NOT OPEN MINDED

John Granato: Hey golf, you are embarrassing yourself

John Granato: Hey golf, you are embarrassing yourself
The course may have been hard, but it did not stop Brooks Koepka. Andrew Redington/Getty Images

I’m in the minority. I know this because I’ve heard so many people criticizing the USGA for Saturday’s third round of the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. I’ve heard “joke” “clown’s mouth” “unfair” “brutal” “abomination” and so on and so forth.

I, on the other hand, found it compelling. I thought it was the closest thing golf has had to an endurance test. We’ve seen those pictures of athletes giving it their all with nothing left in the tank but somehow fighting through, crawling to the finish line.

Marathoners and tri-athletes come to mind. You older readers will remember Kellen Winslow being carried off the field after the greatest playoff game ever and Michael Jordan battling through the flu to beat the Jazz.

The closest thing golf has to that is Tiger limping around on a bum knee to beat Rocco Mediate in the 18-hole U.S. Open playoff at Torrey Pines in 2008. But that was special because Tiger fought through an injury. The only thing that got hurt last Saturday was the players’ feelings.

Waaaaaa. It was windy and the course was too hard. Waaaaaa.

I agree there were a couple of pins that were unfair. When Brooks Koepka hit a beautiful approach on 15 that landed about 10 feet from the cup and backed up into the bunker. That was crappy. Good shots should be rewarded not penalized.

The way the players reacted though you’d have thought every shot was unfair. Zach Johnson was the most outspoken saying, “They’ve lost the golf course. When you’ve a championship which comes down to sheer luck, that’s not right.”

That came from a guy who shot 2-over par 72. If it was Rickie Fowler I could understand it. Rickie shot 84 that day. 84 is really bad. 84 is embarrassing. But 72 is not and Zach Johnson shot 73 the first two days so he actually played better on the day he was complaining about.

And oh by the way Zach, Brooks Koepka did not win it with sheer luck. He just flat out played better than everyone else. He also shot 72 on Saturday and he played in the worst of the conditions. If you watch a lot of golf you know that sometimes you get the raw end and sometimes you get lucky. If you have a morning tee time and there isn’t any wind you can score well. If the wind picks up in the afternoon, chances are the scores will be higher. That’s just the luck of the draw.

The lucky guys on Saturday played early and took advantage. Daniel Berger and Tony Finau both shot 66 in the morning. They moved up 44 spots and were tied for the lead by the end of the day. That seems like a lot but it was actually just 6 shots better than Koepka. It’s not that unreasonable to make up six strokes when the conditions change so drastically.

Let’s go back to Friday’s second round.  It was windy in the morning and the scores showed it. The winds subsided in the afternoon and the scores went down. No one complained about it then. Why? Probably because the course got easier.

On Saturday morning there was very little wind. On hole 7 they were hitting 9-irons into the par 3. By the afternoon when the winds picked up they were hitting 6-irons into that same green. That’s a huge swing. Ask any player which club he’d rather have in his hand and the answer is pretty simple. It’s the 9.

That alone can explain the soaring scores. Of course the greens are going to dry out and get crusty. That happens on every course. Did the USGA cut and roll them so they were almost unplayable by day’s end? Yeah probably.

The USGA took the heat, accepted their role in the controversy and acted accordingly the next day. They made it so much easier that Tommy Fleetwood was a five foot putt away from shooting the only 62 in U.S. Open history. He missed it but tied for lowest round ever. Is that what everyone wanted? Over 4 rounds that would be 28 under par. No thanks. I’ll take 1-over anyday over that in our national championship.

And speaking of 1-over, that’s what Zach Johnson shot when he won the Masters in 2007 and in his third round he shot 76. My guess is that it got windy and the greens got so slick they were almost impossible. Sound familiar? But I’ll bet he didn’t complain about the greens and the course setup after that round. You know why? They wouldn’t ask him back. Gary McCord was kicked off the broadcast team because he said they used bikini wax on the greens.  

Remember Sergio Garcia on 15 at Augusta this year? He went Tin Cup with five wedges into the water; five wedges that on any other course would have given him five birdie putts. But did he or anyone else complain about the greens? No way. Can’t risk losing playing privileges at Augusta.

But by all means pile on the USGA.

Was it too hard on Saturday? Maybe.

Were there a couple of unfair holes? Yeah.

But as the old saying goes, “They weren’t trying to embarrass the best players. They were trying to identify them.”

And they did.

His name is Brooks Koepka.









 

 

 

 





 

Most Popular

SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome

Listen Live

ESPN Houston 97.5 FM
A lockout appears unavoidable! Photo via: Wiki Commons.

Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995.

“No one’s talking about it, but we all know that they’re going to lock us out for it, and then we’re going to miss time,” New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. “We’re definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league’s obviously not going to like that.”

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one.

Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.

After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami’s $69 million, according to Major League Baseball’s figures. Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million — shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year.

“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”

Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026, and management lockouts have become the norm, which shifts the start of a stoppage to the offseason. During the last negotiations, the sides reached a five-year deal on March 10 after a 99-day lockout, salvaging a 162-game 2022 season.

“A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn’t about growing the game,” union head Tony Clark said Tuesday. “A cap is about franchise values and profits. ... A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. It’s not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion.”

The union’s opposition to a cap has paved the way for record-breaking salaries for star players. Soto’s deal is believed to be the richest in pro sports history, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal with the Dodgers signed a year earlier. By comparison, the biggest guaranteed contract in the NFL is $250 million for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.

Manfred cites that 10% of players earn 72% of salaries.

“I never use the word `salary’ within one of `cap,’” he said. “What I do say to them is in addressing this competitive issue that’s real we should think about whether this system is the perfect system from a players’ perspective.”

A management salary cap proposal could contain a salary floor and a guaranteed percentage of revenue to players. Baseball players have endured nine work stoppages, including a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that fought off a cap proposal.

Agent Scott Boras likens a cap plan to attracting kids to a “gingerbread house.”

“We’ve heard it for 20 years. It’s almost like the childhood fable,” he said. “This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.”

SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome