Olympic Club And Rouillard: In Praise Of A Course Setup Audible

We’ve been through a lot of course setup mistakes over the years and while some were repairable, others could not be adjusted last minute without heavy watering or finger-pointing.

So it’s worth highlighting Kent Paisley’s GolfDigest.com story on Shannon Rouillard’s last minute decision to tweak some mowing heights, intermediate cuts and approach to Olympic Club following the practice rounds. I’ve seen enough of these events to know this is not easy for a setup team to do, especially since Rouillard has an extra-special tie to the venue. But she was also working with an adaptable grounds team and superintendent in Troy Flanagan at Olympic Club, which helps. And as we saw from the outcome, got it right.

Yes, the course went from being the hardest thing in the history of golf—a familiar early week major refrain—to surprisingly scoreable for players on their game. However the score dispersion suggests it was still very brutal for most. Those last minute tweaks meant admitting error or at least, miscalculation.

Anyway, check out Paisley’s piece on the “late tweaks” here. And one key graph from the story after explaining the decision to lower the rough height, no small task:

Additionally, after saying as late as Wednesday morning that she would not have an intermediate cut on the course, Rouillard added one before play began on the par-5 first and par-5 16th holes.

On the remaining holes, however, Rouillard stuck to the decision not to include an intermediate cut, instead leaving fairways in place that were 10-15 percent wider—and even 20 percent on the fourth hole—than when men’s U.S. Open was played here in 2012

“I understand why it got a lot of chatter because we typically have an intermediate pass at this championship,” Rouillard said.

Given the sidehill nature of the course it was the right call. For a nice change of pace, an Olympic Club major ended up focused on players instead of questions about the setup.