Weather aside, Northwest is in middle of U.S. golf interests

THE OLYMPIAN | • Published November 17, 2009

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Right about now, the state of Washington, right up there in the upper left corner of your map, is as close to being the nerve center of United States golf as anywhere.

Bold statement, maybe, but the evidence is strong: The U.S. Senior Open will be at Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish next July; the U.S Amateur will be at Chambers Bay Golf Course in University Place next August, with The Home Course in DuPont as the assisting course; the Champions Tour’s Boeing Classic will return to Snoqualmie Ridge next summer; and, looming over everything else, the U.S. Open comes to Chambers Bay in 2015.

Furthermore, as recently as the last week of October, Tacoma was the center of the golf handicapping universe.

Who knew? Who would know? Your handicap index, and score posting and the technology we use to record and maintain our handicaps is easy enough to take for granted.

Be assured the United States Golf Association takes nothing for granted.

As it turns out, golf handicapping and GHIN are a big enough deal that the USGA holds a national GHIN users meeting, and not just every now and then. This year Tacoma, next year Louisville.

GHIN, which stands for Golf Handicap Information Network, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the USGA. GHIN provides handicapping services for more than 2 million golfers in 42 states and 69 golf associations, plus two international golf associations.

This year’s GHIN users meeting set up camp Oct. 27-30 at the Hotel Murano in downtown Tacoma. What did they find to talk about for four days?

Plenty. Kevin O’Connor, the USGA’s senior director for handicap, GHIN, regional affairs and information systems, said this year’s sessions included a number of introduction or refresher courses on products, such as the GHIN Handicap Program, Version 5; the Tournament Pairing Program, Version 4; and various Web tools and applications.

The GHIN Services Steering Committee, which reviews the direction of GHIN and sets priorities for development of products, met twice during the week. Washington was represented on the committee by John Saegner Jr., the WSGA’s senior director of membership services.

“It’s quite obvious that GHIN is going digital,” Saegner said.

What that means for the average golfer is that it is ever easier to perform the routine task of posting a score, including, according to Saegner, the ability to access www.ghin.com from your iPhone or Blackberry.

It’s already pretty slick.

A golfer finishing a round in the state of Washington (or in any state served by GHIN) can go straight to the computer in the clubhouse and post, just by entering a personal GHIN number. Or the golfer can wait and post at home through a club’s Web site.

In a nutshell, a handicap takes into account the 10 best rounds of your previous 20, figuring in the difficulty (slope and course rating) of the courses you’ve played to arrive at a number known as the index. That number can be subtracted from your gross score in a competitive round to determine your net score.

O’Connor says the National Golf Foundation keeps stats on what it considers golfers. It’s a pretty loose definition: In the foundation’s eyes, a “golfer” is somebody who plays a round of golf once a year or more.

There are roughly 26 million of us who meet the definition. According to O’Connor, about 4 million golfers post scores and keep an index using the USGA’s handicapping system. Of that number, about 3.1 million post at their clubs, and GHIN serves a good portion of those clubs.

So, why post?

You don’t need a USGA handicap index to play golf. You need one to play in club tournaments or USGA-recognized competitions.

“It certainly heightens the possibility of having an equitable competition, rather than, ‘Hey I’m a 2, I’m about a 20,’ ” O’Connor said.

“It’s also a very good measure of whether I’m improving or not improving. I think most golfers want to see whether it’s happening or not.”

The interview with O’Connor was over the telephone, but as the talk centered on database management – i.e., improving the interrelationship between handicapping and a player’s tournament profile – you could almost see O’Connor nodding north – and a bit east.

“Those folks up in Redmond,” he said, referring to Microsoft, “seem to be doing a good job of helping people out in that environment.”

Further proof, if needed, that Washington, for now and the near future, is in the middle of the U.S. golf conversation.

The man who knows

Two recent columns were about rumors that Chambers Bay is not ready or up to the task of hosting the 2015 U.S. Open.

Both columns had strong statements refuting the rumors, but neither had a word from the guy who can pull the plug, if he wanted to.

Mike Davis, the USGA’s senior director of rules and competitions, was definitive when he (finally) called back.

“I can absolutely, positively, categorically say that we’re going to have the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay,” Davis said.

The work now, Davis said, is “making sure from an agronomic standpoint that we can get Chambers Bay right so it can play in championship conditions.”

The U.S. Open has not typically been played on newer courses like Chambers Bay, Davis said.

Even long-established Open venues, such as Shinnecock Hills, Merion and Winged Foot, have been subject to critiques and tweaks from the USGA through the years to “make them better and better. … It doesn’t mean just harder and harder,” Davis said.

The newly rebuilt No. 4 green at Chambers Bay, he said, is a case in point. The hole just didn’t work from the course architect’s point of view. It’s now a fairer green for all golfers, Davis said.

One of the reasons the USGA wanted the U.S. Amateur at Chambers Bay in 2010 is “to look very closely during that championship to see what is not quite right,” Davis said.

“We look at next year as a very, very important event,” Davis said. “But at the same time, we’ll watch the course very closely to see, ‘How does it play?’

“We can learn a lot next year.”

Bart Potter is an Olympia freelance writer and golf enthusiast. Reach him at greygoatee06@comcast.net.