Last Of The Fox Architects Gone: USGA's Hirshland Takes USOC Post

The USGA's Chief Business, Sarah Hirshland, has departed for the United States Olympic Committee's CEO job, reports GolfDigest.com's John Strege. 

Hirshland will be best known as the architect of the USGA's move to Fox, engineered with consultation by Wasserman Media Group.

“Sarah has been a wonderfully impactful leader as we have worked to preserve, protect and enhance the game of golf,” Mike Davis, CEO of the USGA, said in the news release. “With golf’s return to the Olympics a couple years ago, the game already has a strong working relationship with the USOC and now with Sarah at the helm this connection will only be strengthened.”

Not coincidentally, there is a reuniting with the USOC move.

“I know firsthand that Sarah is a visionary leader and exactly the right person to lead the USOC as we collectively build to the LA 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Wasserman, the chair of LA2028, said. 

The Fox deal, signed in 2013, has helped the U.S. Open deliver three of the four lowest rated tournaments since such records were kept, but has fattened USGA coffers.

As the head of USGA business decisions, Hirshland also oversaw the end of the U.S. Open's sellout streak, which began last year at Erin Hills and was repeated again in 2018 at Shinnecock Hills despite limited availability.

Her departure now means that four years into the deal, all who crafted the 12-year Fox arrangement are free of USGA ties.