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June 13, 2014
PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA
MIKE DAVIS: Pinehurst No. 2 is such a marvelous course, and with what Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore did with the restoration, it really brought it back to its grandeur. If Donald Ross is looking down, he's got to be smiling. It's a great championship test. It's esthetically very different. And it really is a different test for a U.S. Open, but nonetheless, even with pretty benign conditions, soft conditions, no wind, it's still a wonderful test of golf for the world's best.
ROGER MALTBIE: What have the players told you so far in the last round and a half?
MIKE DAVIS: Been very favorable. They're almost surprised. They're saying, geez, this is more fun than we thought it would be.
CHRIS BERMAN: I've got to believe the USGA's opinion has got to be given the right conditions, if the best players in the world play great, that's fine.
MIKE DAVIS: Absolutely. We should celebrate what Martin Kaymer has done. I mean, he has played literally flawless golf. When you set a golf course up, you want good shots to be rewarded. You want poor shots to be penalized. I think that's what you've seen. He's just played great golf, and congratulations.
ROGER MALTBIE: Now I'll ask you, the native, sandy areas, okay, have they played as you thought they would prior to the championship?
MIKE DAVIS: You know, we didn't quite know how they'd play. And I say that because a month ago they were much thicker, because there had been more moisture in the ground. But for the last month, there's been hardly any rain, and they've become a lot more wispy, the vegetation in there. It's enabled the players to get more club on the ball than we'd seen four, five, six weeks ago. What I've seen, I've really liked. I think it's certainly been a more difficult shot than when you're in the fairway. You're seeing good recovery shots, getting up near the greens, but just because you get up around the greens, doesn't mean you're up on the greens. So it's been -- we've been very pleased. And listen, this is a unique test. And I think for us, it show cases a different type of architecture. And here in the Sandhills of North Carolina, where they have this sandy wire grass is really their natural vegetation, it's neat. And beyond that, it's a great story for taking back a golf course to what it once was. There's a lot less maintenance on these native areas, a lot less water being used. You're not mowing them every day. And esthetically I think they're very neat.
CHRIS BERMAN: You have the women here next week. The big story lines other than this, the women next week, and maybe a message of what you started to talk about to other courses, maybe you don't have to irrigate everything. You think the message will be received?
MIKE DAVIS: That's right. I think on the first issue, Chris, I think that two weeks where we're celebrating the best males, the best females in the game, it is awful special. It's never been done. Back to the restoration, a by-product of this is that it really hopefully does get the golf world thinking about maybe less maintenance. Everything doesn't need to be green and lush. And using less water is actually good for the environment, but it actually makes the game more fun for the average golfer, they get more bounce and roll. They can bounce balls up to the green. And for the good player, like this week, you have to think about what's going to happen when the ball lands, where it's going to go.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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