ERIN, Wis. — From the comforts of the back patio of Erin Hills’ hilltop clubhouse, John Bodenhamer nods in approval. The view is lovely up here, lording over the eastern edge of this week’s major venue.
“Hey, a U.S. Open has broken out,” he says with a smile. He’s the USGA Chief Championships Officer — so getting a U.S. Open to break out is literally his job.
What he doesn’t say is implied throughout the rest of our half-hour conversation: Finally.
We were all here eight years ago, in the Wisconsin countryside, when Brooks Koepka won the 2017 U.S. Open at an alarming 16 under. Bodenhamer has been with this course even longer. It was in his third month at the USGA when Erin hosted the U.S. Amateur, a litmus test to see if this sprawling plot could truly challenge the best in the world.
“I think the only thing I would add to it would be the element of a 15- to 18-mile-an-hour sustained breeze,” he says. This isn’t a greedy request from some evil golf scientist — they’ve tested local wind patterns for decades — it’s supposed to be breezy here. It is not right now, although the hills of Erin have triumphed nonetheless. Maja Stark holds a one-shot lead at seven under. About 20 women will have a chance to win Sunday.
“Being totally transparent,” Bodenhamer began, “I think both the USGA and Erin Hills were just disappointed in 2017 in the sense that people didn’t see this place in its full glory.”
Bodenhamer is fine accepting a bit of the blame, too, admitting that USGA didn’t get Erin in the kind of condition they hoped for that week. It was soft, the fescue rough was cut down in spots, the wind was non-existent. (And, though we didn’t know it at the time, a generational U.S. Open player ran away from the field.)
Saturday’s scoring average was 75.2, nearly two shots tougher than Friday’s second round. It’s OK to live by the numbers — like the Stimpmeter measuring 13 feet, or that Saturday saw nearly as many triple bogeys or worse (15) as Thursday and Friday (16) combined. Ultimately, though, this tournament is more often decreed using vibes. Bodenhamer speaks that into existence with the mottos the USGA lives by. They want the tournament tough, but fair. They want the course playing firm and fast. And they want every club in the bag to get dirty.
It’s when he says, “we want good shots rewarded” that I interrupt him with an opinion of my own: Typical week-to-week setups make the golf world believe that reward means a shot finishing inside a 6-foot radius. That’s when he interrupted me.
“Not at a U.S. Open.”
MOMENTS AFTER LINN GRANT SIGNED for a one-over 73 Saturday, I stopped her for a question: Is there a course or a setup on the LPGA Tour that rivals this?
“No,” she said immediately, with a smirk and her eyebrows raised, making the question feel silly. “I think, by now — this is my fourth or fifth time playing in the U.S. Open — you just know coming into the week, even your good shots are going to end up bad. By now, I’m just like, That’s what this event is. But any normal week, you’d be like, ‘Really?’”
On paper, those words look like a complaint, but she delivered them with a chuckle. Grant was happy with that 73. She prefers when golfers get punched around a little, seeing an over-par round move her up the leaderboard.
“It’s just those times where, maybe you’re just off the green but you can’t hit it inside 5 feet,” she said. “Like, it’s just impossible. To have to take that and just be fine with it, takes so much energy. Not only do I have to play that, I have to be fine with it.”
Five women separate Grant (three under) from Stark, who happens to be one of her best friends. With just 18 holes left, some players will treat it like a sprint, but Grant’s been forcing herself into patience all week (which she learned after ejecting on the weekends in 2018 and 2020).
“It’s just a marathon,” she said Saturday. The plan is to reach the par-5s in two, hit as many greens as possible and two-putt from everywhere. “Otherwise, some Brooks Koepka golf would be nice.”
Invoking Koepka is a funny idea — probably a smart one, too — since he was the one who folded up Erin Hills neatly and stuffed it in his pocket. His 16-under tally in 2017 was a main reason why people left the week thinking Erin Hills wasn’t quite a U.S. Open course. The USGA noted that. All of it. But if there’s anything Bodenhamer would do differently, it would be carving out a couple of extra years between Erin’s Open and the 2015 Open at Chambers Bay.
It was a different era for the governing body, he admits, but one where the USGA focused on going to courses based on sandy soil that would, in one word, be “bouncy.” Chambers Bay is that, and this week, Erin Hills is, too. But the greens were not in championship form at Chambers and suddenly Erin Hills had a bit of guilt by proximity. These individual championship weeks — especially for courses that don’t often host the best in the world — can define venue reputations for years to come. Bodenhamer puts his faith in the fact that courses evolve, mentioning Oakmont and, eventually, Pebble Beach.
At Erin, there are a couple of green complexes in which the USGA might request changes. There are a few tees Bodenhamer could see them shifting. And then there’s the 1st hole. Were Erin to host a men’s U.S. Open again, there’s no chance it would start with a par-5. The tee box used during that Open no longer exists, because Erin Hills built a 63,000 square-foot putting course for its guests. Poof! There goes four of Koepka’s shots. Suddenly, he’s at 12 under and his chasers finish at eight, right in line with the 2023 scoring at LACC or at Pebble in 2019. Or also right in line with where the Women’s Open is at with 18 holes to play.
“I think that was what was on our mind coming in,” Bodenhamer said. “A couple weeks out here, it was like, Man, give us a little bit of something here, so we can show what a great place this is.
“So today is really fun for us.”
For the Erin Hills faithful, too.
