US Open | The Open Course Is at Its Best

SAN DIEGO — Right in the middle of June, a cold sense of dread used to descend on the afternoon before the opening day at the United States Open. All out of preparation time and looking down the narrow fairways of another penal golf course layout, many of the 156 golfers were beaten right then, the day before they showed up on the tee looking as if they were in line for the root canal chair.

But that was then. The 108th United States Open, which begins Thursday at Torrey Pines Golf Course, arrives with a different, almost hopeful, vibe, a sense of anticipation that something special rides on the freshening breeze that blew away the coastal fog and poured sunshine across the golf course for the first time all week.

“There is nothing we can do now to make Torrey Pines play any better,” said Mike Davis, the senior director of rules and competition for the United States Golf Association. “Here it is Wednesday, and I almost wish today was a championship day because the greens are firm and the golf course is perfect.”

The whole scene is almost too good, bursting with story lines and intrigue. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott, the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 players in the world, will be on the tee at 8:06 a.m. here. Rarely is there an opportunity to see the best players perform for stakes this high on a test that most players agree is among the toughest and possibly the fairest United States Open setups in memory. All week, a procession of players has sung the same chorus of praise for Davis’s setup, so different from that sung on the eve of the Open in the old days that a gray-haired viewpoint is required for perspective.

“I was in Des Moines at a Champions Tour event the week before the sectional qualifier,” said 51-year-old Mark O’Meara, the winner of the Masters and the British Open in 1998 and of 16 PGA Tour events, including the 1997 Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines. “When we finished, I got in the car like the old days and drove five and a half hours to Chicago, got in at 11 o’clock on Sunday night for the 36-hole qualifier the next morning at Conway Farms.

“I was fortunate enough to shoot two 70s and get into the field. It’s pretty cool, cool to be here, to be honest with you, because this is Torrey Pines and it’s a special event, for sure. This setup is great — tough, but not so brutal there’s no chance if you miss a shot.”

Then there is the U.S.G.A. plan to move tees around to create variety in how the players approach the course. The thought of a hole playing 158 yards shorter one day to the next — as will happen at the 435-yard, par-4 14th hole when it plays as a 277-yard, reachable par 4 — would have been fanciful just a few years ago. [Read More...]