I Miss The Old U.S. Open

Maybe it’s only nostalgia. Maybe it’s totally irrational. In fact, I know it’s irrational.

I miss the old U.S. Open.

I grew up watching U.S. Opens where players came to the course with a real fear of being embarrassed by an excruciatingly difficult (and sometimes blatantly unfair) setup.

While the Masters has always been about drama, the PGA Championship about fairness and the Open Championship about romance, the U.S. Open once represented brutality. It was punitive to an extreme, a survival test and a war of mental attrition rather than a well-balanced golf tournament with a priority on identifying the “best” player.

In my opinion, the zenith of this era came in 2005 at Pinehurst, host of next week’s U.S. Open. Michael Campbell, a relative unknown, hung on to win at even par but that Sunday is better remembered for its carnage.

Cinderella story Jason Gore (84) and defending champion Retief Goosen (81) combined to go 25-over in the final pairing. The final round scoring average was 78.7, the highest since 1972.

The margins were so thin. If you weren’t playing well, you didn’t make it off the course alive. World-class players were looking like fools around Pinehurst’s treacherous greens. Missed fairways were incredibly penalizing.

Birdies were a huge deal, pars were a great score and bogeys weren’t all that demoralizing.

That form of sadistic pleasure was something I looked forward to each year. Would I want to watch it every week on the PGA Tour? Absolutely not. But seeing everyone struggle mightily once per year? Sign me up.

Shinnecock. Olympic. Winged Foot. Oakmont. Merion.

The courses were winning and the players had to figure out how to avoid catastrophe. Large numbers and terrible collapses loomed. The USGA pushed courses over the line and everyone complained.

There was entertainment and intrigue in that. Who was mentally tough enough to navigate all these landmines? Who would break down because of the pressure?

Some may have found it boring or monotonous but I just wanted to see the best players uncomfortable. I wanted to see them shoot 80 if they weren’t playing well. For someone to run the gauntlet and win a U.S. Open—it felt like it really meant something beyond a typical major championship.

That old U.S. Open mentality started to fade as the 2010s went along. The equipment got better and a new generation of players mastered that equipment. After 2018 at Shinnecock when the USGA got a little reckless with a couple hole locations, the setups started to become more reasonable. Some of the association’s leadership changed and the appetite for pushing players to the brink started to diminish.

The aim became “let’s make this hard but not hard enough for anyone to reasonably complain about it.”

In the five U.S. Opens since Shinnecock in 2018, the winning scores are averaging around 8-under. Player complaints are minimal. The courses are difficult but lack the ferocity that makes pro golfers sweat going to bed the night before.

This era of U.S. Open is probably better in terms of a fair and proper tournament. Truth be told, I would do the same thing if I was the USGA. I would set the course up so my organization wasn’t making (as many) controversial headlines.

I’m not sure they could even return to that old U.S. Open era if they wanted to. The greens would have to turn into my driveway. Thick rough and long par-4s don’t accomplish the same job anymore. Technology has drastically changed how the game is played at the highest level.

In the 1999 U.S. Open when Payne Stewart beat Phil Mickelson, the 489-yard par-4 16th hole was nearly impossible. Players were hitting 2-irons and 3-woods for their second shot. The green was virtually unhittable in regulation, leading to this comical graphic.

You should go back and watch the whole final round. The 16th was the longest par-4 in U.S. Open history at the time. The hole is now 530 yards and players will probably be hitting mid to short irons unless it’s back into the wind.

And maybe that is why the U.S. Open feels like it’s in a new era. Two guys shot 62 last year. Scoring records were set. The final hole at Los Angeles Country Club was a wide-open par-4 that allowed champion Wyndham Clark to blow it off the planet and still hit the fairway.

It is still a great major championship played on historic venues. Pinehurst No. 2 is one of my favorite courses. It’s a more interesting layout after the 2010 restoration brought back sandy areas instead of wall-to-wall rough. It will be a better tournament at identifying the best golfer. We’re in store for a phenomenal tournament.

But damn rationality. I have to say it: I really miss when the U.S. Open made these guys bleed.