USGA Toughens up Torrey Pines for the Open

The United States Golf Association has an unapologetically straightforward policy when it comes to the U.S. Open: make it the most rigorous, yet fair, examination of golf skills, testing all forms of shot-making.

This year when the U.S. Open comes to Southern California for the first time in 60 years when it visits the Torrey Pines South Course in sunny San Diego (actually La Jolla to be exact), the USGA has the unique task of turning a course accustomed to robust red numbers during its annual PGA Tour stop, the Buick Invitational, into the grind-it-out, gut check everyone has grown to expect in early June. 

Over the past 10 years at the Buick Invitational, which is held on both the North and South Courses with the final two rounds exclusively contested on the South, the winning score has been at least 10-under-par every year. Tiger Woods, who has won the past four Buick Invitational titles in a row, won with a score of 22-under-par in 1999. The last 10 winners of the event have combined to shoot a mind boggling 170-under-par. The combined score of the past 10 U.S. Open winners is 26-under-par and the past two winners (Geoff Ogilvy and Angel Cabrera) of golf's national championship are a combined 10-over-par.

This year marks the first occurrence where a city-owned, municipal golf course ever has hosted a U.S. Open (state-owned municipal golf course Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y., hosted the 2002 U.S. Open and will do so again in 2009).

However, after the USGA discovered the Black Course at Bethpage State Park, only relatively minor adjustments and tinkering were needed in comparison with the major overhaul that has taken place at Torrey over the past few years.

The South Course, which is bounded by mountains to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the west, was designed by William Bell Sr. in 1957. The "Open Doctor" Rees Jones completed a redesign of the course in 2002. Jones was hired to convert the relatively tame layout into a beast worthy of hosting an Open. The result was a course with perhaps enough teeth and distance to flummox the world's best golfers; a demanding track capable of playing to a distance of 7,643 yards which would make it the longest in U.S. Open history; 379 yards longer than any previous U.S. Open course layout. But it is playing to a par-71, not a par-70 as has been the case in all but a few years over the past several decades.

"I think the winning score will be a couple under par," Jones told the Palm Beach Post. "You have to remember, this is a par-71, not a par-70 like most U.S. Opens."

The changes made to Torrey Pines start with the actual grasses making up the playing surface. Both the North and South courses switched from bentgrass to Poa annua on the greens, Kikuyugrass fairways and a Kikuyugrass/ryegrass/Poa annua blend in the rough over the past three years.

While the total yardage will stretch to lengths never seen before at the Open, it won't happen every day. The third, 11^th and 16^th holes, all par 3s, will vary daily in length by 17 to 53 yards. The shortest yardages bring the total yardage to 7,541 yards. The USGA also may shorten the par-4 435 yard 14^th hole one of the days, making the green drivable for the Tour's longest hitters.

To bring the par down to 71 the USGA has converted the par-5 sixth to a par-4. Tiger Woods was only 1-under on that hole over the course of three days at this year's Buick Invitational.

Some fairways have been modified, a graduated rough is in place and different teeing grounds will be used to give the USGA the option of stretching the course to the full 7,643 yards.

The fourth hole, which runs alongside the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, was moved closer to the cliffs to bring the challenging crosswinds off the ocean more into play and the torrey pine trees guarding the cliffs there were transplanted to the other side of the fairway.

Six of the tees were leveled and enlarged for the championship and the landing area on No. 18 was leveled as well.

All of the bunkers on the South Course were reshaped and restored, as 2,500 tons of sand has been added. Five new bunkers have been added in the last year and the 615-yard, par-5 13^th hole has a new championship tee that requires a carry 250 yards over a canyon.

"This is a completely different course than the one that hosted the Buick only four months ago," said Mark Woodward, chief executive officer of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America who serves as the manager of golf operations for the city of San Diego. "The ryegrass we overseeded the fairways with last fall has died out and the Kikuyugrass, which was semi-dominant then, has really come alive. The rough is a thick stand of Kikuygrass, ryegrass and Poa annua that really grabs at a club head. Torrey Pines should be a great test for the players and something the San Diego community can be proud of."

It's no secret that the prominent rough and quick greens will be as much of a factor as the length.

Here is how the course sets up statistically: The fairways will range in width from roughly 24 to 33 yards. On either side of the fairways, a 6-foot wide swath of intermediate rough running the length of each hole will be set to 1 ¾ inches. Next, a 15-foot band of primary rough will be grown to approximately 2 ¼ inches. The second cut of deepest rough left and right of the landing areas will be 3 ½ inches. Some spectator ropes again will be moved back to allow for this plan, where the "penalty fits the crime." The further off line a drive is, the tougher the recovery shot will be.

The greens will be set to run at 13 to 13 ½ feet on the Stimpmeter for the duration of the championship. The primary rough for 12 feet around the putting green will be maintained at 3 inches. Outside of that, the rough will be grown to 4 inches (in contrast to the 2 ¼ inch rough running alongside the fairways.)

Based on the course setup for the championship, the Torrey Pines South Course rating is 79.7. Its slope rating is 153.

With all of that said, some players won't admit that the course is setup that much differently than it has been in the past. Local golfer Pat Perez, who will be playing in his 4^th career U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, grew up at the golf course. Perez worked at Torrey Pines from the age of 13 throughout high school and has played the course dozens if not hundreds of times. He says the firmness of the greens will be the primary difference.

"As far as the bunkers and the fairways and the rough, other than the third or fourth cut of rough, it's not that much different," Perez said on Monday during a press conference at the Open. "The greens are going to be a lot harder. They're gotten firmer each day.

"This is the third day I've played it and they've gotten firmer each day," he added. They're green which is really nice. They're really green. I think come Thursday and even Saturday and Sunday they've going to be really difficult. But I think the set up is pretty much similar to the Buick."

Woods, who will have spent nearly two months out of competition by the time he tees off Thursday because of surgery to remove cartilage in his knee following the Masters in April, says he hasn't spent a lot of time reviewing the changes at Torrey Pines and is curious about a lot of aspects surrounding the course's overhaul.

"I'm curious to see what the fairway lines are," Woods said during a press conference for the 90^th playing of the PGA Championship. "I'm curious to see how the ball is running. When we play there each and every January it's not every really running, it's usually soft, overcast, sometimes it's even raining, cool.

"It will be interesting to see how the golf course is, the speed of it really. You know the greens are going to be hard and fast. We have played them hard, but not really this fast. We played them the first year, they had the redesign, the year that Ollie won, they were unbelievably firm, almost like they were at Bay Hill when they redid them. They were just like concrete. But they weren't up to speed of a U.S. Open. So I'm sure it will certainly be that firm and at the speed of a U.S. Open and USGA pins."

The question remains of what the winning score will be and how far above or below level par it will be but it would be a mistake to assume that typical U.S. Open scoring conditions won't exist. Perhaps Kenny Perry, who is sitting out this week to boost his Ryder Cup chances after his win at the Memorial at Muirfield Village said it best.

"The U.S. Open tests every shot in your bag," Perry stated. "Your short game is really tested, and it's just a very demanding test. I mean, it taxes you mentally from the first hole to the 18^th hole. You're out there for five, five and a half hours under a lot of pressure."