SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Tom Meeks was on the 11th green at Shinnecock Hills on the morning of June 20, 2004, when he got the call on the radio. It was Mike Davis, now the CEO of the USGA, but then the U.S. Open championship director. “Tom, we need you at 7 right away,” Davis said.
Meeks, hearing the urgency in his colleague’s voice, jumped onto his cart and drove to the short, par-3 seventh hole. He had spent considerable time there that morning searching for, as he put it, “the easiest possible hole location I could find.” He had finally selected a spot on the front right of the green, not wanting to go too far back on a green that sloped front-to-back and had been very difficult for players to hold the previous day during the third round.
When Meeks arrived, Davis was standing on the green with the flag lying on the ground. He had watched from a spot nearby as the first two groups of the morning flailed helplessly at a green that simply wouldn’t allow any putt of more than a foot or a two to stop if it didn’t hit the hole dead center.
Those first four players—J.J. Henry, Kevin Stadler, Cliff Kresge and Billy Mayfair had made three triple-bogeys and a bogey. Ironically, it was Mayfair, who would go on to shoot 89—the highest score of a day when 28 players failed to break 80—who made the miracle bogey.
Meeks had been setting up championship golf courses for the USGA for close to 30 years, and this was the 10th time he had been charged with setting up a U.S. Open course. His reputation was as someone who would squeeze courses to their limits, following the USGA mantra of “fast and firm” at all times.
“You have to understand that the USGA had pushed the notion that it wanted its U.S. Open to be the biggest, baddest, toughest golf tournament in the world,” said David Fay, who was the organization’s executive director from 1989 to 2010. “Heck, even before I started working there [1979] that was the image of the Open. We were in love with fast and firm. That day, we went too far.”
Even as the Open finally returns to Shinnecock 14 years later, that sunny, windy Sunday is talked about in hushed tones in USGA circles. No one broke 70 and only Robert Allenby shot 70—even par—moving him from a tie for 34th to a tie for seventh. Retief Goosen and Phil Mickelson, who finished first and second, each shot 71. Ernie Els, who began the day two shots behind Goosen, shot 80—and still finished tied for ninth.
Meeks. who’s now 77, retired from the USGA in 2005 and lives in Indianapolis. He says one man was responsible for the debacle: him.
“It was my fault,” he said last weekend. “On Saturday, I thought the golf course was perfect—exactly where we wanted it to be. I went out to dinner with Susie [who he’s been married to for almost 53 years] and some friends and I was in a great mood. I loved Shinnecock as much as any Open venue we’d ever played, and I thought we were about to walk away from a perfect week.”
Meeks, hearing the urgency in his colleague’s voice, jumped onto his cart and drove to the short, par-3 seventh hole. He had spent considerable time there that morning searching for, as he put it, “the easiest possible hole location I could find.” He had finally selected a spot on the front right of the green, not wanting to go too far back on a green that sloped front-to-back and had been very difficult for players to hold the previous day during the third round.
When Meeks arrived, Davis was standing on the green with the flag lying on the ground. He had watched from a spot nearby as the first two groups of the morning flailed helplessly at a green that simply wouldn’t allow any putt of more than a foot or a two to stop if it didn’t hit the hole dead center.Those first four players—J.J. Henry, Kevin Stadler, Cliff Kresge and Billy Mayfair had made three triple-bogeys and a bogey. Ironically, it was Mayfair, who would go on to shoot 89—the highest score of a day when 28 players failed to break 80—who made the miracle bogey.
Meeks had been setting up championship golf courses for the USGA for close to 30 years, and this was the 10th time he had been charged with setting up a U.S. Open course. His reputation was as someone who would squeeze courses to their limits, following the USGA mantra of “fast and firm” at all times.
“You have to understand that the USGA had pushed the notion that it wanted its U.S. Open to be the biggest, baddest, toughest golf tournament in the world,” said David Fay, who was the organization’s executive director from 1989 to 2010. “Heck, even before I started working there [1979] that was the image of the Open. We were in love with fast and firm. That day, we went too far.”
Even as the Open finally returns to Shinnecock 14 years later, that sunny, windy Sunday is talked about in hushed tones in USGA circles. No one broke 70 and only Robert Allenby shot 70—even par—moving him from a tie for 34th to a tie for seventh. Retief Goosen and Phil Mickelson, who finished first and second, each shot 71. Ernie Els, who began the day two shots behind Goosen, shot 80—and still finished tied for ninth.
Meeks. who’s now 77, retired from the USGA in 2005 and lives in Indianapolis. He says one man was responsible for the debacle: him.
“It was my fault,” he said last weekend. “On Saturday, I thought the golf course was perfect—exactly where we wanted it to be. I went out to dinner with Susie [who he’s been married to for almost 53 years] and some friends and I was in a great mood. I loved Shinnecock as much as any Open venue we’d ever played, and I thought we were about to walk away from a perfect week.”
by John Feinstein, Golf Digest | Read more:
