Moderated by Jeff Silverman

Fay, Faxon, Dorman and Shackelford (left to right) discuss the hot topics in golf. Stephen Wilkes/SI

Golf, it seems, is much more complex outside the ropes than inside them these days. Just when we got comfortable with terms like coefficient of restitution, along comes optimization and bifurcation. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED recently assembled a foursome of diverse voices at Rhode Island Country Club to discuss the issues confronting the game. The members of the roundtable discussion included: David Fay, executive director of the U.S. Golf Association; Brad Faxon, PGA Tour player; Larry Dorman, senior vice president, global press and PR at Callaway Golf; and Geoff Shackelford, author and fledgling course architect.

SI: At last year's U.S. Open the course became an issue. David, what did the USGA learn from that experience?

FAY: What happened last year, particularly on Sunday, was a mistake and not done by design.

SI: What happened?

FAY: I wasn't happy on Friday night because a lot of people -- not only USGA people -- were saying, 'This isn't the same course we saw in 1986 and '95.' The rough wasn't exacting any penalty, and the course was playing too soft. But when the wind picked up on Saturday evening and into early Sunday, we should've gotten out there at five o'clock in the morning and thrown on the entire [irrigation] system for about 20 minutes -- put a little water on the course to take out some of the heat.

FAXON: On Monday, when I played a practice round, Shinnecock was the best-conditioned course I had ever seen. On Tuesday, [former USGA president] Grant Spaeth walked with us as we played and I noticed that the greens were changing. Moisture definitely was coming out of the greens. I thought, Boy, this is not what we saw yesterday. They're losing them already. I said something to Grant, and he kind of shook his head.

FAY: You don't want 66 of the best players in the world averaging close to 80 on a day when, if we were [a few miles away] at the National Golf Links, we would've said, 'What a great day to play golf!' You look at the 7th hole and ask, 'Why did this hole play so much differently in 2004 than it did in '86 or '95?' It wasn't simply the firmness of the green. It was this desire -- and we have to rethink this -- to create chipping areas. They work in some places, but not everywhere. At 7 there was no place for the ball to stop. Shinnecock was a very fast course in every respect -- too fast. Maybe we have learned from that.

SHACKELFORD [to Fay]: You mentioned Friday night. What exactly was the problem? The leader board was outstanding. Six of the top 10 players in the world were right there.

FAY: Vijay Singh took a look at the course and decided that he didn't have to hit it in the fairway. He felt he could bomb it as far as he could and have a short iron in.

FAXON: This year I played with Tiger Wood at Doral, and if there were 14 holes where you could hit driver, he used his on 12. He hit five fairways the first day, seven the second and won the tournament. There's something wrong with that.

FAY: There's no correlation, it seems, between putting the ball in the fairway and how you perform. Now, one could ask, Does there need to be? But we want to make sure that hitting the fairway is important, to the point that going forward we're going to modify the height of the rough. For example, next year at the 320-yard 6th hole at Winged Foot West, I'd like to see the rough eight inches high.

SHACKELFORD: But isn't the USGA bothered by low scoring? Jeff Maggert said last year that he knew the USGA would 'panic' after the first two rounds because 17 players were at or below par. Today's courses, players and equipment are better. Naturally scores should evolve.

FAY: They have evolved. Look at Ben Hogan. He won two of his four U.S. Opens at seven over par. We're not clinging to par, but we want par to have meaning.

SHACKELFORD: I was watching on television when you came on and said that, by mistake, the 7th green had been rolled, and NBC had a shot of the green being double-cut. To anyone watching, it seemed as if things were out of control.

FAY: That's in the eye of the beholder. The course was out of control, but in our minds not that far out of control. The U.S. Open has always been a very punishing examination. That's the Open's imprimatur -- it's the hardest tournament. There's more strain on the faces of the players. It feels as if they've been in a fistfight. Believe me, we did not want to see what we saw on Sunday, but a lot of people are saying, 'Man, I loved that.' Everyone focused on the 7th green. I was just as concerned about the 1st.

SHACKELFORD: That's where Ernie Els gave up, according to Tom Meeks.

FAY: That doesn't warrant a response.