On course for tough Open

LA JOLLA -- Five over par at Winged Foot in New York, five over par at Oakmont in Pennsylvania. The winning scores at the last two U.S. Opens probably aren’t so attractive, except to Geoff Ogilvy and Angel Cabrera.

But Tom Meeks remembers something else . . . not the scores, but the setups, and not the ones he got right but the ones he got wrong. Meeks was in charge of how the U.S. Open courses were set up for 11 years, and there are two holes he can’t get out of his mind.

One was a second-round back-left pin position at the 18th hole at the Olympic Club in San Francisco in 1998. The other was the glassy seventh hole on Sunday at Shinnecock in New York in 2004, both deemed unfair pin positions.

That doesn’t seem like a lot to worry about, but even at 67, Meeks can’t shake thinking about those holes.

“I’m going to go to my grave feeling horrible about that,” he said.

Mike Davis isn’t exactly the new kid on the block because he took over for Meeks a couple of years ago, but he learned more from Meeks than where to put a hole on the green. Davis, the U.S. Golf Assn.’s senior director of rules and competitions, set up Torrey Pines for the U.S. Open, and he knows what can go wrong.

“It’s like being a rules official,” Davis said. “There are two kinds: those who have made mistakes and those who are going to make mistakes.”

There is a certain living-on-the-edge quality to the job entrusted to Davis. You do it wrong and the players either rip the course or you, sometimes both. You do it right and nobody notices.

It’s a fine line to walk and you have to answer a tough question: How much is too much?

“I think what we want to do is just get the golf course set up and then let the competition speak for itself,” Davis said.

“We want a very stern test, but at the same time a very fair test. Sometimes it’s stressful if things don’t go so well . . . that can be awfully deflating. One thing I really liked about Tom Meeks, he never tried to back off. He always took it on.

“If you get one hole position wrong and 71 right, that’s not good enough.”

For better or worse, the USGA long ago earned a reputation for difficult U.S. Open courses, its landmark moment coming in 1974 at Winged Foot when Hale Irwin won with a score of seven over par.

Fast greens, ankle-deep rough and narrow fairways have long been a staple of the U.S. Open, more so than any other major.

All that’s in Davis’ lap this week at Torrey Pines. To know if he’s in the doghouse or not, listen for these buzzwords: unfair, penal, crossed the line, over the top, brutal.

If USGA officials are saying them, he’s a genius. If the players are saying them, he is something less.

Davis said he’s ready for anything.

“I love my job,” he said. “I would almost pay to do it.”

Davis, 43, was introduced to golf by his father, William, who gave him a sawed off five-iron as an 8-year-old in Chambersburg, Pa. He won the 1982 Pennsylvania junior championship and played on the golf team at Georgia Southern University, where he earned a business degree with honors.

He joined the USGA in 1990 and started working on U.S. Open setups in 1997. David Fay, executive director of the USGA, tapped Davis for his current job.

“He’s exceeded my expectations, which were already very high to begin with,” Fay said. “He’s just got a great eye for a golf course and an uncanny ability to put himself in the skins of the players he’s setting up the course for.”

Davis sets up the courses for all 17 of the USGA national championships. He is also a rules official at the Masters and the British Open.

Meeks said Davis’ idea of a graduated rough at the Open, in which the rough gets deeper the farther a ball lands off the fairway, was a bold move.

“I give him extremely high marks,” Meeks said. “The U.S. Open should be the hardest championship players ever play in. If he continues to challenge the players, he’ll have some situations down the road he’ll regret someday. But that goes with the business.”

Davis knows all about that.

“I absolutely dread the day that’s coming, that day when I absolutely make the wrong call in the setup,” he said. “I know it’s going to happen. It’s inevitable.”

Maybe it’ll come this week at Torrey Pines, maybe next year at Bethpage Black in New York, maybe another time down the road. Listen for the buzzwords.

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thomas.bonk@latimes.com