BETHESDA, Md. — Golf’s second major championship of the year seems to have a new name.
It’s the U.S. Wide Open.
Only a small part of that is because of Tiger Woods. He’s not at Congressional because of injuries to his left leg, and he has been missing from the top of leaderboards for more than a year. This is the first U.S. Open since 1999 that Woods is not No. 1 in the world.
The top two players in the world ranking are Luke Donald and Lee Westwood, neither of whom has won a major. Parity has returned to golf so much so that 10 players have won the last 10 majors, and the last three major champions are still in their 20s.
But there’s another reason why the U.S. Open figures to be up for grabs when it gets underway today: No one is complaining.
Jack Nicklaus, a four-time U.S. Open champion, used to listen to players gripe about the narrow fairways, thick rough and rock-hard greens and rule them out of contention. Before long, it was a short field he had to beat.
Congressional isn’t getting much criticism this week. The last several years, the USGA has been trying make the U.S. Open live up to its reputation as the “toughest test in golf” without simply making the course as hard as it could.
“If you’re complaining about playing this course,” Padraig Harrington said Wednesday, “you’re complaining that you can’t hit the shots.”
The Irishman, who has fallen out of the top 50 in the world, spent his final day of practice with Masters runner-up Adam Scott and World Golf Championship winner Nick Watney. They’re part of a field loaded with players who have won something, but no one who has won everything.
The USGA didn’t have the course exactly as it wanted because of oppressive heat the week before that kept workers from cutting the greens as low as usual, fearful of them dying. Even so, there already were brown patches on some of them Wednesday.
Par 71 instead of 70.
The U.S. Open is giving up a stroke this year.
Par is 71 instead of 70 when the tournament starts today. The change came about when USGA decided that the sixth hole should be played as a par 5. It was a par 4 the previous two times the U.S. Open was played on famed Blue Course.
Phil Mickelson says it will test his decision-making. He calls it “a spot where you’ve got to decide, ‘Is this where I want to attack it?’ “
Return to Shinnecock.
The U.S. Open will return to Shinnecock Hills in 2018, heading back to a course that produced one of the most embarrassing final rounds in the tournament’s history.
Retief Goosen won by two shots over Mickelson in 2004 after a final round marred by greens that were almost too fast to play. At one point, officials had to sprinkle the seventh green simply to keep balls on the putting surface.
It was widely viewed as one of the worst days for the USGA, which prides itself on setting up the toughest courses in tournament golf. Even the USGA officials conceded they lost control of the course.
“Shinnecock is a challenging course to set up, and we certainly experienced that in 2004 when we let the course get away from us the last round,” USGA president Jim Hyler said.
Playing waiting game.
Emiliano Grillo learned at the start of the week he was the first alternate at Congressional.
His choice was to play the Monroe Invitational in Rochester, N.Y., or sit around Congressional for two days with hopes that someone withdraws. As an alternate, he is not allowed to play a practice round. So if he gets into the field, he would play his first Open without ever seeing the course before.
