Thoughts From Bethpage

By Bill Fields
Photo by Stephen Szurlej June 29, 2009

Lucas Glover won the 109th U.S. Open, but Craig Currier was a close second. Ricky Barnes, David Duval and Phil Mickelson, of course, shared runner-up honors in the championship, but without the Herculean efforts of the Bethpage State Park superintendent, his staff and scores of volunteers whose idea of a good time was getting the Black course playable after relentless rain—with everything from squeegees to supersize syringes that drew standing water out of the cups—the medals would still be in a drawer somewhere.

There must have been some four-leaf clovers in all that rough the USGA has grown over the years. How else to explain that this was only the third U.S. Open so plagued by bad weather that an extra day was needed for regulation play to be completed? "The U.S. Open is a long week when everything goes perfectly," said 2006 champion Geoff Ogilvy during a week that stretched into Monday with more starts and stops than the relationship of a pair of fickle teenagers. "We even got lucky [Sunday]," said Currier, who arrived at the course about 3 a.m. every day. "All around us it was pouring. But the weather [overall] was about as bad as I can imagine."

It was the first extended U.S. Open since 1983 (playoff years not included), when a storm late in the fourth round at Oakmont CC forced the last few groups to complete play Monday morning, and Larry Nelson ran in a 60-foot birdie putt on the 16th hole to edge Tom Watson. The only other weather-lengthened Open was won by Billy Casper at Winged Foot GC in 1959. That year severe weather on the scheduled 36-hole Saturday conclusion (U.S. Open practice until 1965) allowed only the third round to be completed, bumping the fourth round to Sunday afternoon—mid-afternoon, in fact, thanks to a New York law that prohibited sporting events from commencing before 2 p.m.

The meteorological curve balls at Bethpage—which stopped play for the day after less than four hours Thursday morning and again late Saturday, a suspension that lasted until almost noon Sunday—were harder on some than others. Specifically, the half of the field that had early/late starting times the first two rounds endured much tougher conditions and averaged nearly two strokes higher (74.76 versus 72.87) in the first round compared to golfers on the other side of the draw. "It's not much fun when you've shot what you thought was a good 72 and you think 69 is leading, and all of a sudden, you know, it's like throwing darts out there," said Lee Westwood.

Bethpage had been softened by second-day rains during the 2002 Open, but this year's precipitation had an even greater effect on the venerable muny. Relatively short-hitting Mike Weir flirted with tying the all-time major scoring record (63) with an opening 64. Hybrid and long-iron approaches were common throughout the championship, but the soggy greens held any kind of shot. "I hit a 4-iron today on No. 7 that was about head-high and only [released] about 10 feet on the green," Tiger Woods said after the third round. "I don't think I've ever seen that in a U.S. Open. It's just different. It's more like what we face week-in and week-out. Certainly not the U.S. Open."

Architect Rees Jones, who renovated the Black course before the '02 Open, wondered if covering the greens with tarps to keep rain from softening them was the solution. "I would love to see them use tarps," said Jones, whose dad, Robert Trent Jones Sr., had encouraged the USGA to use fairway gallery ropes for the first time in the 1954 Open at Baltusrol so the rough wouldn't get tamped down by spectators. "The greens would be in the same condition for every player in the field. Now that Opens are so big, maybe we could do it. It would be a big undertaking, but it might take less time to put the tarp on and off than it does to squeegee them. I'd like to protect the setup like my father did in 1954."

"We talked about it in 2002," Currier said. "If you knew you were going to have a heavy rainfall at night, it might be something you could try. But we got caught in a couple of downpours [during play] this week—we wouldn't have had time to get tarps on them, and it really wouldn't have mattered."

There would be no way to shield the rest of the course from moisture, the most vulnerable spot being the clay-soiled valley containing the 18th fairway, which required the most attention—squeegeeing, rolling and pumping the water out of the area. "The greenkeepers did a truly unbelievable job," said Ross Fisher, who finished fifth. Still, balls sometimes picked up mud in the fairway, and the USGA was adamant about not allowing lift, clean and place—which retired USGA rules and competitions director Tom Meeks at the 1996 U.S. Open derisively referred to as "lift, clean and cheat." As USGA championship committee chairman Jim Hyler reiterated before the championship: "If it's not fair to be playing the ball as it lies, we'll suspend play."