SAN DIEGO — After 30 years, golf fans won’t have Mike Davis as a punchbag any more.
If a movie producer asked central casting for a USGA type, Mike Davis is who they’d send over. He looks like he arrived in the delivery room wearing a blue blazer and exuding the papal calm that has been his hallmark during 30-odd years at golf’s governing body. In private, he has an impish sense of humor and a reservoir of golf stories so bottomless that you’d almost weep for what his wife, Cece, must have endured on their early dinner dates.
But when they turn out the lights at Torrey Pines on Sunday, Davis will take his leave after three decades as the most familiar soft target in the game.
On his last day, I met Davis in his makeshift office overlooking the 18th fairway, where in a few hours he will oversee the crowning of the U.S. Open champion. His final day at the USGA will be more thrilling than his first in 1989. That was spent in an equipment trailer sorting through the magnetic components of the leaderboard to be used for the following year’s Open at Medinah; first the As, Bs and Cs, then the 1s, 2s, and 3s. Back then, players competing in the Open still had to pay $25 a week to the host club professional for range balls.
“I remember Jack Nicklaus writing a check,” Davis recalled, almost in disbelief. “But hey, they got half-price food so that was a good deal.” When he assumed more responsibility for running the U.S. Open at Baltusrol in ’93, the charges for balls and food ceased. That’s probably the last move Davis made that was universally praised by players at the U.S. Open.
Torrey Pines is what Davis cites if you ask about his best day on the job. Thirteen years ago, the Tuesday after Monday’s playoff after Sunday’s putt by Tiger Woods. In the early morning, he walked out to a grandstand by the ocean. “There wasn’t a soul on the course. I just remember sitting there thinking that I would never be involved with something that dramatic again.”
There has been plenty of Open drama during his tenure, of course. Not all for the right reasons. The rules fiasco that marred Dustin Johnson’s march to victory at Oakmont in ’16—a lengthy period during which the USGA was spit-roasted on social media and its leadership was AWOL—still stings. So too Shinnecock Hills in ’04, which became shorthand for mismanaging course conditions at an Open, a recurring theme of the Davis era. Were those the worst days? I asked. He shook his head.
“The day at Hazeltine in ’91 when we had people struck by lightning and somebody died,” he replied. “That was easily the worst day. All the other stuff goes away.”
There has been a lot of “other stuff,” an almost unbroken stream of criticism, much of it warranted, some of it reflexive griping by self-appointed Cassandras prophesying doom for the game. Complaints from players ran off his back as surely as water bounced off that 7th green at Shinnecock. “It’s been there going back a hundred years,” he said.
He once asked Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer why that was during a dinner at Arnie’s house in Latrobe. “Their view was players in U.S. Opens have always been on edge because it’s set up so hard and they don’t like it when they feel like they’re not going to be made to look good,” he said. “There’s something to that. I think you can add on the governance part. People in this world do not like to be governed.”
There’s actually a healthy constituency in golf that has issues with a lack of governance, specifically as it relates to equipment advances and the increased distances players are hitting the ball. “If I have a regret of what I didn’t do, I wish this distance initiative had been further along,” he admitted.
Davis said he wanted to tackle the issue when he became USGA executive director, before his promotion to CEO. “I felt strongly that something needed to be done to protect golf courses. When I came in it wasn’t necessarily the right timing for the R&A, so it’s why we went a few years,” he said.
Ten to be exact, since he took over the organization in March, 2011. “We are now doing that but with COVID it’s taken longer,” he explained. “I’m proud we’re taking on the issue. We don’t know what is going to happen, but that’s okay. Something will happen.”
I asked if having started the distance discussion will ultimately be seen as his legacy, a notion he quickly deflected. “The legacy part is so uncomfortable for me.” He lists a range of USGA accomplishments, like new rules, new championships and new world handicap systems. “It’s always been a ‘we’ thing.”
Except when it comes to criticism, I offer, in which case it’s a ‘you’ thing. The shoulders beneath his blue blazer shrug “In this position, you’re supposed to do that. Whatever. Somebody’s got to take the blame.”
As of July 1 officially, but in effect Monday morning, that somebody is Mike Whan, his replacement as CEO. Whan might well come to miss the almost universally positive press he enjoyed as commissioner of the LPGA.
At 56, Davis bears a striking resemblance to Wallace Shawn’s comic book villain in The Princess Bride (Inconceivable!), but the critics who enjoy poking him will have to retire the memes as their target retires. “I’m very ready to go. I’m ready for the next chapter,” he said.
That chapter means moving to Jupiter, Florida, starting a golf course design business with Tom Fazio II, and actually spending Father’s Day with his family rather than just receiving an annual phone call before the final round of the U.S. Open. As he readied to walk the final round of the 121st Open with the final pairing, I asked Davis what will be on his mind tonight when it’s all over.
“Great run,” he said. “There were some ups and downs but it was fun. I’m ready.”
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