas, when to hit the gas and go at something versus you know, when to rain back and understand, hey, I'm not in the right spot to go at something. I think that's where the bulk of the strategy comes in here, and I think that's the neat thing about here and what you're saying, is that tempting the players to do something is where you can get so many out here you see no hazard.

Double bogies are worse, which is I think the most frustrating thing is a player.

a number of holes. But I'll tell you what is perhaps even more difficult is when you just miss agree here at Wingfoot. These push up greens are all a lot of them are built up, and the deep flash faced bunkers, and even when you miss the bunkers, the

thick stands of Kentucky bluegrass off to the sides. It's not that you miss a green and you get this awkward pitch shot through long rough, but you've got one foot of your stance is one puts the foot higher than the other and you're kind of standing on this tremendous angle in this long rouf to this undulating green to pitch and heaven permitted if a short side yourself.

But I think that may be even more difficult is when you just misagreement wing foot and you've got one of those awkward stances.

the fairway all the time. But I really would seriously doubt if anybody can win the US Open this year playing from the rough on a consistent basis, and so there's gonna be a premium there. It's narrow, but it's just what it was in two thousand and six and previous US opens, and it's what Wingfoot is on a

daily basis. Frankly, we could come here, give us two weeks, grow a little bit of rough, maybe add six inches eight inches ten inches of the greens when we play US Open almost any time during the summer or you know, even September now. But you know, I think it's it is that, and we also though, recognize that we don't want people just pitching out every time. You know you're gonna see that. You're gonna see a lot more of that this year than you've then you've seen in recent years.

It's not a little bit of it pebble, not last year, not a lot, but you'll see more of it, you'll than you have in recent years of the us OPA. But at the same time you'll see I think it's eight holes that we have what's been known as graduated rough. It's about it. It's narrower than it was in two thousand and six, not by a lot, but by a little. It'll be a three inch cut of rough, which is as about as most of what the guys will see

all year. But seven or eight out of ten times that ball is going to sit up and the guys are gonna be able to get a club on it in a pretty solid way and get their ball up by the green or on the green, but they're not going to be able to control it perfectly, and so

that is going to go all over the place. And so we've given them the fairway, and we've given them on the longer holes, holes like number one and number two and number eight or you know, it's for eighty four ninety five hundred, given them a little more leeway. But they're not going to be able to control their ball, and they do really miss it wide right or left, they'll get a maybe maybe three out of ten times to be able to go to green. The other seven they're gonna have to pit.

that are very wide, it was surreal. Really, it's just the television towers and the laser measuring equipment and that's really about it. I've never seen anything like it before. It was a bit surreal. And it was so quiet even now Monday. Normally we'd have fifteen eighteen thousand people out here watching at eight o'clock this morning, nobody quiet, just the players just does a few caddies ahead of

their players. And you know what, though, the vistas that the players see, it's going to be spectacular in its own way, because I think fans watching on the broadcast are going to see wing Foot come to life without fans and really see wing foot in its truest sense, like they wouldn't otherwise it'll be more pure wingfoot than the grandstands and the fans. So there's good and bad

in both of that. I think for the broadcast, ask viewer, it'll be pretty cool to see this place as you would see it if you were playing it.

so much better. The other thing is that you know, oftentimes when you miss big in the US Open, you're in the best spot rather than a small miss because you're in where all the trample down rough is and there should be very little of that this week.

to be brutal. Because I'm gonna tell you what. We've already stopped cutting it so and these rope lines are much wider, you know. Mike Davis, he was with us, came out and looked at our plans Saturday and he made the comment to me, he said, you know, I think we might have had the rope lines a little narrow in two thousand and six because the guys were hitting it outside the ropes a lot, and we're on that trample down rough. And one of the guys on

our team said, you know, that's interesting. I wonder if if the rope lines would have been wider and Phil would have been in that long, thick rough, if he'd have just pitched out to the fairway instead of trying to take the heroic shot to the green. One will never know, but it is interesting thought.

the twenties. They had mule pulled drags that would drag out the greens and such, and Filling Hass used his favorite Old White Mule on number thirteen and that's where it starts coming in coming home. If you've got to lead and you're on thirteen, I think there cannot be any other stretch in golf that is any more demanding than thirteen through eighteen at wing foot. Every one of them can't. There's just no letup. It's just wonderful, and

every hole has got its own character to it. You know, thirteen, the putting green there, it's not overly long. We'll played it around two hundred, you know, And fourteen and fifteen are not long, four fifty and four twenty, but the putting greens, they are amazing. Then you get to a backbreaker five hundred yard par four dog legs left with a narrow green on sixteen, another five hundred yard dog league right par four seventeen with an narrow green where

Jeff Oil will be chipped in on. Then you got that four under the seven yard par four hole with that amazing green on eighteen. It's just you're right. You might have a five shot lead coming into those final stretch of holes. You got your work cut out for you.

you know, inspiring to me growing up. And he he said something that was really hit home with me that you know, my dad told me when I was a young man, a young boy, that if you could ever win the National Open, you'd really achieve something because you would have wanted on the toughest course of the year. And that always that always meant something. Tom he talks about that a lot. I've talked to him about it.

It's true. He uses it a lot. You know, his dad, I think his dad made him memorize all of the names on the US Open trophy. I mean, it meant so much to him. When he raised his arms making that birdie put on eighteen, you could just see the exhilaration.

Something he had dreamed about his whole life. And for American you know, many of them talk about it being the most important championship for them, and you know, we're we're building on that, and I think that was one In fact, I dates me a little bit, but that year I got within one stroke of a playoff and in final qualifying to get to Pebble. Didn't make it in the Seattle area, but that also whole special. That's close to ever we got to playing in and Open and that Uh.

that's what happens. Even Casper in fifty nine, he wasn't a household name at that time. He was one of the better players, but it wasn't until the sixties that he really became dominant. Wingfoot just there's a there's a knack for the cream rising to the top, and it's because of what this golf course brings out in the players, you know. And I think that's that's the thing that we get excited about. We're fans. We want to we want to we want to showcase this great golf course.

What you're going to see here, even the clubhouse. When you walk on property and this granite stone clubhouse, like Tilling has talked about, it comes out of the ground, just like all the granite stone around the property. It's just you you walk on and you walk by this thing and just awe inspiring. It's it's amazing in itself, and then you see some of what's here at this golf course. That's that's what we want to showcase. And then I want to showcase how good these players are.

You know this golf course is. It's not our hardest, it's certainly one of them. And these players are so great and have so much talent. We're just gonna we're just gonna set it up as wing foot is. Let wing foot be wingfoot, Let it showcase itself. We don't have to talk about it, and then just get out of the way and let the players shine. That's our strategy. Just let wing foot the wing foot.

And we were sitting in Championship committee meeting two years ago and he said, he said, he looked over at me and he said, John, it's important where players win their US Open, you know, and you think about that. It's so obvious that to win it Pebble or Oakmont or Shinnacock or wing Foot or Pinehurst, and so really hit home with us. And so do you think about going back? And if we know we're going back multiple times over the long period, well why not develop these long,

long term relationships with these iconic reviewed clubs. By the way, over the last two years, we've had literally hundreds, if not thousands of conversations with players. Jason and I are currently are constantly asking players where do you want to win your US Open? Where should we go? And you know, you or your listeners, you could develop your own list, but it's not a long list. It's not an overly short list because some places want to host US more

often than others. But it's a pretty consistent list. And where do you want to win your US Open? And so we're endearting to do that and Pinehurst was one that, you know, think about it in a pandemic year, we

were able to put together what we put together. We didn't think this would really come about until next but the thought to bring five US opens, and what we really didn't talk a lot about were the other championships that will go to Pinehurst, US Amateurs, US Women's Amateurs, or junior championships, others that they're so willing to host, and even down the road at pine Needles with our women's Open in twenty two and other other opens and and amateurs at that great place which you know Kelly

Miller and and U and her rashus partner of have have also you know, they have Midpines now and they they have Southern Pines. It's really it's really in that area is you know two other Donald Ross Gems. Midpines is magnificent and so we're talking with them too. But Pinehurst with the opens, we were able to go to the state of North Carolina and say here, here's what we're considering doing. Can you can we partner with you? This is good for the state more than two billion

dollars of economic impact. We demonstrated that just with with the additional four opens that weren't scheduled, and they said, you bet, we want some of your jobs with your new test center, we need to build a new one, and they wanted us. And eighteen million dollars later, that's what's happening, and we're excited about it. We think going to the home of American Golf and expanding on a

footprint of staff we already have there. Our Open Championships team is there, and expanding on that and more championships North Carolina and Piners will be great for the USJ and our stakeholders.

them are different. Every one of them have their own personality, their own thoughts, and I think we're thinking about it strategically. You know, they're there, are there are, there are different reasons we'd go in different years and some of those things. So I think, really again it gets back to where do the players want to go? That really, you know, part of our strategic thinking is really placing the players first.

If the players say the US Open is the most important championship in which they in which they play and for them to win, it will be plain and simple. And so it starts with where we go. And if we go where they want to win, and it's important where we go, and it's important when they win and how they win, then that will continue to build momentum. And that's what we endeavor to do. You know, I think it's just depends on the site and it depends on their you know, some great places that might not

want us either. There's some great places that just don't have the length to host us. And but I I it's it's not an overly long list, but we're looking

at quite a few places. How many we end up, uh, you know, going to and we're not going to go out twenty years with with a whole bunch of different sites, but there'll be a small number that we'll we'll carve out some long term relationships and then we'll leave some open years for others that maybe we'd go to once or once over you know, every twenty or thirty years.

Open on both the men's and women's sides. You know where where where Where do they want to Where do they want to win their US Girls Junior and their Junior Ameter or the Women's Ameter. You know what is you look at the great champions that have come out of the Women's amter and and the US Amateur and and to point back to, hey, I want it such and such. You know that's you know, you talk to the players that have won a US Amateur and they take great pride in the courses that they've won at.

And you look at our lineup there over the next several years where we announced I think it was six of them in a row with a Ridgewood Country Club and and and Hazel Team and maryon and so on and so forth, the Olympic Club. It's you know, everybody would be thrilled and honor to win at any of those sites and others. And that's so it's it's not just the US Open. Where do they where do where do all of our champions want to win? We're thinking about that a lot players first.