Pat Finlen - March 2, 2012

• By Morning Drive Team
• Mar 2, 2012 7:31 AM ET

Pat Finlen is the Director of Golf Maintenance Operations for The Olympic Club in San Francisco, California which will host its 5th U.S. Open Championship later this year in June. He is in Las Vegas for an educational conference with the GCSAA and it has been a great week as 15,000 are at the conference.

The Olympic Club is on schedule with its preparations for the U.S. Open despite an unusually dry winter in the Bay Area and he participated in a walkthrough earlier this week with USGA Executive Director Mike Davis.

Three years ago, The Olympic Club made a switch in greens from poa annua to bent grass and because it was a dry winter in poa annua, the greens had a tougher winter than expected but they are looking much better now and are on schedule to be perfect for the U.S. Open.

The USGA and Mike Davis have been closely involved with Finlen in the agronomic preparation of The Olympic Club but right now the people who work on the course day-to-day are the grounds crew of The Olympic Club.

From a consistency standpoint, the tees, greens, and fairways will be great but they are planning to make the hazards a bit less consistent than the pros are used to seeing on the PGA TOUR. In predicting a winning score, Finlen said 2 or 3 under par because he expects the course to play very difficult and it will be very exciting.