Bryson DeChambeau celebrates his winning putt in front of a crowd of golf fans during the final. [+] The 2024 U.S. Open hole at Pinehurst (Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)
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For the regular resort golfer, part of the appeal of Pinehurst No. 2 is the opportunity to play on the same demanding golf course and fearsome turtleback green that has hosted the U.S. Open four times. But while the acclaimed Donald Ross design may offer a similar look and feel for traveling golfers, it isn't played under tournament conditions most weeks outside of the U.S. Open.
In an effort to find a balance between fair and foul for the average golfer on a championship layout like Pinehurst No. 2, the resort's golf staff has for the past seven years relied on data-driven software, Tagmarshal, to answer questions about green speed, hole location and pace of play.
TagMarshal's in-course technology provides one-third of the top 100 golf courses in the United States, including Pinehurst, with real-time data and player tracking capabilities to help optimize operations. The millions of data points that TagMarshal has accumulated while tracking every round on Pinehurst's No. 2 and No. 4 courses in recent years have revealed how changing conditions affect players' experience.
“We think of ourselves as a living laboratory, and we're always striving to improve,” said Pinehurst's director of golf Matt Barksdale. “As a result, the Tag Marshals have been a great catalyst for understanding what we're putting in place and providing quantitative analysis of what's working and why it's working.”
Tag Marshall helped Pinehurst staff determine what the “primary conditions” should be like on a course like No. 2 after the pros left town. Perhaps most notably, how fast should the greens roll to maintain a reasonable pace of play while still providing an exciting experience? The software can also show which holes (and hole placements) on the course are most impacted by delays.
Tagmarshal is the industry leader in course optimization technology, providing complete… [+] Real-time operational monitoring and reporting. The company partners with more than one-third of the nation's top resort courses.
Tag Marshall
During the U.S. Open, when treacherous greens roll at 13 or 14 on the Stimpmeter, pros' average round times can exceed five hours, but resort guests have found that a daily Stimpmeter speed of 10 to 10 1/2 can get their round done in around the four-and-a-half-hour target. At speeds above 11, only 22 percent of rounds are on pace.
“Having that information before and after the U.S. Open will give us concrete evidence that we're back to normal playing conditions in terms of flow and pace of play,” Barksdale said. “The tag marshals will be a barometer for getting the right results.”
But Pinehurst No. 2 has not yet returned to resort status.
Just a week after Bryson DeChambeau's U.S. Open victory, the course will host the nation's premier amateur tournament, the men's and women's North & South Championships, from June 23-29. Competitors will face green speeds on a par with those in the U.S. Open.
Work begins soon after to return the course to resort conditions, and it's the tag marshal data that informs that work and helps determine what Barksdale calls “championship level” standards for resort guests.
