Why Golfers Should Embrace The Challenge of The US Open

View From The Fairway by Derek Clements

In January we saw Hideki Matsuyama win the Sentry Tournament of Champions with a scarcely-credible total of 35-under-par. In May, Scottie Scheffler romped to the CJ Cup Byron Nelson with a 72-hole total of 253, 31-under-par.

Week in, week out, we see the leading players on the PGA Tour making birdies for fun. They stand on tees knowing that it doesn’t matter if they miss the fairway because there will be little or no rough to punish wayward drives, fairway bunkers will have little or no lips and greens will be heavily watered - and that means that they are effectively playing target golf.

Even the courses that host The Open Championship have little or no defence if there is no wind. 

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And then along comes the US Open - and everything changes. For four days every year we see the world’s finest golfers being driven to the edge of distraction by rock-hard greens, with pins in near-impossible places. Fairways are narrow and guess what? There is actual proper rough. Sometimes they even lose balls. Sometimes they find their ball and wish it had been lost, such are the lies that they find.

To make matters worse, the tournament is usually played in brutally hot weather with punishing humidity. It is not for the faint of heart.

The US Open is the one tournament of the year where you can just about guarantee that if you end the week anywhere close to par then you know you are going to be there or thereabouts. It provides a proper test - and I for one love it. For me, it is a proper golf tournament, one that provides these players with the sort of test that the rest of us face every time we play.

This week’s tournament is being played at Oakmont, which just happens to be one of the most brutal tests on the planet. 

It will be fascinating to see how the likes of Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm, who are not best known for their ability to take adversity in their stride, cope with it all. There will be temper tantrums, there will be complaints. You can bet your bottom dollar that you will be watching interviews where players moan about how unfair it all is. But somebody will master it - and to do so they are going to have to find plenty of fairways, hole a lot of putts and enjoy a touch of good fortune.

For sure we will still see some astonishing shots. However, there will also be plenty of disasters. Guaranteed.

The 156 players in the field may not want to hear this but Oakmont is the toughest US Open venue in almost 50 years. When the tournament was held there in 2007 the average score was, wait for it, 75.42 on a course that is a par 70.

Gene Sarazen once said of it: "Oakmont possesses all the charm of a sock to the head." The fastest greens in major championship golf, more than 200 bunkers, heavy rough and ditches led to Angel Cabrera’s winning total of five-over 285. And it was even worse in 1927 and 1935, when 301 and 299 were the winning scores.

But even more difficult was Atlanta Athletic Club in Georgia in 1976, where the scoring average on the par 70 was 75.47.

It was the first time that the US Open had been staged in the southeast and it was like playing in an oven. That was bad enough, but the players also had to contend with thick Bermuda rough. Mike Reid was the only golfer to break par in the opening round with a 67 and the players spent the week telling anybody who would listen that the rough was too thick. It turned out that they were right - new mowers had been set incorrectly! However, Jerry Pate was able to master the conditions, winning with a three-under-par 277 total.

What about Winged Foot in 1974? It is safe to say that not many golfers who played that week had fond memories of the course. Another par 70, the scoring average for the week was 76.99, mainly due to greens that were so firm that it was nearly impossible to stop the ball.

Jack Nicklaus was once asked to rate several famous courses on a scale of difficulty from 1 to 10. He rated Winged Foot as "1, maybe 12." Hale Irwin won with seven-over-par 287, and Dick Schaap titled his tournament book, "Massacre at Winged Foot."

Southern Hills Country Club in 1958 broke many hearts with a scoring average of 77.92, despite only being a par 70. Tommy Bolt was known for his temper but he somehow managed to hold it together that week to win with a three-over-par total in a week where just three golfers managed to break 290. The tournament became known as the "Blast Furnace Open" because of the heat and scorching wind. It didn’t help that the bunkers were full of sand that was so soft that almost every ball that landed in them was plugged.

It was the rough that dominated the headlines at the Olympic Club in San Francisco in 1955, where the scoring average was 78.72, making it the toughest course over the past 70 years. There was no water and just one fairway bunker but the rough was so thick that Sam Snead said of it: "The strongest man in the world can’t hit the thing 10 feet out of some of this grass." Little-known Jack Fleck kept it in play and finished level with Ben Hogan on seven over par after 72 holes before shooting a 67 in the playoff to win by two.

I cannot wait for the fun and games to begin...

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