David Barrett

Golf with David
June 17th, 2007

David Barrett is the author of Golf Courses of the U.S. Open. He also produces our GolfNotebook once a week plus the occasional column.

- GolfObserver editors

Equipment vs. agronomy

Photo: © Ross Kinnaird/Getty Image Angel Cabrera won with an 5 over par total.

OAKMONT, Pa. -- In 2004, the final-round scoring average at Shinnecock Hills was the highest relative to par in a U.S. Open since the 1920s. In 2005, Michael Campbell won at even par at Pinehurst No. 2.

Then how can U.S. Open scores be going up?

Well, equipment isn't the only area where technology and advanced research and development have made a difference. The advances in agronomy have been just as dramatic as those in equipment. And, in the U.S. Open, where the avowed course set-up involves bringing the course as close to the edge as possible, agronomy seems to be winning.

New strains of grasses enable superintendents to maintain greens that stay extremely firm except in unsually wet conditions. Now sub-air systems, like those at Augusta National, are coming along that suck out the moisture to keep them firm even after it rains. New fertilizers are enabling courses to grow rough that is thick and uniform, even when there is little rain.

Instead of working hard to try to get courses to the edge, and needing the right conditions to do so, now it's a matter of bringing the courses back from the other side of the edge and maintaining them right on that fine line.

Firmer greens translate into higher scores, especially in the U.S. Open, where the rough is high and the fairways narrow. The decade of the 2000s is the first time that scoring has gone up in the U.S. Open from the previous decade since the 1950s vs. the 1940s, which marked the birth of the modern U.S. Open setup. In fact, scoring dropped noticeably in the 1980s and 1990s, but now we're back to the level of the 1960s and 1970s.

The average score at Oakmont, weighting each round equally, was 75.4, or 5.4 over par. That's the highest since the 1974 U.S. Open's "Massacre at Winged Foot," where it was 6.7 over.

One also has to consider that the last two Open sites, Winged Foot and Oakmont, are two of the toughest in the land.

There's also the club pride factor. While the USGA basically controls the setup, most clubs want their course to play as hard as it can.

Nowhere is that more true than Oakmont, which was built to be the toughest in the land and prides itself on being just that. In the last few U.S. Opens at Oakmont, that hasn't been the case, due to course conditions. Call this Open the revenge of Oakmont.

In the run-up to the Open, the USGA saw that the rough was so thick that it had to tell the club to cut it shorter than originally planned. The same thing happened at Winged Foot last year and Bethpage in 2002.

The weather probably had something to do with it, but there's also a little bit of "our course is tougher than your course" going on.

In any case, conditions were ripe to produce the kind of Open that Oakmont members have always wanted. And 21st-century agronomy helped them get it that way.

So, in this corner you have the equipment manufacturers with all of their bells and whistles. And in the other corner, you've got superintendents with their advanced degrees and new-found tricks of the trade, with the USGA cheering them on.

There's been a lot of talk that the USGA hasn't done enough to rein in equipment advances. But based on the last few U.S. Opens, it might be the advances in agronomy that should be restrained. It doesn't look like it's a fair fight.

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