Meet the new man running the U.S. Open (and dealing with a bunch of pissed off pro golfers)

Two weeks before the best players in the world even got to Pebble Beach, arguably the best player in the world right now, Rory McIlroy threw down the challenge that may frame this entire 119th U.S. Open.

“I think we should give them the chance to redeem themselves,” McIlroy said of the USGA, the governing body that hosts and operates the national championship. “If they can’t redeem themselves at Pebble Beach, then there could be a problem.”

The comment came a week after a blistering airing of grievances bombarded the USGA in Golf Digest, all anonymously, from pros on both sides of the Atlantic, former U.S. Open champions, coaches, and even course architects. The anonymous pros divulged the plans for a potential U.S. Open boycott that never came to fruition. Some details were new and some points were made with a flair that might have been absent had a name been put to the comments. But this was the latest and most searing document in a trend we’ve seen intensify: there are some loud voice among men’s tour pros that do not have a cordial attitude toward the USGA.

This frustration, and even open contempt, comes after a stretch of controversies with course setups and the rules drama of Dustin Johnson’s win at Oakmont. Some of the player critiques are well-founded and some are over-dramatic whining. Regardless of the merits of each critique, the relationship has never felt more fraught with tension and that’s how you have a player like Rory putting it all on them to “redeem themselves” at Pebble Beach.

It’s not exactly the easiest moment or lowest stakes atmosphere for someone to begin their new role running the championship and setting up the course. But in comes John Bodenhamer, whose official title is now Senior Managing Director, Championships. He’s taking over for Mike Davis, the familiar face and punching bag for so much of that player angst in recent years. Davis remains as the CEO of the USGA and will still be involved in the process of setting up the U.S. Open, but he tabbed Bodenhamer to take over as the head of the championship, and the course’s setup, at the start of this year. It may be a new title for him, but he’s not new to the USGA or its championships.

This week is his high profile debut at Pebble Beach and I spoke to him on the eve of U.S. Open week about how he rose to this position, his setup philosophies, what he may do differently than Davis, the distance debate, and all that heat directed at the USGA by the players. As he starts out on the biggest week of his career to date, here he is in his own words on many of those big topics the USGA is wrestling with in 2019.

No I never did. I always wanted to play. I always wanted to be a player. I won a few things — won a couple of state opens and a state amateur, some other things. But I never quite got there. Being in the Northwest, it was a great run for me and my family to be involved in golf. But I never really thought about coming to work for the USGA or thought about doing what I’m doing today.

But in 2011, I was just sitting in my office and the phone rang. This is going to sound strange, but it’s true. After Mike [Davis] had become Executive Director, I just felt like he was going to reach out to me for some reason — not necessarily to hire me but about some other things, as I was already involved with the USGA in some regards, in some committees. But he invited me in and it was just the right time in my life to do it.

I never targeted it. It was never an aspiration. I enjoyed what I was doing and had to think very had about leaving the Northwest, which has been my home for almost all of my life. But to be able to — I think the thing that makes it different with the USGA and everyone on our staff would say it — we’ve done the staff surveys — we really think we’re making a difference for the game. And while it is just a game, I think a lot of people enjoy the game, there are a lot of health benefits, playing with your family, a lot of things for kids. The USGA does so much good for the game at the grassroots level and it’s just an honor to be involved with it because you do feel like you’re making a difference, whether it’s with junior golf and all that we do to inspire kids to play, to making golf courses better and using less water and less pesticides and chemicals with work with our Greens section, to now — we’re going in the next couple of years we’re going to start a new national championship for players with disabilities to inspire that community.

It’s truly fun to be around. You just get to be around some of the great players in the game on both the men’s and women’s side. It’s just the best of all worlds.

I think the thing I learned the most from Mike is really a strategic approach to setting up a golf course with a few things that I had never considered before. And I’ve done it. I did that. I’ve played competitive golf. I played with a lot of guys who are on Tour. I played at Brigham Young University. We won a national championship in 1981. I’ve played with a lot of good players. And I was a pretty good player. I never got on Tour. But I think to think about different angles. Using different teeing areas, really bringing the element of — every element into the way a player needs to navigate a golf course over a 72-hole championship is really unique. Mike has a special talent for that.

Now, everybody’s got an opinion but I’m a fan of Mike Davis and his strategic approach and what he brings to a comprehensive test for all the players. And a fair test. I think a good test, a true test, one that’s true to what the architect intended. I think that’s missed. I think that’s a message we need to get out better — that we don’t come in and make all these changes to these golf courses. We try to follow what the architect intended. I think it’s really fun to be around that with Mike. I’ve learned a lot.

As far as different, I don’t know — I think Pebble Beach will always be what Pebble Beach has been for the U.S. Open. I mean, why would we do anything different when we’ve had Nicklaus, Watson, Kite, Woods, and McDowell win, and in dramatic fashion every time. Why would we change the recipe? We’re not going to. Now look, there are a few new putting greens here, some new teeing areas, you know it’s little bit different golf course than it was in 2010 and the weather is going to be different probably and all of that. There are some differences.

The one thing that I would say that I have tried to infuse, and Mike and our team are fully supportive, is to be a little more informed with how we’re going into this U.S. Open. What I mean by that is we have Jason Gore on our staff [Gore was announced as the USGA’s first Player Relations Director in March]. A player that has won 11 times at the professional level, seven times on Tour. And he’s informing our process from a setup standpoint.

Nick Price, we’re involving Nick in what we’re doing here at Pebble Beach. Nick will be here this week. We also brought in a guy that I’ve known for a long time — a guy by the name of Casey Boyns. He’s a 37-year caddie here at Pebble Beach and a two-time California amateur champion and probably won 20 other major amateur events around California and the country. I’ve known him a long time, played golf with him years ago. He’s won two California amateurs at Pebble Beach, when he won in the 80s and 90s. But he caddies 250 to 300 times a year here and he’s done it for 37 years. There is nobody who knows this golf course better than him. We brought him out and went around the golf course with him. We showed him our plan. He knows how these greens behave in certain types of weather. He knows what the four new putting greens are behaving like. He knows what the wind will do certain times of the year. It’s fascinating and we’ve brought him in and that’s a little bit new for us.

We’re involving — we went to the AT&T Pro-Am in February here at Pebble Beach and spent some time with the PGA Tour officials to find out what they were doing. Now February is going to be a lot different than June for the U.S. Open, but we found a new hole location or two out there that we wouldn’t have otherwise used from those guys. And it was really cool — we’re going to have a few of them walk with us this week and take a look at our plan.

I think really to sum it up, it’s really just opening up a bit to other voices and being informed by them. I’m not afraid — we’ve got a lot of guys and gals involved in this, it’s a team effort — but I’m not afraid to make a decision. I just like it to be a well-informed decision and I like to have all the information that I can get from some pretty experienced people. So it’s been fun. That’s what is different. I think we’re better informed than ever before.

How would I characterize the relationship? I would say that we certainly recognize we have some challenges. But I think all too often the voices that are heard or printed are the ones that say the most controversial things.

There is a lot of support for the USGA. A lot of the players — most of them, not just a majority, but most of them care deeply about the USGA. They’re former Walker Cuppers. They’ve won our amateur championships. Their kids play in our juniors. They have a handicap. Their wives play. Their moms and dads play. You know, we impact the game at the grassroots level. They care about the USGA and want the USGA to succeed. We hear that a lot. It just doesn’t make newsprint all the time or it doesn’t get on air. There’s a lot of that out there.

But look, I think it’s important for us to listen, even to that Golf Digest article. Was it hurtful? Was it disappointing? Yeah, it was disappointing. I’d be lying to you if I said it wasn’t. Sure it was. But I think it’s important for us to listen to those voices and really — you know, there’s some that we can really make some progress against and there’s some that we probably can’t.

Look, we’re not trying to be everybody’s best friend. I think we do want to work to earn everybody’s respect and that’s not going to happen overnight. But I think having Jason Gore on the team is only going to help that. He’s created a bridge to the players that we’ve never had before. I know in bringing Jason on the team, and there were several of us who really worked at that, but I felt it was really important that it be a player who had success on Tour. We had a lot of interest, a lot of good college players and amateur players apply. But having someone who has won on Tour, walked up the fairway with a lead and know what that feels like and having won, and almost won a U.S. Open, and be a Walker Cupper, that’s a pretty good combination. I think we’re seeing the reaction the players have had with Jason. They like him, they respect him, and they’ve opened up to him and I think it’s going to help us.

He will be out with me in the mornings just observing. We’ll have our plan baked out by the start of the week. And then we’ll have staff setting up the golf course. He and I will be out observing that.

And then there will be times when he’ll be on the practice range, early in the week with Mike Davis talking to players. I’ll be with him talking to players on what they think about the golf course, what they think about the player experience, what they think about the USGA, any issue. He’ll be doing a lot of that.

And they reach out to him. I don’t know that there’s been a time when I’ve been in the car with him where he hasn’t gotten a phone call from a player. It’s really been good and we’re gratified. He’s kind of exceeded our expectations and he’s having fun doing it. And I think if you’ve talked to him, he feels like he’s really making a difference. Look, it’s going to take time but we feel good about it and we’re not going to flip the light switch and change everything. But I think over time — one step at a time — we think we’re building something pretty good.

Yeah, there were some things that just weren’t — that were just like, ‘Wow I don’t know where they got that, that’s just kind of’ … I think when you get things second and third-hand from people, some things can kind of go in certain directions. I think, to be honest with you, a lot of that was really old news.

We have been talking to players. I could tell you maybe who a third of the guys were who said some of those things because they’ve been talking to us too. So I don’t know that I would — I wouldn’t really get into anything that was unfair or inaccurate. A lot of it was old news, some of it was inaccurate, and frankly some of it was accurate. Some of it we need to listen to and we are. I think that’s the good thing. We’re not trying to be everybody’s best friend but we are trying to earn their respect and I think the only way we can do that is to listen to their perspective and have a discussion with them.

I think that’s the one thing we’ve not done a good job with either — and Jason is building that bridge and we’ve found this early on when Jason started with us— is that a lot of stuff the guys have some misperceptions about is that it just sits and festers and they don’t have anybody to go to. And Jason will now get something. He’ll get it to Thomas Pagel if it’s a rules questions. He’ll get it to me if it’s a U.S. Open question. He’ll answer it himself. He’ll get it to whomever needs to address it. And it happens almost instantaneously so things don’t fester and he bridges conversations with us to the players and with himself that we’ve just not had before.

You know another thing that we’re doing a lot of is talking to our past U.S. Open champions. One of them said to me a couple months ago, “You know, John, some of the guys out here — not all of them — because there’s a lot of support out here for the USGA, really those of us that have won the U.S. Open — a lot of the guys out here, especially the younger guys, just don’t really think you care about what they think.”

I said to this past champion that’s the furthest thing from the truth. And that’s right. But we’ve never had that connection to where we could listen and where the players felt they could go to somebody and be candid with them and not sugarcoat it. At the same time, we’ve never had anybody that’s shared our direct perspective with the players. ‘Why did you do that with this rule?’ or ‘Why do you do that on the 15th hole at the U.S. Open?’

‘Well here’s why. Here’s what our thinking was.’ It’s just one step at a time that way. There’s no guarantees of anything but I just really feel like we’ve made a little bit of progress this year.

There’s this thought and it gets a bit at the distance issue — I’ve heard Geoff Ogilvy reference it — there’s this thought the pro game and the amateur game — not the elite amateur like a Walker Cupper — have really never been farther apart in terms of what we watch on TV with the Tour and with major championships. And that the gap is dangerous for the health of the game. Would you agree with that sentiment that these two arenas of golf have never been farther apart and it’s dangerous? And is the U.S. Open a showcase to bridge that gap or does it accentuate that divide?

I have a lot of respect for the way Geoff Ogilvy thinks. He’s a really smart guy and we listen very carefully to him when he’s speaking because usually when he opens his mouth something good is coming out. I have a lot of respect for him. I’d have to think about that.

Off the top of my head, I’m not sure I do agree with it. You go back to the 20s and you see the disparity of the game between — it was more or less a wealthy-person’s game and you didn’t have the masses playing and you certainly didn’t have too many players, amateurs or professionals, at the level of Bobby Jones. And then you look at Nicklaus and Bobby Jones said, when Nicklaus won his second Masters in 1965, ‘He plays a game with which I’m not familiar.’

So distance is relative. Mike Davis talks about this. People came out to watch Jones hit it 250. They came out to watch Nicklaus hit it 290. They came out to watch Tiger hit it 310 and still are. And now they’re going to watch Cameron Champ hit it 330 and 340. I don’t know that it’s changed. I think it’s different from the standpoint of you have more great athletes that are better conditioned, better coached, are better fitted. You have agronomics on a course — we’re cutting fairways that are pretty tight and greens that are maybe in some instances too fast.

So I think there are differences but I think that it’s like any sport. To me, at the amateur level, it’s still aspirational. ‘I want to be like Tiger or Jordan or Rory or Brooks.’ I don’t know if the gap has widened. In the same way, golfers still want to be inspired by their heroes. So they want to generally play the same rules and the same clubs and the same ball and play the same courses, maybe just from a different set of tees.

But look, as you know we’re going through this distance study and we’re really trying to determine what all the issues are. No conclusions. We’re seeking opinions from every group of stakeholders and then we’ll have a discussion about it, I suspect later this year. I’m not involved anymore, I was involved with it early on but am not anymore in detail but I certainly see what’s bubbling up. I think it is an important discussion to have and I don’t know where it’s going to go. I don’t think there’s a greater divide than there was in each key period of the game. I could be convinced of it but I don’t necessarily see it.

Focusing specifically on Pebble Beach. We’d often hear Mike Davis speak about certain aspects at a specific venue that he was really excited about setting up and some areas that he’d say he was “watching closely.” Which specific holes or greens will you be watching closely and are there certain parts of Pebble you’re really more excited to analyze and set up?

This place is a national treasure. There’s a whole bunch of them I’m excited to set up, like any U.S. Open site we go to. This one is because of what it’s built on and it’s so special, it’s just a national treasure. You think about the U.S. Opens that have been at Pebble Beach — you think about the iconic shots — every one of them has had one. From Nicklaus, Watson, Kite, Woods, McDowell — you think about what’s unfolded here and we are super excited now to think about it coming back in ’27 for the U.S. Open and for the first time ever, a U.S. Women’s Opinion in ’23.

We’re going to be watching a lot of different holes, but clearly No. 7 is one. It’s so iconic. It’s just such a little hole. We were out walking this morning and looking at the different options for tee and hole locations and it’s all going to depend on the wind. The weather is just so key here. The wind generally comes out of the west, northwest. If it stays that way, you have certain ways to play certain holes. I think No. 7 is one. No. 8 is certainly one of the greatest holes in all of the game, especially the second shot. It is unlike almost anything anywhere else in the world. It’s just amazing. I think that would be one. And certainly 17 — we got a new putting green there that went in that is much different than when we were here in 2010. That’s an amazing hole. And I think the drama and excitement that No. 18 will provide is going to be special too.

Those are ones that I’m watching how things perform on the greens and some of the iconic hole locations that we could choose. And just some of the memories that have been made there. Kite’s chip-in on 7, Nicklaus’ 1-iron on 17. Watson’s chip-in on 17. Tiger’s shot under and around the tree in 2010 — second shot, hit 3-wood I think it was — on 18. All the great moments that have been there.

From a performance standpoint, those are the ones that come to mind. But I think it’s all of them. You know, these little postage stamp greens, they get firm. It’s every one of them we’re going to have to watch.

I think the weather is the one thing we watch closely because it can kick up with the wind and we can get very dry, blustery conditions very quickly here as you would anywhere on the coast. And so we watch that. High winds are really the thing we would be watching for more than anything else.

I’ve seen Geoff Shackelford often quote [former USGA Executive Director] Frank Hannigan as having a concern that the USGA would make decisions out of a desire to be loved and a fear of interfering with a pro’s ability to make a living. Would you tend to agree with that sentiment — that you have to be concerned about operating out of a desire to be loved?

No, I don’t at all. I don’t think about it in that way. I think about it as, just really, really working intentionally to earn respect. I think that’s the most important thing. It’s not my desire, or the USGA’s desire, to be everybody’s best friend. We can’t be. We aren’t. We are acting on what we think are in the best interests of the game.

When we make decisions, we say, “Well what is in the best interests of the game longterm.” Not a short-term band-aid but something that will benefit golf and golfers for decades to come, whether it’s with the rules, whether it’s what we do with the U.S. Open, where we go for the U.S. Open — we’re all the way confirmed through 2027 — we felt that was important to do to allow us to plan properly and that’s why we did it. So we’re always thinking ahead. We’re thinking about wanting the game to be strong and vibrant not just 5 years from now or 10 years from now, but 25-50-100 years from now. To do that, you’re never going to please everybody. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. But I think it’s not about being loved. It’s about being respected.