This Peter Williams/New Zealand Herald column elaborates on the point that I’ve been making about the draconian setups for the U.S. Open courses that the United States Golf Association has been inflicting over the past couple of years on the competitors:
Golf, like all sports, is in the entertainment business. Its money comes through being an exciting spectacle on television.
The best TV sport is always when the best players perform at their optimum in conditions fair to everyone. I don’t think those conditions prevailed at Augusta in April and certainly not at Oakmont last week. In two major championships this year, nobody has finished under par. That’s entertainment? Give me a break. It’s survival and not much fun to watch or play.
The story goes that after Johnny Miller shot 63 to win the 1973 US Open at Oakmont, the USGA and Oakmont membership vowed that never again would they be embarrassed by somebody ripping a championship course apart.
Embarrassed? That was brilliant play; engaging, exciting and still talked about 35 years later. Will they be talking about the 2007 US Open in 2042? About the greatest player of all time not able to make a birdie in his last 32 holes because of greens so fast you couldn’t hit a putt firmly enough to hold the line?
Read the entire column.
I have to agree with you on this one.
I liked it better when US championships were about who could shot the lowest under par and the British Open was all about high scores and grinding out a rough tournament. Not that they didn’t grind out in US majors; the play just didn’t look as painful back in the 90s as it does now.
One rough tourny per year was entertaining but it gets stressful watching the best in the world grind it out like some amateur playing in their first major.