Debacle at Olympic: The hole truth

Golf Digest, June, 1999 by Mike Stachura

Pin positions are like meteorologists on The Weather Channel: They get attention only when something bad happens.

Something bad-though certainly not unpredictable-happened at the 18th green in the second round of last year's U.S. Open at Olympic Club. Nearly a third of the field that Friday made bogey or worse on the 347-yard finishing hole, the second-shortest par 4 on the course. The putting average at the hole for the day was an astronomical 1.99, nearly a quarter-stroke higher than on any other green. Tom Lehman four-putted. Leader Payne Stewart three-putted after an eight- foot birdie putt turned into a 20-foot par putt. Kirk Triplett even went so far as to use his putter to stop his ball from rolling away, incurring a two-stroke penalty. Stewart, who ended up losing by a stroke on Sunday, said the pin location "bordered on the ridiculous"; John Daly termed it "absolutely stupid"; and Frank Nobilo called it "the worst pin position I've seen in a major tournament."

The carnage and attendant indignation was the result of a decision to put that day's pin on the back left portion of the green, a choice Tom Meeks, the kindly arbiter of rules and competitions for the USGA, still regrets.

"That was a long night," Meeks remembers. "I went back to my room, shut the door and ordered room service. I just thought, 'Maybe I can go to bed and wake up tomorrow and this didn't happen.' "

Still, the pin placement, analyzed a year later, seems a tad less egregious, if not completely unavoidable.

The problem centers on the topography of Olympic's 18th green, which is extremely small and narrow and slopes severely from back to front, making any pin position in the back two-thirds of the green at least a little dicey. Finding four viable pin positions when the green is extra firm and fast is almost impossible. Meeks' options were to put the pin up front all four days, which would leave the putting surface chopped up by Sunday, or gamble on a back position for at least one day. After consulting with USGA agronomist Tim Moraghan and Trey Holland, championship chairman and USGA vice president, Meeks established a back-left pin position for the opening round, but changed it early Thursday morning before the first players reached the 18th tee.

When Meeks went out late that evening to set Friday's pin, he again tried back left. "I had a feeling it might not work," he says, "but I thought we've got to give it a chance. Once one group played it, I knew it wasn't going to work."

The upshot from the debacle is that the U.S. Open might never come back to Olympic's Lake course, unless the 18th green is changed. Says USGA Executive Director David B. Fay: "Clearly, if we return to Olympic for a U.S. Open, we're going to have to do something with that green."

Olympic superintendent John Fleming doesn't think it will take much. "It wouldn't be somebody coming in and blowing up the whole hole," he says. "It'd be a matter of shaving a couple tenths of an inch off the back third of that green."

Meeks' choices won't be any easier on Pinehurst's terrifying greens this year. There's little doubt that the hole locations will again live up to the USGA's standard of "tough but fair," but Meeks promises he learned his lesson last year. "If I make the same mistake again when I have doubts," he says, "then I really ought to be ashamed of myself."