Design Notebook: Evaluating the U.S. Open’s New Rota

Greetings and welcome back to Design Notebook, where we’d like to nominate the PGA Tour’s attempted toughening of TPC River Highlands as the least successful golf course renovation of 2024.

In this week’s DN, Garrett Morrison assesses the state of the U.S. Open rota. Was it the right move by the USGA to assign 23 of the next 27 editions of the championship to just 10 courses? Is there too much Pebble Beach? Too little truly public golf? Garrett dives in.

Thoughts on the U.S. Open’s Rota Era

By Garrett Morrison

After coming down from the high of last week’s battle between Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy at Pinehurst No. 2, I wanted to give myself something to look forward to, so I pulled up the USGA’s list of future U.S. Open courses. I was aware, of course, that the USGA had been busy booking hosts for decades in advance as part of its “anchor sites” strategy. Still, I found myself astonished by the thoroughness of the governing body’s planning. Between now and 2051, only four U.S. Opens remain unassigned to a venue: the 2043, 2045, 2046, and 2048 editions. Just looking at the list led me to contemplate my own mortality.

Blows my mind that between now and when I'll be 67 years old, there are just four remaining U.S. Open-hosting slots pic.twitter.com/ktW95OL3xx

— Garrett Morrison (@garrett_TFE) June 19, 2024

It also got me thinking about the USGA’s decision to establish a de facto U.S. Open rota. (The USGA itself avoids the “r”-word—CEO Mike Whan once insisted that “anchor sites is not the beginning of a USGA rota”—but… come on. If this isn’t a rota, what is?) Until the past few years, the Open Championship was the only men’s major with a defined rotation of hosts. While the U.S. Open frequented certain venues—like Oakmont, Baltusrol, and Winged Foot—the championship often wandered off the beaten track, even visiting new courses like Bellerive (1965), Hazeltine (1970), Chambers Bay (2015), and Erin Hills (2017). Now that the rota has tightened to the point that we know exactly where the next 18 U.S. Opens will be held, it’s worth reflecting on the USGA’s change of tack.

A few stray thoughts:

1. The smaller rota gives the U.S. Open a welcome new identity.

Judging from the replies to my tweet about the USGA’s site selections, many people object to the very notion of a limited U.S. Open rota. “There are enough great courses that NO course should host more than once every 10 years,” one X user said. “Why the hell roll the ball back, when these are the same courses over and over again?” remarked another, somewhat confusingly.

I am pro-rota. As The Masters and The Open have long shown, an association with a particular course or group of courses gives a tournament a recognizable identity. For a long time, the U.S. Open tried to set itself apart from the other majors through setup: the narrowest fairways, thickest rough, and firmest greens added up to the “toughest test in golf.” By the late 2010s, however, this pursuit of difficulty in a time of solid-core balls and Trackman-optimized swings had created some problems—namely, the risk of pushing a course’s greens so far that they died (Chambers Bay, 2015) or became all but unpinnable (Shinnecock Hills, 2018). The U.S. Open needed a new brand, and the following rota provides one:

Every six to eight years: Pinehurst No. 2, Pebble Beach, Oakmont

Once per decade: Shinnecock Hills, Merion

Every 15 years or so: Winged Foot, Oakland Hills, The Country Club (Brookline), LACC, Riviera

You can quibble with specific courses included or excluded (and I will in a minute), but at least this rota has a clear and strong identity: it’s all about classic American championship golf. Each course is a Golden Age titan with a deep architectural pedigree. When you turn on the U.S. Open every June, you’ll know that’s what you’re getting.

2. Long-term improvements to a course’s infrastructure are meaningful to fans, not just to USGA bean counters.

The main rationale behind the USGA’s anchor sites initiative is not branding, but rather incentivizing hosts to invest in tournament infrastructure. As David Rumsey observed in this insightful Front Office Sports piece, “The consistency of host venues opens the door to boundless opportunities beyond creating a stronger identity for the championship…. At Pinehurst No. 2, which opened in 1907, a regular spot in the major rotation paves the way for the additions of underground power and water lines, elimination of diesel generators, and new permanent roadways for employees and fans.”

Yes, the primary beneficiary of such improvements will be the USGA itself, which will leverage the efficiencies of anchor sites to make huge profits from future U.S. Opens. However, we shouldn’t underestimate the benefits that fans enjoy when a venue devotes big-time resources to its capacity to host championships. Just look at how good Augusta National has gotten at putting on The Masters. That’s not magic; it’s the result of 90 years of investment and institutional knowledge.

3. The USGA has a Pebble-sized problem.

The 2024 U.S. Open proved, I believe, that Pinehurst No. 2 is worthy of anchor status. It’s a great, intensely challenging course and a proper stage for a national championship, and it’s right in the USGA’s backyard. Just as I don’t complain about The Open going back to St. Andrews twice a decade, I won’t object to the U.S. Open taking place at Pinehurst every six to eight years.

A similar frequency of visits to Pebble Beach, however, is overkill. Here we have an annual PGA Tour venue that hosted the most flaccid U.S. Open in recent memory—the 2019 tournament, won by Gary Woodland at 13-under—and, at barely over 7,000 yards, can muster little defense against the length and precision of the 21st-century tour pro. While other championship courses have rediscovered the advantages of fairway width, pinnable area, and natural aesthetics, Pebble Beach has stayed complacent. The course looks more tired and dated with each passing year.

Why, exactly, does this place deserve five U.S. Opens between 2019 and 2044?

4. Not building in a few “flex years” was a mistake.

Partly because of the USGA’s decision to give 12 of the next 25 U.S. Opens to just three courses, the 2020s and 30s are now completely booked. Plus, two of the four remaining slots in the 40s will almost certainly go to Winged Foot and Shinnecock Hills, and the other two may be informally reserved for Riviera and The Country Club. If America’s greatest championship golf course gets built within the next several years, it won’t have a chance at hosting the U.S. Open for a long time.

This was an avoidable problem. The USGA simply could have held three or four open spots over the next 25 years—evenly spaced through the 2020s, 30s, and 40s—and filled them a few years before each championship. This approach would have allowed for more flexibility to react to changes in the U.S. golf landscape.

No. 2 at Chambers Bay, a course unlikely to host a second U.S. Open anytime soon (Fried Egg Golf)

5. The absence of a “true public” or municipal course in the rota is understandable, though not a great look.

I agree with Golf Digest’s Joel Beall that the USGA has an obligation to promote greater accessibility in golf and therefore should probably take its biggest championships to municipal courses, or at least to non-resort daily-fee facilities, with some regularity. Unfortunately, not many courses in that category are able to host a major-scale golf tournament. This, as far as I know, is the list: Torrey Pines, TPC Harding Park, Chambers Bay, and Bethpage Black. The “mega munis.” Let’s talk about each in turn.

Torrey Pines—My feelings about the Rees-stored South Course at Torrey Pines are well documented, so no one will be surprised that I haven’t shed a tear over its ejection from the U.S. Open rota. I’m glad, though, that it remains a yearly stop on the PGA Tour; it’s an important bastion of municipal golf in America. Besides, who doesn’t like watching hang gliders defy death over the Pacific Ocean?

TPC Harding Park—Like Torrey Pines, Harding Park walks the walk of accessible golf and represents the lifeblood of the game in its city. But I’m not sure it’s quite U.S. Open-worthy, either infrastructurally or architecturally, even if it did pull off a decent Covid-era major with the 2020 PGA Championship.

Chambers Bay—I am on the record as a proponent of taking the U.S. Open back to the Pacific Northwest’s only course capable of handling a men’s major, but I understand the USGA’s hesitancy. The excellent but modern-feeling RTJII design doesn’t quite fit the championship’s Golden Age aesthetic, and the steep, slippery mounding around the fairways makes for a challenging spectator experience. Still, I wish the USGA would figure out a way to bring Chambers Bay back into the fold, at least on an occasional basis.

Bethpage Black—The USGA spearheaded a renovation of this A.W. Tillinghast-designed course in 1998, awarded the state-owned Long Island facility two U.S. Opens in the aughts, and then… nothing. An odd turn of events. Of any accessible public course in America, Bethpage Black would seem the most obvious choice as a U.S. Open anchor site. Now it has become part of the PGA of America’s lineup, with a Ryder Cup scheduled for next year. What happened between the USGA and Bethpage State Park?

Perhaps someday a new Golden Age mega muni will emerge—say, at George Wright in Boston or Sleepy Hollow in Cleveland—but it would need to wait until 2043 for a shot at the U.S. Open. Again, this lack of flexibility is the main weakness of the USGA’s strategy.

6. Many excellent, willing hosts now have nowhere to take their major-championship ambitions—except possibly to the PGA of America.

The contraction of the U.S. Open’s venue list has left a number of premier courses out in the cold. In the Midwest alone, Medinah, Olympia Fields, Inverness, Interlachen, and Hazeltine have all recently invested in infrastructure and architecture, yet none has much hope of getting a U.S. Open before the 2050s. Also likely to be shut out for the foreseeable future are, from east to west, Baltusrol (a seven-time U.S. Open host!), Aronimink, Congressional, Oak Hill, Erin Hills, Southern Hills, Cherry Hills, and The Olympic Club.

By picking up some of these castoffs, the PGA of America could bolster its own championship rotas. Already the organization has begun to develop relationships with Hazeltine (2029 Ryder Cup), Baltusrol (2029 PGA), Aronimink (2026 PGA) Congressional (2030 PGA), Oak Hill (2023 PGA), Southern Hills (2022 PGA), and The Olympic Club (2028 PGA and 2033 Ryder Cup).

Yet a couple of factors will probably hold the PGA back from outclassing the USGA in site selection. One is that the U.S. Open has monopolized America’s very best championship courses, leaving some compelling but mostly second-tier options for the PGA. Another is that the PGA Championship’s early-May date rules out most venues north of the 40th parallel. Tough luck, Chambers Bay and Erin Hills.

7. The U.S. Women’s Open and the Women’s PGA Championship have a chance to build the most exciting rotas in championship golf.

The USGA’s and PGA’s most prestigious women’s tournaments are freer than the U.S. Open and PGA Championship to go where they’d like. Host courses don’t need to be 8,000 yards long or capable of accommodating a small city’s worth of people. Smaller, quirkier venues can be considered.

So far, though, neither the USGA nor the PGA appears to be taking full advantage of this opportunity. While a couple of future U.S. Women’s Opens will go to underused venues (specifically, Interlachen in 2030 and Chicago Golf in 2033), most come from the standard pool of anchor sites. The Women’s PGA, meanwhile, has scheduled two visits to the PGA of America’s new headquarters in Frisco in the next seven years, along with trips to Hazeltine and Congressional in 2026 and 2027, respectively. Both championships could be bolder.

All right, that pretty much empties out my quiver of rota-related opinions. Any thoughts of your own? The comments section is below.

Chocolate Drops

By Garrett Morrison

A plan for William Land: Brett Hochstein, a Bay Area-based architect who has shaped for Tom Doak and Gil Hanse, published his master plan for a renovation of William Land Golf Course, a municipal nine in the heart of Sacramento, California. If you read anything today (aside from Design Notebook, of course), it should be these intelligent, detailed materials.

Iverson to Elyria: A reader informed us that longtime Renaissance Golf Design associate Eric Iverson has been hired to prepare a master plan for a project at Elyria Country Club, a 1925 William Flynn design southwest of Cleveland. A smart choice for a course with a ton of potential.

Mackenzie & Ebert replace Mingay at Victoria: As reported in Golf Course Architecture, Victoria Golf Club, a private seaside course on the southeastern tip of Victoria Island, has appointed British firm Mackenzie & Ebert to renovate its A.V. Macan-designed course. Jeff Mingay had served as Victoria’s consulting architect since 2009, overseeing well-regarded historical work based on a mid-1950s aerial photograph. It’s unclear what Mackenzie & Ebert, who have been busy digging up Harry Colt greens and gouging out awkward-looking sand scrapes on the classic links of Great Britain and Ireland, have in mind for the Canadian club.

A second course at Kingsley?: File this one under “unsubstantiated rumors”: we heard that Kingsley Club in northern Michigan, home to a two-Egg course built by Mike DeVries, is considering adding a second 18, possibly to be designed by Coore & Crenshaw.

A Course We Photographed Recently

Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club (Southern Pines, NC)—designed by Donald Ross in 1928, restored by Kyle Franz in 2017

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Quotable

“I’m standing in the most beautiful state in the world, Washington, Seattle, unbelievably beautiful, and we play this U.S. Open, this great championship, a group of people, the USGA that I have great respect for, but this has been the most unpleasant golf tournament I’ve seen in my life. I mean, the man who designed [Chambers Bay] had to have had one leg shorter than the other. It’s hard to believe you see a man miss the green by one yard and the ball ends up 50 yards down in the rough. Imagine, this is a public golf course. This is where we try to encourage people to come out and play and get more people to play the game… It’s actually a tragedy. It’s 7,900 yards long. The world is suffering from a shortage of water. Can you imagine the water this course will take? An average golfer playing this golf course, I’m telling you, if he’s a 15-, 16-handicap, he’s going to shoot 110 and he’s not going to go home a very happy man. We’ve got to make golf where it’s quicker, where it’s more enjoyable, get back to their family. We don’t want a husband and wife to argue because he’s taking too long and neglecting his family life.” –Gary Player