"USGA officials did not respond to e-mailed questions or a request for an interview."

Thanks to reader Mike for Eleanor Yang Su and Brent Schrotenboer's breakdown of U.S. Open expenses for the City of San Diego. Total tab according to the San Diego Union-Tribune: $10.7 million, with $9 million recouped through tax revenue and reimbursements.

The $1.7 million difference stems in part from a series of decisions the city made early on. They ranged from giving up the ability to negotiate directly with the United States Golf Association for the tournament contract, to spending more than its obligations for the event, to not bidding construction jobs that resulted in dramatic cost overruns.

At least someone is willing to acknowledge reality:

Mark Woodward, who headed San Diego's U.S. Open preparations, said the city “did exactly what it needed to do” in spending about $8 million upgrading the Torrey Pines Golf Course before the tournament.

Woodward pointed out that San Diego's golf courses are self-supported, so golf user fees, not city general fund money, paid for the course improvements.

Woodward made no apologies for the costs, but he acknowledged the city could have negotiated a better deal.

For the 2002 U.S. Open, the only other time a public course hosted the tournament, the USGA paid more than $2.7 million to renovate the Black course at Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y.

“This event was a huge success. It put San Diego on the world map,” said Woodward, who now serves as CEO of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. “Could we have gotten a better contract in 2001? Probably so. But the fact is we didn't.”

Now, let's get to the good stuff. Contractor gouging!

The documents never mentioned whose responsibility the bills would be. Despite the fact that the city's agreement stated it would pay for turf and landscaping work, and not “architectural or permanent structural changes,” the city ended up covering most requests.

Maddern said the city paid more because it failed to properly maintain the 51-year-old course after the major renovation in 2001.

The city hired Nebraska-based Kubly Golf Course Construction to fulfill many of the USGA's requests.

Two elements made Kubly's work unusual: It did not bid against others for the city's contracts, and its change orders inflated the original contract amounts by 38 percent, to $2.3 million.

Got to love those change orders.

Also accompanying the piece is a "Behind The Story" sidebar explaing how Yang Su and Schrotenboer went about their investigation.

The San Diego Union-Tribune submitted more than a dozen public record requests to the city of San Diego, seeking contracts, purchase orders, correspondence, budgets and other documents related to the U.S. Open.In the past five months, city officials provided more than 1,000 documents.

The newspaper also asked for a financial accounting from the Friends of Torrey Pines, a tournament co-host. The group provided the accounting five months after the newspaper's request.

Figures in the story and graphic are based on the records, as well as estimates and calculations provided by city staff.

And the USGA, a non-profit with seemingly nothing to hide? From the main story:

USGA officials did not respond to e-mailed questions or a request for an interview.

Well, I guess the positive news there is that they are holding out to better prepare for the next negotiation.

Another sidebar lists costs. The golf course work sure sounds like a bargain compared to the parking lot. Really, how can a parking lot cost $3.27 million? I parked in it many times. It's a nice lot, but not in my top 100 Parking Lots in America.

Torrey Pines Golf Course improvements

South Course improvements: $2,431,244
Reimbursement to Friends of Torrey Pines: $950,000
New parking lot*: $3,270,000
Clubhouse maintenance*: $520,438
Storage facility for maintenance equipment (half the project cost attributed to the Open)*: $320,000
Improvements to concession stand and restrooms*: $175,467
New facility to wash mowing and other equipment (half the cost attributed to the Open)*: $60,000
Storage bins and area to mix sand and seeds. (half the cost attributed to the Open)*: $60,000