John Bodenhamer says he wouldn't be surprised if Phil Mickleson completed the Career Grand Slam at the US Open
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00A couple of weeks ago at the U.S. Women's Open I made a comment that I want to make to this group as well which is 10 years ago some people challenged maybe the robustness of this game and how strong golf was going into the future and I think that was a fair challenge we had lost about 5 million participants from the decade before about a million of those five were women and so if you were questioning 10 years ago the future of golf maybe that was a fair question today those questions are off the table over 47 million people playing the game 20 million playing the game off courses
00:29and participation that's up in the last five years 38% and maybe most importantly rounds of golf up 55% in just the last five years and with all that growth and we've seen a ton of it 24 million Americans say they're extremely interested in starting to play the game right now and among those 24 million 40% are black and Hispanic so what's really amazing about our game right now we've gone through what I call the great swing the greatest swing upward in our game in a long time but it's been driven by juniors
00:58women and people of color and what a great time that is for the game and it's a great time for us to double down and invest in championships and the future of the game
01:07just to rephrase a couple of things so for the rest of the world we test what we call CT creep characteristic time creep which is I assume what you're talking about right so and that's essentially how long the ball stays on the face think about a kid jumping on a trampoline and the longer they're on the trampoline the farther they bounce off
01:26so we set a limit with manufacturers in terms of how far how long that ball can stay on it it's tested in terms of microseconds so you know there's a there's a task there's a tolerance but the end of the day if it's on there for more than 258 microseconds we consider that club out of tolerance
01:42and uh so as a service to the players to the tours and we do it here as well we do uh we do random testing pretty regularly so I mean I think sometimes when we say random testing
01:51people think it you know but if you're playing on tour you're you're gonna get tested a couple of three times
01:55a year um and uh we think the testing that we're doing is commensurate with both the uh the degree of
02:01failure that we see which is pretty minimal uh and quite frankly when we see failure at least currently
02:08we're seeing clubs just literally creep over the line and it's you know it's a line we draw we aren't
02:13seeing when we're taking drivers off drivers that are oh my gosh look where that one went so I think
02:18sometimes in the in the media in the fan space you think I just took 20 yards off that player I mean
02:23it's it's it's we're literally talking about an extra microsecond um and if you get within I think
02:28it's 18 microseconds of the line and we test you we give you what we call a yellow a yellow warning which
02:33is hey be careful that club is starting to because at the velocities and at the frequency in which they
02:37hit these clubs they will just uh you know relax over time so as a service to manufacturers to the
02:43players and to the tours we provide that if I'm being honest with you I think in terms of kind of what
02:47happened at the PGA championship it made us more committed to you know not wanting to have this be the
02:52topic of of town because I don't I think when you talk about a rules violation or somebody who's
02:57playing with a hot driver that that gets so much more sensational than the reality and I could tell
03:02you as a rules body if we had concerned about about this incredible advantage we would change the degree
03:08in which we test but we think the testing that we're doing now is commensurate with the size of
03:12both the issue uh and the size of the of the reality of the issue so it's um and if I mean probably
03:18we shouldn't admit this but I'm not even in the like I know we tested this week I couldn't tell
03:23you if we had failures and if so what those failures were in the time I could probably go ask
03:28but I stay out of that of that mix I know that if we saw a trend that was alarming in terms of either
03:33how many or how far they were moving beyond we would change the way we approach it but with what we're
03:38seeing today it would it'd be a greater interruption the juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze
03:42well to JP's point you know with with the anchor site agreement with us working together with the
03:48clubs when we've created a lot of fan space here that may not have been here uh always before and
03:52that's great not just in terms of uh corporate uh corporate opportunities but fan space as well
03:56I would I would tell you that this weekend when we're when we're all in here I mean there's a
04:00as Fred knows there's a ticker in our office that every time somebody comes through we
04:04see the number change and we got to move it because you know you just it just keeps going all day and
04:07you got looking at it but I'll bet all in we'll have about 40,000 people on site here
04:11on Saturday 40,000 people on on Sunday probably similar uh tomorrow on Friday that was a good
04:18prompt because I walked in here Beth said to me hey can you do me a favor and just mention the purse
04:22and I totally failed on that so sorry um our purse is 21 and a half million dollars winner's check is
04:264.3 uh we didn't raise our purse this year we'd been um you know when I started at the USJ just four
04:31years ago our purse was 12.5 so we I feel comfortable that we've been a leader in in moving fast and bigger
04:37we we're not really a fan of small but you know when we go go uh go a little bit bigger uh same by
04:43the way has happened on the women's side where we've gone from five and a half to 12 in a similar
04:46period of time yes uh listen does that make it hard when you talk about the Fred's point all the
04:50investments we make in the game and um but at the same time we understand you know we want to be
04:54relevant we understand the competitive set um we know that this this probably isn't really about
04:59the money for the person who puts you there but at the same time we want the money to be
05:02commensurate with the with the achievement and uh so yeah we we feel you know we feel comfortable
05:07I I don't really know the other four majors but I think we if we're not the top we're close to the
05:13top and um and we'll continue to evaluate that both on the men's and women's side because
05:18um it's it's part of creating what we want to be the greatest championship in the game
05:22well I you know it's uh there's been a lot of talk about the weather I don't I don't need to
05:27belabor that but uh it's um we're very hopeful we understand that the golf course from everybody
05:34here that the golf course can turn around very quickly um uh we'll see this afternoon I can't
05:40answer that because I don't know we we've seen some of it come to us with with a little bit of
05:44firmness and a little bit of green speed um candidly we'd like to see more and it uh you know as we like
05:51to say mother nature has a seat at the table and uh we can only uh we can only make water evaporate
05:57only so quickly um but we're hoping for a good afternoon of a little bit of breeze a little bit
06:02more dry the the rough will be a little over five inches and it is dense oakmont just day in and day
06:13out has dense rough um but uh we have plenty of spotters uh but uh no guarantees won't lose a golf ball
06:21or two but we're gonna do everything we humanly possibly can uh you know not to do so but we feel
06:27good about that um but you know as I said I think uh the rough if you players that drive the ball in
06:34the fairway will have an advantage no no question about it but you know I think thinking about the
06:39rough I'll be honest I you know I gave we might we gave that a lot of thought and I looking back and
06:44doing research at uh oakmont you know it's interesting you go back and most every u.s open
06:50here all nine of them had at least one day or at least a day or so in advance of it that we got some
06:57rain so when I when we thought about that and we thought about the restoration and the restoration
07:02made the fairways I don't know two to four yards longer some more some a little bit less we just uh we
07:08just felt we needed uh the rough that we have and uh we think it's appropriate for the driving
07:13corridors and we're looking forward to seeing how it uh unfolds uh well listen um you know I the answer
07:20to that is Phil did receive one uh in 2021 and um a little sleep deprived Doug so but um counting my
07:30years backwards but uh you know it's like uh every it's like anything uh we uh we would uh review
07:38uh things for Shinnecock ahead of uh ahead of next year and and uh look at all of those possibilities
07:44um and and uh evaluate it from there um you know I I think the way that we would uh also think of Phil
07:52is we hope he earns his way in and I think he'd tell you the same thing and that's what he did last
07:57time we gave him one and then he went out and won the PGA championship so wouldn't put it
08:00fast