At the 2016 U.S. Tom O’Toole Jr., the outgoing President of the Golf Association, was giving his closing remarks at the Annual Meeting when he announced that Los Angeles Country Club would host the 123rd U.S. Open. This is the biggest U.S. Open news in decades.
The famed club’s North Course, which is tied for No. The third U.S. Open venue to be held in Southern California, after San Diego’s Torrey Pines, in 2008 and in 2021, when Matt Fitzpatrick defends his title, will take place from June 15-18. The U.S. Open will return to Tinseltown, for the first since Ben Hogan’s 1948 victory at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades.
O’Toole said in his speech that the USGA has been trying to bring the U.S. Open to the L.A. Country Club since 1975. Sandy Tatum (past USGA President) and Bill Campbell talked about it. It was unthinkable for years until Dick Shortz pulled the rabbit from his hat.”
Richard A. Shortz is a Harvard Law School graduate and Indiana University second lieutenant who has been practicing law for over 40 years. He has supported major corporations, and led initiatives in corporate governance. Shortz, a junior club champion aged 15, has been a golf enthusiast all his life. He joined LACC back in 1988.
The club was founded in 1897, and it has two 18 hole courses, the North and South. It opened in 1911 near the Beverly Hilton, and occupies 320 acres, and half a mile on either side of Wilshire Boulevard, between Beverly Hills, Century City, Westwood, and Bel Air, to the north. Gil Hanse led a 2010 restoration project that restored the famed North Course of the club, where the Open is being contested, back to the design by Herbert Fowler & George C. Thomas Jr.
The LACC hosted many top-tier sporting events in the first half of the 20th Century. Five L.A. Between 1926 and 1940, the L.A. Open was held at the LACC. Glenna Colllett Vare won her fifth title in 1930, the U.S. Women’s Amateur on the North Course. Foster Bradley Jr. won the U.S. Amateur in 1954 by defeating Al Geiberger. The club had been booked to host the 1958 U.S. The Olympic Club, San Francisco was the venue for the 1958 U.S.
USGA staff joked for decades that putting a person on the moon was more likely than bringing another USGA Championship to the prestigious LACC. From Joe Dey’s days to P.J. From Boatwright to David Fay the USGA wanted to return to L.A. Country Club and its green oasis. According to FORE Magazine’s report, Charles Older, the former LACC club President, tried to rally support to host the 1986 U.S. Open but the board voted against it 5-4.
Dick Shortz, Los Angeles Country Club
USGA wanted to fill the void left by the U.S. Open not being in the second largest market of the United States for the time it would take Halley’s Comet orbit the Earth. The U.S. Open is a huge undertaking and logistical issues like parking and transportation had to be resolved. Riviera, located seven miles west from LACC, has hosted the PGA Tour Genesis Invitational for almost 40 years. Riviera hosted the U.S. The U.S. Women’s Open and the 2028 Olympics golf men’s and woman’s competitions will be held at the venue in 2026. Riviera, which ranked 18th on Golfweek’s Best list for classic courses, wasn’t considered to be large enough to host an event of this magnitude.
Conventional thinking held that the LACC’s footprint, which included the Playboy Mansion and downtown L.A. behind the 11th-hole, was too small to host a modern Open. The club’s South Course, which will accommodate media tents, sponsors and concessions, will host a maximum of 22,000 spectators per day. The USGA crammed the 2013 Open into Merion Country Club, Ardmore, Pennsylvania.
John Bodenhamer (USGA Chief Championships Officer) said, “It showed that we could go to cathedrals where great players wanted to win their Open.” Bodenhamer was a 24-year old Tacoma resident who competed in the 1985 Pacific Coast Amateur at LACC. “The doors opened and led us on that path.”
It takes two to dance, and the LACC members had to change their philosophy, which, frankly, caught the USGA off guard.
O’Toole asked rhetorically, “How would you go about navigating something like that as a member?” “You needed a champion and a leader and that was Dick Shortz.”
The 11th downhill par-3 hole will be 290 yards long during the 123rd U.S. Open, which is being held at the Los Angeles Country Club. (Photo by John Mummert/USGA).
Bodenhamer described Shortz’s contribution as “instrumental”. Anyone at the club could tell you this.
The Walker Cup began innocently in 2009 when the LACC agreed that the U.S. would defeat Great Britain and Ireland by 19-7.
O’Toole remembers that Shortz invited him, Los Angeles resident Jim Vernon (2008-09), former USGA president (but not a member) and the then-president Glen Nager to play golf with them in 2013. After lunch, they went into the museum-like clubhouse. Shortz pulled O’Toole to one side and told him he wanted show O’Toole some memorabilia from the locker room.
O’Toole remembered: “I got up, followed the other girls back to the locker rooms and we walked down the farthest aisle. I then turned around.” “I was thinking, what will we see here?” “There’s nothing here.
Shortz was making a point. Here he imagined the memorabilia of a future U.S. Open being displayed someday.
O’Toole said: “He said, “I want a U.S. Open in this area, and you and me are going to make that happen.” “I told him that you didn’t need to stand up on a soapbox for me. That’s how we started our journey, with him working in the back halls, so to speak, of his board and membership.”
Mike Davis, the then-executive director of the USGA, delivered a convincing speech to the members of the club before a vote was held to determine whether the club would be able to host a future Open. Shortz’s dream of bringing a major event to LACC was overwhelmingly supported 18 months after he took the initiative.
The 8th hole, a 547-yard par-5 at Los Angeles Country Club. Photo: John Mummert/USGA
Shortz told Fore Magazine that 90 percent of the people were in favor. There is a great deal of excitement about working with USGA. The club is now much more community-oriented. We looked at the golf landscape and what we could do for the community. This influenced our thinking.
O’Toole (2010-11) and USGA President Jim Hyler were so impressed by Shortz’s ability to negotiate his position that they supported his candidature for the role of USGA’s General Counsel, which he assumed from 2018-2020.
Shortz has been retired for a few years, but he has played many roles, including serving as co-chairman of the U.S. Open this year. The club has also secured the U.S. Women’s Open in 2032 and the U.S. Open in 2039. Shortz’s work behind the scenes is what made all of this possible. He declined to give an interview for this article but showed us the Colonial Georgian clubhouse where billionaire owners Steve Ballmer and Stan Kroenke of the L.A. Rams keep lockers, and Ronald Reagan was remembered by a plaque. O’Toole says that the club should make room for a shrine for Shortz.
O’Toole stated, “They should build a statue for him.”
