The members were not happy. It is less well-
known that certain USGA staffers were miffed
that Shinnecock members were allowed to play
the course as late as the Sunday before the
start of the event.
By contrast, the Atlanta Athletic Club will
be closed to play for several weeks prior to the
PGA Championship.
Ken Mangum
, the AAC’s
grounds director and project manager, is one
of the top agronomy guys in the business and
knows how to (literally) protect his turf.
Meanwhile, there were more than a few
critics complaining that the USGA’s preparation
and set-up at Congressional kept the course
from getting as severe as other U.S. Opens.
“This is what we got in 2011,” said the
USGA’s
Tom O’Toole
, who along with executive
director Davis and the USGA’s
Jeff Hall
, cre-
ated the course set-up game plan for the week.
“You come to the U.S. Open in the District of
Columbia or in Maryland in June, that’s the dice
you roll, and that’s what we got.
“We ended up with a soft golf course. It’s
not coastal California, it’s not Long Island and
Shinnecock, where the golf course is built on
sand. It’s a heavy soils golf course that if you
have water and rain, it’s going to play softer.
And with these, the greatest players in the
world, it’s going to enhance scoring.”
More from Jones at Congressional: “They
play the first three days against the course.
They play Sunday against each other.”
More on drivable par 4s: Actually, Davis and
Jones might have been surprised Thursday
when
Alvaro Quiros
and
Dustin Johnson
, just
to name two, almost drove the 354-yard, par-4
eighth hole. “I never thought I could disturb
them,” said Quiros, referring to the startled
members of the threesome in front of him, who
were wondering what had dropped out of the
sky so near to them on the green.
During the week of the Irish Open in Killar-
ney last July, McIlroy slipped away from a
barbecue to show off his latest acquisition, a
£120,000 Audi R8, to his pal
Shane Lowry
. At
Congressional Tuesday, he fingered a bottle on
a desk in front of him and talked of being able
to enjoy such a basic commodity as water.
McIlroy was reflecting on the serious
reality-check he experienced in Haiti a week
previously as an ambassador for UNICEF. “I
thought I had perspective before going there,
but it gives you a completely different view of
the world and the game that we play,” he A
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