USGA under scrutiny as it prepares Pebble Beach for U.S. Open

It was one of the most shocking, incongruous moments in 118 editions of the U.S. Open.

Last June, in the third round at Shinnecock Hills, Phil Mickelson watched his 18-foot putt trickle past the cup at the 13^th hole. As the ball began to gain speed down the slope, the five-time major winner loped after it like a parent chasing a runaway toddler.

When he caught up, and with the ball still moving, Mickelson bumped it back toward the hole. Including a two-stroke penalty assessed for doing that, he eventually made a 10 en route to shooting 81.

In a meandering explanation in the aftermath, Mickelson, a six-time runner-up in the U.S. Open, admitted, “I’ve had multiple times where I wanted to do that; I just finally did it.”

While he offered it was just a way to get on to the next hole, many viewed Mickelson’s stunning, seemingly unsportsmanlike play as a preconceived middle finger to America’s golf governing body, the U.S. Golf Assn.

In that sentiment, Mickelson apparently has company.

Heading into the sixth U.S. Open to be played at Pebble Beach Golf Links, beginning Thursday, there is more chatter than ever about the current state of the USGA and U.S. Open.

Golf Digest recently interviewed 57 people — players, instructors and caddies — and behind a curtain of anonymity, many scorched the USGA on numerous fronts, including course selection, setup and the opinion that the U.S. Open’s “tough but fair” identity has been lost in recent years.

Since the Golf Digest story, a number of high-profile players have gone on the record about their concerns.

At the Memorial a week ago, Mickelson didn’t hold back in taking further shots at the USGA.

“I’ve played 29 U.S. Opens. One hundred percent of time they have messed it up if it doesn’t rain,” Mickelson said. “The rain is the governor. That’s the only governor they have.

“If they don’t have a governor, they don’t know how to control themselves.”

Rory McIlroy, champion of the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional, was a bit more diplomatic.

“They’re trying to do as good a job as they can. I think they’ll admit they’ve made a couple of mistakes over the last couple of years. Everyone does,” he said. “We should give them the chance to redeem themselves. If they can’t redeem themselves at Pebble Beach, then there could be a problem.”

The USGA finds itself on an unwanted run of controversial setups or decisions.

Since 2013, when holes at tight and short Merion were deemed to be “tricked up,” nearly every year has brought some sort of disgruntled reaction from players, commentators and even fans.

Chambers Bay in 2015 and Erin Hills in 2017 were fresh, mostly untested courses in the U.S. Open rotation, and both had their issues — Chambers Bay with the greens browning before everyone’s eyes, and 8,400-yard Erin Hills playing wide open and surrendering a record score to winner Brooks Koepka.

Oakmont in 2016 is remembered for Dustin Johnson’s major breakthrough, but also for him playing the final round in limbo because the USGA chose not to decide on a ruling against him until his round was over.

“A big bogey,” USGA CEO and setup man Mike Davis said at the time.

Then came last year, when for the second straight staging at venerable Shinnecock, the speeds on some greens got out of control as wind and heat dried out the course in the third round.

Mickelson wasn’t the only one who was frustrated that day. Of the last 45 players to tee off Saturday, none broke par.

“No doubt, we would admit there were aspects of this setup that went too far,” Davis told Fox at the end of the Saturday broadcast. “Well-executed shots were not only not rewarded, they were penalized.”

There are no mulligans in setting up the U.S. Open, and an old refrain from players rose again: Those at the USGA are “amateurs” at course setup compared to the PGA Tour officials who do it every week.

This year, Davis relinquished his course setup duties for all the USGA’s events to John Bodenhamer, who since 2011 has been running the association’s amateur championships.

An interview request to Davis for this story resulted in a written statement from the USGA.

“Player and other stakeholder feedback is important to us,” it read. “We have been on site at many PGA Tour and LPGA Tour events this year receiving that feedback directly from the players. We are committed to listen, to engage in a productive dialogue, and to continue to address the themes of the feedback in an effort to improve how we serve the game and those that love it.”

Among the criticisms is that the USGA got away from its core U.S. Open principles of tight fairways and thick rough that penalized wayward bombers off the tee or less-than-precise approaches to the greens.

“We play one Open Championship a year; we don’t need to play two,” McIlroy said, referring to the hard and fast conditions generally found in the British Open.

Tiger Woods, whose 15 major wins include three in the U.S. Open, said at Memorial, “The Open has changed. I thought it was just narrow fairways, hit it in the fairway or hack out, move on.

“Now there’s chipping areas around the greens. There’s less rough, graduated rough. They try to make the Open different, and strategically different. I just like it when it’s high rough and narrow fairways, and ‘go get it boys.’ ”

Be careful what you wish for is the observation of some knowledgeable observers.

“I find the commentary — particularly Tiger’s last week — wanting the USGA to go back to their old ways, and players longing for high rough and hitting irons off most tees, comical,” said Geoff Shackelford, who makes regular appearances on Golf Channel and has a well-read blog.

“They’ve forgotten how much they hated what it had become. Mike Davis tried to do a lot of good things, and they were not bad ideas, but they were poorly received by the players because of some bad hole locations and some bad choices on his part. It’s a complicated thing.

“What the players have managed to do with their griping,” Shackelford added, “is threatening to make people sympathetic toward the USGA, and that’s amazing, considering how bad some of their mistakes were.”

Southern Californian Stewart Hagestad, the amateur from USC who qualified for his third straight U.S. Open at sectionals Monday, said he thought the USGA did an “awesome job” of setting up Erin Hills and Shinnecock.

“I thought they were both a treat,” he said, despite missing the cut at both.

A former U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, Hagestad has played in numerous top-level USGA events, including the 2017 Walker Cup at Los Angeles Country Club. At the sectional in Newport Beach, he sported a USGA logo on his shirt and belt.

“The boys who play for a living are a little pampered out there,” Hagestad, 28, said. “If they had a U.S. Am [at Shinnecock] last year, everybody would have said, ‘What an awesome course; it played really tough.’ The pros are, like, ‘This is unfair.’

“The boys are really good out there. I don’t know what else to say. … If the weather lays down, they’re going to go out and shoot a good number.”

Can Pebble Beach — one of the most revered sites in Open history — fall victim to some misguided tinkering?

Shackelford contends it can if the poa annua greens are allowed to get overly crispy in conditions that are expected to be mostly sunny and cool, with no rain in the forecast.

In the windblown final round of the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble, it “essentially got out of hand, and Tom Kite saved them,” Shackelford said of the winner.

In the Open at Pebble in 2010 — won by Graeme McDowell with an even-par total — Shackelford said players noticed the greens were kept thirsting for water while the surrounding grass was soaked.

“They were claiming a conspiracy,” Shackelford said.

You’ll hear no complaints from Koepka. He is the reigning champion of back-to-back U.S. Opens and is coming off winning the PGA Championship on a stout test at Bethpage Black in May.

“Whatever they’re doing, it’s working for me,” Koepka said of the USGA at this week’s Canadian Open. “We’ve all got to play the same golf course. It doesn’t matter. Guys like to complain. I just don’t complain.

“We’ve all got to deal with the same issues. If you hit the fairways and hit every green, you’re not going to have any problems.”

tod.leonard@latimes.com