FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- In the wake of Thursday's no rain-check ticket fiasco, the USGA, as you likely know, reversed course and announced on Friday that Thursday tickets will be honored on Monday, if the U.S. Open extends through Monday, which it well could. Thursday ticket-holders can get a 50-percent refund if the tournament ends on Sunday.

On Saturday, the USGA made another grand gesture: anybody who has a ticket to the 109th U.S. Open can bring the ticket, or ticket receipt, to the USGA headquarters in Far Hills, N.J., for free admission to the USGA museum. The museum, the oldest sports museum in the United States, has excellent displays on various USGA champions, including Arnold Palmer, Betsy Rawls, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam, among others. The normal admission charge is $7.

There's also a history of the ball and other equipment and a raft of historic clubs. Attached to the museum is a nine-hole, wildly undulating putting green, designed by the architect Gil Hanse, that museum-goers may play for $5, a fee that includes a replica of a 1913 golf ball. You play the course with putters from yesteryear provided by the museum, including a replica of Calamity Jane, the putter Bobby Jones used when winning the Grand Slam in 1930.