Cybergolf ran my article on other courses that should host a U.S. Open. Did your pick make the list?
From the piece:
Pine Valley
“The place is like a shrine, and it would be so great for golf fans to get a peek inside,” said gonzo golf fan Charles “Chucky” Cordova. “It’s always rated No. 1 in all the rankings, the members all talk about its difficulty, so let’s see how the pros would do.”
The consensus is the pros would have their hands full under the U.S. Open’s fast and firm conditions. Pine Valley and Merion are perhaps not sisters, but close cousins, both architecturally and superficially. The “Philadelphia School of Architecture,” a group of friendly architects that shared design ideas and consulted each other’s opinions on their plans, loosely worked together at both courses.
Pine Valley hosts the Crump Cup every September, and Sunday’s final rounds are open to the public, so you actually can get to see what is rightfully renowned as one of the most exclusive clubs in the world.
“While the fairways are generous, and the rough is close to nonexistent, the penalty for missing almost any fairway on the course by more than 10 feet is severe because you’re either in the trees or you’re in extremely difficult bunkers that are also in the trees,” explained golf-architecture expert Chip Oat. “Moreover, in almost all cases if you miss a green, especially long, it rolls down a steep slope and into an awful place from which to recover. It’s like Garden City – the greens are steeply tilted and lightning-fast, so putts from a side-hill or above the hole are particularly difficult.”
With new tee boxes on the longer and harder par-4s, it would test the Tour pros just fine.
