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OAKMONT, Pa. – If golf ever tests for steroids, Oakmont Country Club might have to be first in line. It’s a sheer brute, nothing less, and Thursday at the 107th U.S. Open, despite fairly favorable scoring conditions, it rendered plenty of damage to a stout field.
The good news is that Wednesday evening rains helped soften up the place, if you can believe it. The bad news? It’s only going to get tougher from here.
“That,” said Johnson Wagner, walking off after a 3-over 73, “is as easy as that course is going to play.”
Well, it could be boxing, with 11 more rounds to go.
There were so many big numbers popping onto the boards, one would have thought a Pennsylvania PowerBall game had broken out. Former U.S. Amateur champions Ryan Moore and Ricky Barnes each went for a snowman 8 on the par-5 12th hole.
They weren’t alone in their misery there. Most players can’t wait to get to the tee on a par 5. Here, on a hole that measures 667 from the tips, it’s like waiting in line to board the rollercoaster at Six Flags.
There are no penny candy stops along the route at Oakmont, no easy birdies to be had. They have 300-yard par 3s here and 300-yard par 4s, and to make a par at either usually means running away a happy man.
It is here at Oakmont that Phil Mickelson even has invented a new math. He says “relative” par is 288 (it is actually 280) and that “under par” will win the tournament. He’s thinking 286. Which, according to the “old math,” would be 6 over.
He also came up with an Oakmont formula that “four pars equals a birdie.”
(I must have been asleep in class the day that lesson was covered.)
At a place such as Oakmont, a little U.S. Open experience and savvy can go a long, long way. Plenty of big names got off to somewhat shaky starts on Thursday, but those who have been here before know the U.S. Open can be a long and winding road.
Luke Donald learned that lesson a year ago at the Open. A terrific driver of the golf ball, he stepped out at Winged Foot as one of the trendy new favorites, and promptly tried to steer his way around the golf course. That ploy quickly dissolved into an opening round of 78. It was something of a wake-up call. From there, nobody was better over three days in New York.
With a simple second-round 69 – a number most of these guys bump into in their sleep – he climbed all the way from 112th to 29th to enter the weekend. And despite his horrid start, he eventually tied for 12th, playing his way back into contention before time ran out.
Thursday at Oakmont, Donald shot 74, which wasn’t his best effort. But you know what? He’ll be just fine.
“You know, you never give up in a U.S. Open.,” he said. “Just keep your head down and keep plugging away.”
Padraig Harrington, a man who could have won last year’s U.S. Open by making pars on his final three holes, was in a similar situation. He’d just put forth his worst ballstriking round of the year, but at 73, five shots off Nick Dougherty’s leading pace, he knew he was OK.
“I don’t think I’ve done any damage,” he said, assessing where he stood. “Ernie (Els, with whom Harrington was paired) looked as if he played very good golf, and he shot 3 over. The guy who wins this tournament is going to shoot 73 at least one day.”
The U.S. Open, to borrow the sage catchphrase of Tiger Woods and friends, is what it is.
“You can play good golf and be hugging par, or you can play marginal golf and shoot 80,” said Olin Browne, who shot 71. “That’s just how difficult it is.”
Accepting the week’s assignment as one that at times will get the best of a player is exactly why guys like Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh will be there at the end at Oakmont. Because they’ve stepped into this bubbling cauldron before, and realize over the course of 72 holes they will encounter a smorgasbord of incredibly bad breaks, near-impossible lies, and four-dimensional putts that curl so much they couldn’t be made with a PlayStation joystick.
For those new to the U.S. Open scene, being mired in Bogeyville always the toughest thing to swallow. The score keeps rising, and soon, too, does the heart rate.
First-time Open participant Jeff Golden, a 22-year-old amateur fresh out of Rollins College outside Orlando, Fla., felt his world spinning out of control early on Thursday. He played his first 10 holes in 9 over, and for the first time since he was a tike, even started thinking about whether he’d break 90.
What does it compare to? He thought for a second. Well, nothing, he said.
And he’s right. There’s nothing else quite like it.
“We’re playing on another planet here,” Golden said after bringing his score back to respectability, shooting 82. Former British Open champion Todd Hamilton shot 81, the same number two-time U.S. Senior Open champion Allen Doyle and Rod Pampling posted. Sergio Garcia and Henrik Stenson popped for 79.
“It’s not even golf,” Golden said, smiling. “You hit a bad shot, and you’re like, gone. Lost. It’s not golf at all. It’s survival. It really takes perfection ... which not too many people can do.”
Tiger is the closest a golfer ever gets to such a concept, and he knows perfection is something even he never will find at a U.S. Open.
At the Open, there are no style points, simply survival points.
And to the one who survives best, a nice, shiny trophy and a coveted piece of history await to take back across one of those myriad Pittsburgh bridges come Sunday night.
Ben Hogan captured a U.S. Open here, followed by Hall of Famers in his wake: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Larry Nelson, Ernie Els.
Who will follow? To believe it won’t be the very best cream that rises is to not know Oakmont very well. That math is nothing new.
Posted: 6/14/2007
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