Story of staging a major championship on a public course

GOLF BOOK CLUB: Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Blackby John Feinstein

THE LOGISTICS of staging a professional tournament are immense. The logistics of staging a major championship are greater still. And the logistics of staging a major championship on a public course – a matter of months after the biggest terrorist atrocity in American history – provided author John Feinstein, he of A Good Walk Spoiled fame, with ingredients ripe for the picking around Bethpage Black’s hosting of the 2002 US Open in New York.

This is the story of the 2002 US Open; and the championship returns to the municipal course on Long Island next month, its reputation as one of the most difficult on the major rota embellished by the events outlined in this book when Tiger Woods – who described it as the most difficult par 70 course he’d ever played – triumphed.

The story here, though, is not so much about Woods’s victory as about how the event came to be played at Bethpage, a course where members of the public are known to wait overnight in their cars for a chance to play and of how this once great Tillinghast creation which was dilapidated when the idea first formed in the head of the USGA’s David Fay was renovated to the point it was a more than fitting venue for a major championships.

Feinstein’s access to the USGA’s staff enabled him to get tremendous background on how the whole thing came about. Yet, the more interesting anecdotes relate to the players: how Woods and Mark O’Meara flew in for a pre-championship practice round, where a young Irishman called Dave Dailey – on the staff of Bethpage – was selected to caddie for Woods because he had worked at Waterville when the world’s best golfer was a regular visitor; Scott McCarron’s encounter with the police when he arrived for the first day of practice without the correct entry sticker on his car.

Rather than being refused entry, the policeman chose to question McCarron on his course management and how he would play specific holes. “This had to be the first US Open in history where the cops guarding the golf course had actually played it more often – a lot more often probably – than the players in the event had played it,” McCarron would later recount.

Feinstein is good at giving readers insights into little known facts about players – how Woods and Sergio Garcia moaned about there being no water in the trailer they were taken to during a weather delay; and of how Paul Goydos is known on tour as “Sunshine” because of his ability to find a dark cloud in every silver lining.

The book is basically divided into three sections: the first part deals with the birth of the idea to bring the US Open to Bethpage, a diamond that needed to be polished. This section provides excellent background on how it all came about and what it took to achieve the near impossible. There were many obstacles that needed to be overcome, many of them logistical and golf-course related but also many that were security related coming so closely after the September 11th terrorist attacks the previous year.

The second part – probably too long – of the book describes the background of those people working behind the scenes while the third part – probably too short – focuses on the championship.

Feinstein probably hoped Woods and Phil Mickelson would be involved in a battle for the title. The two weren’t paired together in the final round – a late Mickelson bogey in the third round ruining that scenario – but they were both in contention. “Your golf course kicked my butt,” Woods was to remark to course officials when it was all done and dusted. They considered it a compliment.

Questions for Readers

1Feinstein attempts to bring humorous anecdotal stories in an attempt to provide a more casual tone. Does he succeed?

2At one point, the author recounts the tale of how Lee Janzen was belatedly penalised two shots by USGA officials for using a towel to wipe dew off the ground. Janzen took the ruling personally, and refused to communicate with the officials subsequently. Was he entitled to react the way he did?

3Although the book's sub-title claims to provide the "inside" story of the US Open at Bethpage, much of the time is spent behind the scenes. Would Feinstein have been better off devoting more space to the actual championship?

4Do you have a better understanding and appreciation of the obstacles faced by officials in preparing to stage a major championship?

5How do you rate this book out of a possible top mark of 10?

Next week: "How We Won The Ryder Cup: The Caddies' Stories"by Norman Dabell