125th U. S. Open Championship

"Just by the hair of your chinny chin chin."

Michael O’Bryon ©, Oakmont No. 9

Dear Subscriber:

Oakmont is always the most severe test for identifying our national champion. Difficulty is planned, instituted, and expected. Additionally, administrative oversights by golf’s governing bodies, which permit performance advances of the ball and implements, necessitate the more penal characteristics of major championship golf course set-up in order to hide those performance regulation failures. Five-inch rough around flat-bedded bunkers, fescue-lined ditches, and putting greens, also surrounded by five-inch rough, that repel rather than gather are all elements that hide the advantages of 350-yard drives and 210-yard eight irons.

What is not so carefully planned is what happens when the course set-up is impacted by drought, rain, and wind. As one 40-year U.S. Open observer commented:

The U.S.G.A. loves pushing a course to the brink e.g. Shinnecock in 2004 [when the greens had to be watered between groups on the final day so balls were able to remain on the putting surfaces]; or the five-inch rough this year [that made recovery not just penal but often a two stroke penalty].

But they never seem ready for the consequences when Nature joins the party.