2014 U.S. Opens (Plural!) at Pinehurst #2 Discussion Thread

[iacas]

One more beef I have with Pinehurst-

The USGA is trying to showcase it as a model for a lower resource/lower cost approach to design and maintenance. Great, I applaud that- but the flip side needs to be Pinehurst passing some of that lower cost onto the players to make the game more accessible...so far I don't believe they've done that. They're still trying to charge several hundred dollars to play a course that has seen its water usage cut by 70% and requires relatively few resources apart from the greens. Now the club is privately owned and they can set their rates at whatever they want, but that said, the USGA has to look at both sides of the cost equation if their going to praise them.

I disagree.

Few are going to go to Pinehurst, and few will choose "not" to play #2 because it costs $50 less or more.

If it sets the example for the course near you, then great.

Plus, the waste areas require a good amount of maintenance. I just read an article that said the manpower and time is still the same, it's just doing different things. Water was cut 40%.

[k-troop]

Interesting to hear so many folks hating on Pinehurst. It didn't have a lot of championship history prior to 99, making me wonder...if the 99 open wasn't such an epic battle followed by Payne's untimely death, would Pinehurst have hosted five championships in the last 15 years?

[skydog]

Passing lower cost on these days typically means not raising prices. As gas prices, labor costs, etc. rise, cuts are needed elsewhere just to maintain.

You're telling me Pinehurst #2 needs ~$400/person per round to maintain that course?? I like the course, but it's a dirt track and requires very little in terms of cost.

[skydog]

Interesting to hear so many folks hating on Pinehurst. It didn't have a lot of championship history prior to 99, making me wonder...if the 99 open wasn't such an epic battle followed by Payne's untimely death, would Pinehurst have hosted five championships in the last 15 years?

Answer- absolutely not. There are many more deserving courses out there.

And iacas, I'm not talking a $50 reduction or something insignificant. I'll happily pay $400+ to pay Pebble Peach and the like, but Pinehurst #2 couldn't be further from a $400 course. If you disagree, then you must not have played it recently. Take the novelty factor and name away, and it should probably be a $50 course based solely on substance.

[iacas]

You're telling me Pinehurst #2 needs ~$400/person per round to maintain that course?? I like the course, but it's a dirt track and requires very little in terms of cost.

Nobody's saying that they NEED that. But they can get it, and fill a bunch of tee times, so they do. They charge what the market can bear. Simple as that.

And iacas, I'm not talking a $50 reduction or something insignificant. I'll happily pay $400+ to pay Pebble Peach and the like, but Pinehurst #2 couldn't be further from a $400 course. If you disagree, then you must not have played it recently. Take the novelty factor and name away, and it should probably be a $50 course based solely on substance.

Still disagree. And I'm a much bigger fan of the course architecture and layout now versus what it was in 2005.

Curious what you'd pay to play the Old Course… It's pretty cheap to maintain, too, and is often almost entirely brown.

[skydog]

Unless the Old Course has meaningfully increased their pricing recently that seems like a bad analogy here and only goes to my point- I played there ~10 years ago for maybe the equivalent of $60 or so.

As for Pinehurst, like I said they can and will charge whatever they want and I have no problem with that. It's the free market. I'm just saying if the USGA is going to showcase their efforts to curb resource consumption, it would be nice if that message translated to the end user in the form of lower greens fees.

[iacas]

Unless the Old Course has meaningfully increased their pricing recently that seems like a bad analogy here and only goes to my point- I played there ~10 years ago for maybe the equivalent of $60 or so.

Uhm, it's about $150 or so in the off-season. $275 or so in the peak season.

[Valleygolfer]

Lucy Li with the Edel visor...

[ay33660]

One more beef I have with Pinehurst-

The USGA is trying to showcase it as a model for a lower resource/lower cost approach to design and maintenance. Great, I applaud that- but the flip side needs to be Pinehurst passing some of that lower cost onto the players to make the game more accessible...so far I don't believe they've done that. They're still trying to charge several hundred dollars to play a course that has seen its water usage cut by 70% and requires relatively few resources apart from the greens. Now the club is privately owned and they can set their rates at whatever they want, but that said, the USGA has to look at both sides of the cost equation if their going to praise them.

This part " ... the club is privately owned and they can set their rates at whatever they want" is all that has to be said.

Why should they charge less if there are more than enough people willing to shell out $400 or more to play the course.

There are courses for every budget and the efforts of the USGA to showcase lower resource /  lower cost courses will trickle down to them as golfers may now be swayed away from those pristine manicured courses as being better.

That's were the benefits will come.

Now when you play your local muni and there are brown spots on the fairways and the edges to the rough are not clean cut .... you will not think they were to cheap to maintain it rather it is just like Pinehurst #2.

[saevel25]

This part " ... the club is privately owned and they can set their rates at whatever they want" is all that has to be said.

Why should they charge less if there are more than enough people willing to shell out $400 or more to play the course.

There are courses for every budget and the efforts of the USGA to showcase lower resource /  lower cost courses will trickle down to them as golfers may now be swayed away from those pristine manicured courses as being better.

That's were the benefits will come.

Now when you play your local muni and there are brown spots on the fairways and the edges to the rough are not clean cut .... you will not think they were to cheap to maintain it rather it is just like Pinehurst #2.

100% correct. Some people might find it should cost less, but they are getting people to pay that price to play the course. Economics wins out!!!

[metrybill]

Non sequitur here: you decide.  Not totally on point but close.

Pinehurst no. 2 is a great golf course.  No doubt. Let's face it, Scottish courses are the seminal courses for golf, also no doubt.  Having said that, I don't consider Pinehurst No. 2, as redone, representative of the best of what American golf courses have brought to the game. I think the USGA was trying to make a statement about its desire to "go green" and water bare, EPA friendly. Pinehurst no. 2, as redone, may have looked like a British Open course, but I didn't see a lot of bump and runs from a distance, one of the landmarks of a British Open course.  Give Martin Kaymer a Lot of Credit, he figured out the setup for that tournament and he also executed better than anyone else.

I prefer the differences between the tournaments, To me this year's US Open looked more like a British Open than an U. S. Open, Not  lot of shot making going into the greens. (Remember, the larger American ball became the game-changer in golf, because it could be "worked" better than the bullet shots of the smaller R&A;, smaller diameter ball.

Look it up; by almost every definition, America's first  great golf course was and remains National Golf Links by C. B. Macdonald, not by Donald Ross.

In prior years in degree of prestige and difficulty I would have ranked US Open 1st, Masters 2nd, British Open 3rd, and PGA 4th. This year, I would rank them Masters 1st, British Open 2nd, PGA 3rd, and US Open 4th.

USGA, please don't do this again for another 10-15 years again, Please.

[mvmac]

Stacy Lewis isn't a big fan of 11 year old Lucy Li playing at Pinehurst. I don't see how playing in the U.S. Open can be "bad", seems like she's going to have fun and use it as a learning experience. And it's not like she was invited, she won her sectional qualifier by seven shots.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/06/17/3944137/at-11-lucy-li-is-the-youngest.html

Quote:

Stacy Lewis, the top-ranked women’s player in the world, said she first noticed Li on the practice range Tuesday, adding, “How little she was and the pigtails kind of caught me off-guard.”

Nor was Lewis that convinced that an 11-year-old playing in the Women’s Open was such a good thing.

“I’m not a big fan of it,” Lewis said. “She qualified, so we can’t say anything about that. You qualify for an Open, it’s a great thing. But I just like to see kids be successful at every level before they come out here.”

Lewis said it would be wise for Li to play in more events such as the U.S. Women’s Amateur before competing against seasoned LPGA professionals. Li qualified for the U.S. Women’s Am last year – the youngest to do it – and was the youngest to reach the match-play portion during the 2013 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links event.

“I just like to see kids learn how to win before they come get beat up out here,” Lewis said.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/06/17/3944137/at-11-lucy-li-is-the-youngest.html#storylink=c

Quote:

Li said it was her decision, not her parents’, to attempt to qualify for the Women’s Open this year.

“Because it’s 36 holes and I didn’t care if I qualified or not,” she said. “I just wanted to go for the experience.”

Doesn’t sound like an 11-year-old. It was only when she talked about celebrating birthdays at a Dave & Buster’s and then watching a movie that she sounded like a sixth-grader.

And the high-pitched giggles. Those were a giveaway, too.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/06/17/3944137/at-11-lucy-li-is-the-youngest.html#storylink=cpy

[MS256]

Stacy Lewis isn't a big fan of 11 year old Lucy Li playing at Pinehurst. I don't see how playing in the U.S. Open can be "bad", seems like she's going to have fun and use it as a learning experience. And it's not like she was invited, she won her sectional qualifier by seven shots.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/06/17/3944137/at-11-lucy-li-is-the-youngest.html

Won't happen of course but it would be hilarious to me if Li beat Lewis and told her to stick it.

Maybe in a few years.

[newtogolf]

Stacy Lewis isn't a big fan of 11 year old Lucy Li playing at Pinehurst. I don't see how playing in the U.S. Open can be "bad", seems like she's going to have fun and use it as a learning experience. And it's not like she was invited, she won her sectional qualifier by seven shots.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/06/17/3944137/at-11-lucy-li-is-the-youngest.html

She earned the right to be there but I doubt any of the LPGA members will want to finish behind an 11 year old or want the distraction of being partnered up with her.

[Vinsk]

At 11yrs old there are many other ways more appropriate for her to play golf. Playing in the US Open isn't one of them. Saying she qualified is missing the point. She doesn't have the maturity for such a field and it isn't really the place to "just go have fun, don't care about the result." Unfortunately another downside is that it makes a bit of a mockery of women's golf. Especially with what Mike said, getting beat by an 11yr old would really sting. I agree with what one of the golf channel guys said : " The best thing for her would be to miss the cut by 15 strokes. Then she could go back to being an 11yr old girl."

[iacas]

I agree entirely with Stacy Lewis.

[CarlSpackler]

You're telling me Pinehurst #2 needs ~$400/person per round to maintain that course?? I like the course, but it's a dirt track and requires very little in terms of cost.

I don't have access to their books to see expenses, etc., but your suggestion was that cutting costs meant they should reduce price. My point is that cutting costs in one area primarily offsets cost in other areas these days. If their "dirt track" is priced too high, then golfers won't play it. Something tells me that they don't have much trouble filling tee times.

Added: Let me put it this way. If you had a product that cost you $.10 to make and need to sell it for $.50 to break even, would you sell it for $10 if people are willing to pay that much?

[boogielicious]

I kind of like the waste areas.  They present a challenge, but you most likely won't lose a ball.  I hate losing a ball when you know where it went.  For the pros, waste areas are not as much of a challenge as deep rough, but for amateurs, I think it is a big challenge.  I will know more for sure after I read this new book that @iacas is peddling.