ELEVENTH Play

In 2025, seven years after hosting its second U.S. Senior Open, The Broadmoor will welcome its third. The 2025 U.S. Senior Open will be contested June 26-29 on The Broadmoor’s famed East Course. Hospitality and sponsorship sales began in late 2022; tickets go on sale in March 2024; and, sometime in 2023, Ben Kimball, the USGA’s senior director of championships, will arrive to go over the setup with PGA Director of Golf Russ Miller and Director of Golf Course Maintenance and Grounds, Fred Dickman.

“We know what to expect,” Miller says. After all, this will be the fourth USGA championship for him and Dickman—and the ninth contested at The Broadmoor. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be changes, but we’re ready for them.”

Championship golf has been part of the resort’s DNA since the debut of its Donald Ross-designed layout in 1918. Setting the tone, Broadmoor founder Spencer Penrose invited four of the country’s foremost golfers— U.S. Open champion Chick Evans, PGA champion (and Broadmoor head golf professional) Jim Barnes, future PGA champion Jock Hutchison, and Western Amateur champion Warren Wood—to christen the course with a July 4th match.

Within a decade, the resort had established both The Broadmoor Invitation and Broadmoor Ladies Invitation, both tournaments drawing top amateurs and future major champions. A passel of similarly prestigious national championships followed: six Trans-Mississippi Amateurs, five NCAA Division I Men’s Nationals, three Western Amateurs, and three Women’s Western Amateurs.

By 1959, The Broadmoor had already built a sterling reputation as a championship venue. Staging that year’s U.S. Amateur and seven other USGA championships burnished that reputation to a luster that should only get brighter with the 2025 U.S. Senior Open.

‘Every blade of grass needs to be perfect’

Hospitality tents will go up weeks before the event. A few weeks later, guests and members will be restricted to use the cart path only on the East Course and, for one week prior to the Open, they’ll only have access to the West Course. “With two courses, we can accommodate these restrictions,” Miller says. “We want to put our best foot forward and every blade of grass needs to be perfect.”

The players will all lodge and dine at The Broadmoor. “It’s a short walk for them, which they love,” Miller says. “Another thing is that the USGA has stepped up how it treats caddies—players and caddies will dine in the same location.”

As far as the course setup goes, the USGA’s Kimball will finalize the details with Dickman and Miller next fall. “He’ll take some areas out of play,” Dickman says. “And, in the months leading up to the Open, we’ll gradually narrow the fairways and possibly change some angles off the tee for different looks on the holes.”

Rough decisions

One difference, Dickman notes, might come with the 2021 departure of Mike Davis, the USGA’s longtime CEO and course setup advisor. Davis championed graduated rough (the 2018 U.S. Senior Open featured as many as three cuts on some holes) and at least one potentially reachable par 4. His successor, Mike Whan, leaves setup decisions to Kimball and Chief Championships Officer John Bodenhamer.

While graduated rough and The Broadmoor’s 331-yard, 2nd hole seem here to stay, some issues remain to consider.

Using the scoring data from the last two Opens, Miller knows that the par-4 10th and par-3 12th—both long holes that played downhill and downwind—were the first and second toughest holes in the last Open. Those are, respectively, the nos. 4 and 16 handicap holes on the course. However, with players averaging a half-shot over par on each, Miller and Dickman are looking at green firmness and other variables that may have spiked those numbers.

On par

Another issue is whether the 611-yard 17th hole, which contestants in the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open played as a par 5, will again be a 517- to 559-yard par 4 as it was in the ’08 and ’18 Senior Opens. That reduces par on the back nine to 34, after a par-36 front nine. In ’08, eight of holes 10 through 18 ranked in top nine for highest scoring average. In ’18, it was seven. So why not stretch out 17 to create an exciting scoring opportunity down the stretch?

“For some reason, the USGA doesn’t like par-71 setups,” Miller says, which means he’d have to convert either the par-5 third or ninth—holes ranked, respectively, 17 and 18 in terms of difficulty—into a par 4. However, in 2022, at the first U.S. Senior Open with Whan as commissioner, par at Saucon Valley was 71. So, 17 could become a