UHND.com - Notre Dame Football, Basketball, & Recruiting

(no message)

(no message)

(no message)

I'm no meteorologist but it was pretty obvious there was rain coming late in the afternoon on Sunday. I was surprised the USGA didn't move the tee times up to get everyone's rounds in before 4PM. But they rolled the dice, hoping that the rain wouldn't come or would be delayed so they could all those eyeballs on the broadcast late in the afternoon and early evening.

I was there yesterday. The course was in great shape early but you could tell it was still wet from Friday's rain. Many of the spectator areas were still saturated, with lots of mud and standing water. There was next to no roll on lots of tee shots. The course itself was totally fair and playable most of the day though until the 4PM rain, and then the second rain. Then it was unplayable. When good shots are penalized because the ball is aquaplaning on the clubface, it's time to shut the course down and regroup for Monday. But I'm sure NBC and the USGA wanted to finish up yesterday, playing conditions be damned.

Some other observations from Oakmont.

1. The venue is so well suited to host big tournaments. Lots of staging areas for fans, hospitality tents, etc. Getting people in and out of the course was seamless. I can see why the USGA made it one of the anchor hosts with Pebble and Pinehurst. It was so well organized with tons of volunteers able to assist and direct people. Really well staged. Professional.

2. They need to add another bridge across the interstate or open up the second bridge to fans. Trying to cram 50,000 people through one bridge while saving the second bridge just for the golfers and the occassional official on a cart is insane. Even a temp bridge behind the 12th green to the 7th fairway would have alleviated the cramped quarters at the main bridge.

3. The crowds were pretty subdued all day. I think having Adam Scott as the only "big" name on the leaderboard hurt, but also it's pretty tough for the spectators to get ramped up when 2 putt pars are what's winning the tournament. There wasn't a lot of action for people to get excited about until the very end when Spaun went off. I've been to other tournaments like The Masters and one of the cool things about being there in person is hearing a crowd roar from another part of the course and just knowing from where the sound came, you knew who made a birdie or hit a great shot. There was none of that yesterday. Like none. It was weird.

Overall though, it was a great experience.

BTW, how do you build a "temp bridge" over a 6-lane turnpike?

Odd that Spaun did so well in "unplayable conditions".

Glad you had a great experience.

Always with the Canadian Open stuff. Settle down. No one is disparaging Oakmont or the US Open.

All the spectator stands are temporary so why can't a bridge be the same? Of course it can be.

Now that I've given it 5 minutes of thought, here's what I'd do. Instead of making the temporary bridge for spectators, make it for players only, so it would have to be close to where the two existing bridges are for player routing from 1-2 and 8-9. Makes it a cheaper, simple design. Easy to set up and easy to remove. Just like scaffolding. The hardest part would be getting a permit from the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission but given the economic boost the US Open brings to the community it's doable, and there are more than a couple of Oakmont members that could put in a good word with the PTC. This would improve spectator flow through this bottleneck as you can make each of the permanent bridges one-way, in opposite directions. I'll let you run with this idea and successfully implement it for the US Open's next turn at Oakmont.

Glad you had a good experience.

I am secure in my knowledge of the OCC.

(no message)

(no message)

(no message)

(no message)

(no message)

(no message)

It was ridiculous that they kept playing and totally unnecessary

(no message)