Planning Going As Expected For Pinehurst Opens
/AP's Joedy McCreary reports from Thursday's press conference at Pinehurst to promote next year's U.S. Open/U.S. Women's Open combo platter.
It seems green speeds will be the same for both men and women...
The course will be slightly longer for the men and the greens will be a touch softer a week later for the women.
Davis says No. 2 will play at roughly 7,500 yards for the men’s event and approximately 6,800 yards for the women. Par will be 70 for both. He says the greens will be roughly 11½ to 12 on the stimpmeter.
“Our goal really is to have the women hitting roughly the same kind of shot into the greens and roughly the same kind of shot off the tees,” Davis said.
Also interesting is the lack of consideration (for now) given to a joint Opens sequel.
"There has not been discussion in-house about, 'Let's name another back-to-back Open site,'" Davis said. "I really do think we want to see how this goes and take it from there. It could be a giant hit and we say, 'This is great for the game.'
"There's things that can go wrong on this, too," he added. "I do think we're very bullish on this. There's a lot more upside to this than downside, but there certainly are risks and we knew going into it."
John Dell also covered the day and focused on what will be one of the first Opens with hardly any rough as we've come to know it at the U.S. Open.
