The 19^th Hole

June 20, 2007

Same Result, Better Presentation

Last year, Geoff Ogilvy won the United States Open at Winged Foot with a winning score of five over par 275.  He did so in what has been dubbed the Massacre at Winged Foot II.  The first Massacre happened in 1974, when Hale Irwin prevailed at the US Open champion that year on +7.  Winged Foot played host in 1974 just one year removed from the ’73 Open held at Oakmont.  In that year, Johnny Miller won the tournament by firing a final round of 63 that is still considered to be the greatest final round in the history of the championship.

This year, Oakmont had an opportunity to be the host to a massacre of its own.  This time, it was hosting on the heels of Winged Foot with a setup that appeared to be much more difficult than that of Winged Foot last year.  Oakmont is arguably the most difficult golf course in the world on its own.  With USGA intervention and tweaking specifically for the Open, many players and observers were predicting scoring conditions to be much worse than Winged Foot.

The signs of scoring before the tournament did nothing to assuage the minds of many that this Open could be the worst scoring in relationship to par in history.  Defending champion Ogilvy fired a practice round before the championship that was said to be in the low 80’s.  Phil Mickelson injured his wrist because practicing chip shots out of the deep, thick rough at Oakmont. 

Player prognostication for a winning score ranged from +4 from Tiger Woods to +10 from Vijay Singh – a figure he repeated multiple times so as to suggest that he actually did feel +10 would be good enough to win.  Sergio Garcia referred to the setup as playing to a realistic par of 78, a full eight shots higher than the stated number of 70.  Everyone seemingly was ready for a lot more frowns and obscenities at the Open than usual.

Then the tournament began.  Scoring every day was tough for the players.  The winning score was never expected to be better than par after Friday.  Rounds under par were just not there.  The fairways were firm and fast.  The greens left very little room for error.  And the rough was so strategically grown that it was almost as though the USGA knew exactly where players were planning on missing the ball so that they could never get up and down from certain spots.  It sounded a lot like Winged Foot, but on a much tougher layout.

The thing was, though, that Oakmont was nothing like Winged Foot.  Certainly both were incredibly difficult.  The significant difference between the two, though, is that the difficulty experienced by the players at Oakmont was largely received as being both fair and endemic naturally to the golf course.  Three decades prior, Lee Trevino said that Oakmont could host the US Open any day of the year.  That mantra still held true with the players and their respect for just how hard the course was.

Even better, the USGA learned its lesson from Winged Foot and Pinehurst 2 in 2005 when it came to pin placements.  As Tiger Woods said on Sunday in his post-round press conference, the USGA gave the players a chance at birdies throughout the week.  They would take precision from all aspects of a player’s arsenal, but there were no pin locations throughout the week where birdie was practically impossible. 

The scores at Oakmont felt more earned than what happened at Winged Foot.  Great shots at Winged Foot almost seemed to be more lucky breaks from the Almighty than skilled maneuvering.  The carnage at Winged Foot seemed to be imposed, whereas the damage done at Oakmont seemed to be much more self-inflicted.

In the end, the winning scores for both courses were exactly the same.  The record books will indicate that both Geoff Ogilvy and Angel Cabrera prevailed in the US Open at +5.  I assure you, though, that history will remember these championships in a completely different way.  In many ways, Ogilvy simply survived at Winged Foot.  On Sunday at Oakmont, Angel Cabrera – and even Jim Furyk and Tiger Woods – earned their way to their fate.  Cabrera may have had an out of body experience at times with some of his shotmaking, but it was all his doing that got him the championship.  Even in defeat, Furyk made a fantastic run to the top that resembled another Pennsylvanian.  The greatest player in the world summoned his usual guts, but he was beaten by a man and not by a course.

This US Open will hopefully be remembered as the one where the USGA got things back on the right track.  The past three Opens were a borderline disaster.  Were it not for Oakmont serving as host, this one could very well have been lumped into that conversation.  But, the USGA took the sculpture they were given and displayed it to the world without glaring alteration.  It made Oakmont and the US Open look more as they should appear – like a masterpiece.

Ryan Ballengee is host of The 19th Hole Golf Show, found at The Golf Newsnet.com.  Having graduated from the University of Maryland in 2004 and 2006, Ballengee brings the perspective of the younger golf fan to the microphone and his columns.  Over the nearly five years he has been broadcasting and writing, Ballengee has developed a reputation for a unique interviewing style that asks both the difficult and fun questions. You can also get The 19th Hole on the go through podcasting by clicking here The Golf Newsnet Contact Ryan via e-mail at the19thholeshow@hotmail.com.