When Pinehurst No. 2 hosts the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open championships on back-to-back weeks June 9-22, the USGA will have no blueprint to work from. That is because this is a historic first for the association. How the Open doubleheader is sure to be debated until play ends on that second Sunday – and likely beyond. USGA executive director Mike Davis has given these Opens a lot of thought, saying, “we went into this knowing that there were risks, but we went into it knowing that there was a lot more upside.” On Monday, following the Media Day press conference, Davis sat with Golfweek’s Alex Miceli to discuss a few of the nuances related to these Opens.

Q.: I talked to Tim Flaherty [USGA senior director, U.S. Women’s Open and U.S. Senior Open Championships] about whether the U.S. Women’s Open is going to make a profit. He said that the budgets are combined, and because they’re combined it’s pretty hard to tell. What’s your assessment?

DAVIS: I honestly would tell you that you need to talk to Tim about this. Here’s what I would say. You’re right, they are combined this year. But I’m not even sure from an accounting standpoint how the grandstand that they built down at 18 tee is handled. Is that 50 percent U.S. Open and 50 percent U.S. Women’s Open? I’m not sure how we did the accounting on it.

In the end, I’m not sure it really matters because at the end of the day we lump all of our championships together at the end of the year and kind of say, here’s what we have.

Q.: But there’s an assumption that part of the reason this was done is to cut costs on the Women’s Open side. So that’s why it’s a fair question to ask.

DAVIS: What’s interesting is that we would probably have some savings or we will have some savings in some areas, but then you actually have some extra costs in other areas that we normally wouldn’t have. For instance, we have more staff.

There is a bigger commitment to this Women’s Open than we would normally have because we’ve got the whole U.S. Open team working on it, so there’s just more bodies. We never went into this thing with the idea that, “Hey, this can be a cost savings.”

Will NBC Golf Channel save some money on back-to-back? They should because they’re not having to pack stuff up and ship it from point A to point B, so in theory there should be some savings there, and we certainly have some savings, but in some areas we’re actually spending more than we would normally do for a Women’s Open.

Q.: You rented stands for two weeks. Some you won’t use for both weeks, but you’re not going to tear them down because you don’t have the time?

DAVIS: My understanding is some of them, if they just know it doesn’t make sense, the grandstand vendor may end up taking parts of one, where they just say “We don’t need this, let’s start moving,” because they need to get to the next event.

But the thing about this is we really didn’t do it from a money standpoint. This was all about, “Hey, wouldn’t it be neat to compare men and women.”

Q.: So what are we comparing? Are we comparing 9̢??iron shots into the first hole? Are we comparing similar distances? What are we trying to compare?

DAVIS: Well, I think what we’re trying to do is first getting the women to play Pinehurst No. 2. This is, by anybody’s measure, a top 10 course, top 15 course, in the U.S. Getting the women to play on the best courses is one of the things we’re trying to do, so I think that – nothing against the other Women’s Open sites we go to – this is one of the best. It’s an upgrade there in terms of just exposing women to some of the great courses we have.

Then I would say about the element of trying to compare one group to the other, what we’re really trying to do, to the best extent possible, is seeing if we can’t set the course up the same. Ideally, if the men are hitting 8-irons to the 18th hole, that’s what we’re hoping to do for the women. If the men are hitting 3-wood off the tee, then 8-iron, you take all the averages of all 156 players, that’s what we would like to see happen for the women.

Some of the holes won’t allow us to do that. The first hole, the third hole, seventh hole, and the 13th hole – to me – are the four holes out there where I think the way the holes are designed, I think the men and the women are going to play them very much the same.

On No. 1, I see most of the men laying back a little bit because it does start to pinch in the way [course architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw renovated the fairway]. To me that’s just a much smarter shot than saying, “OK, instead of hitting an 8-iron in, I can hit a sand wedge in if I hit driver or 3-wood.” I think you’re going to probably see the women do the same thing. I don’t know that, which means if men are say hitting a 9-iron in, women might be hitting a 7-iron in.

I think what we’ll try to do is make up for that some other places where all of a sudden if that’s happening there, let’s take a hole like the 8th hole, where maybe if the men are back hitting 4- and 5-irons in, maybe on that one we have the women hitting 6- or 7-irons in.

I’ve spent hours thinking about this.

It won’t play the same the second week as the first unless we get the exact same weather, and if we get the exact same weather, that means we will have to have had to do things to the golf course to keep it the same. That’s not easy, either.

Q.: And do you really want to manipulate the golf course?

DAVIS: Well, I think the only place I would say we want to manipulate it is the putting greens. If you watch [the USGA staff] during a normal U.S. Open, we’ll spend a lot of time in practice rounds watching balls hit to greens and seeing what’s they’re doing.

If somebody is hitting an 8̢??iron here and it’s bounced off, I want to go back and say when it hit in that area, what was the firmness of that area? What was the moisture rating? Then we do the same thing the Women’s Open week and watch them hit an 8-iron in, and if it’s going bounce, bounce, stop let’s say, that’s firmer or vice versa. But all this goes out the window if all of a sudden we get the firmness perfect week one and then we get a bunch of thunderstorms week two.

It’s OK. At the end of it, I think my view is there’s going to be intrigue. People are going to watch this Women’s Open that otherwise wouldn’t have watched it, and the last thing is, if all hell breaks loose and let’s say the weeks are just completely different, at the end of it, it still is a U.S. Open Championship. It still is a U.S. Women’s Open Championship.

We’re going to give the trophy to the lowest score for 72 holes, and that really is what matters. At the end of it, nobody wants us to compromise either one of those championships just because we’re trying to have them play the same. We won’t do it.

We could see where 12̢??under wins the first week and 3̢??over wins the second week or absolutely vice versa. If people are looking for the exact same winning score, then that’s never going to happen. It will never happen, because we can’t manipulate a course enough to do that.

If that happens, it’s just sheer coincidence.

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