Different Strokes: US Open success beckons

Alex Dimond - Golf Correspondent 16:37 03/06/2015
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    • Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson will be aiming for success at the US Open.

    The PGA Tour might be riding into Ohio for the Memorial Tournament this week, but it is the US Open that attention has already turned to for the biggest players in the game.

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    Muirfield Village might be one of the finest courses pros play all season on the US tour, and Jack Nicklaus about the most-respected host a tournament could possibly hope for (even Rory McIlroy and the Irish Open have a little way to go in that regard), but majors trump everything in modern golf—and it has become an accepted fact that the top pros always want to embark on the scouting missions in the weeks before the next major on the calendar.

    That is especially the case for this month’s US Open, which looks set to be an almost unprecedented challenge. It is a measure of how highly Chambers Bay, the site of this year’s event, is regarded by the USGA that it was awarded the US Open barely a year after it even opened in 2007.

    A course that will be new to most experienced professionals (it hosted the 2010 US Amateur, but that’s about it in its short life to date), with its links-style setup featuring heavy contoured fairways and vast tee boxes allowing organisers to change the feel of each hole dramatically from day-to-day (and, it has been reported, place tee markers on uphill or downhill lies for even greater difficulty), it is clear that as much knowledge as possible will need to be acquired prior to the year’s second major kicking off for those hoping to contend.

    Chambers Bay will host this year's US Open for the first time in history.

    Tiger Woods has been seen at the course twice already in the last 10 days—taking over three hours to complete the front nine alone on Monday—while Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy have also previously made visits to see the lay of the land (literally).

    It is a safe bet others have made the trip to Washington (the state, not the city), just perhaps without the same media fanfare.

    Last year’s event at Pinehurst, where the fairway blended into the rough and the whole course had a more ‘naturalistic’ feel, changed perceptions of what a US Open should be like, but nevertheless it seems Chambers Bay is likely to be an acquired taste for many—much more like an Open Championship layout than anything most players experience each week on the PGA Tour.

    It is also the first US Open ever to be played on fescue grass, a seemingly insignificant little detail that may cause players a few additional difficulties with their chipping and putting.

    “I have not been there,” Steve Stricker, who is still trying to qualify for the event, said this week. “Don’t know anything about it.  Just from what I’ve been hearing, it’s spectacular views.  The course I’ve heard mixed reviews on so far, but personally I haven’t been able to experience any of it.”

    Woods, who flew in and out via his private jet once again, apparently spent around 15 minutes on each green chipping and putting, assessing all the slopes of surfaces that the USGA are expected to allow to dry out over the course of the week and yield hard, fast conditions.

    “I think it’s great. It shows he cares,” course architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. told the Golf Channel. “This is the way the course is designed. The ball is going to move.”

    As a result, it is no surprise that those with the luxury of being able to pick and choose their tournament battles have already made efforts to acquaint themselves with what appears likely to be a unique test. Many will watch Memorial this week assessing form ahead of the US Open, but perhaps it is those who have already made the trip to Washington — or have been playing links golf recent in Europe — who we should start taking notice of.

    “After four days here at Royal County Down, it will make Chambers Bay look like it’s on steroids,” Ernie Els told Reuters at last week’s Irish Open. “This course was tricky but then I hear Chambers Bay is really tricky and I’m glad I played here this week as this will have been great practice heading up there to Washington State.

    “I’m sure when I get to Chambers Bay my links type game will be pretty sharp.”

    It looks like it will have to be. 

    2. Swing changes the least of Caitlyn Jenner’s issues 
    Different Strokes likes to think it stands apart from the perception of modern digital media, interested not in what is ‘current’ and ‘popular’ and will attract ‘clicks’ but what is, well, interesting. So hopefully you will understand that when we want to talk about Caitlyn Jenner, it is absolutely certainly nothing to do with the fact she is the top trending topic on Twitter or the only celebrity anyone seems to care about at the moment.

    This week Caitlyn’s Vanity Fair cover was released, announcing her to the world in dramatic fashion. The full interview is yet to be released, but in a small excerpt the decathlete/reality television star formerly known as Bruce Jenner joked: “I’m not doing this so I can hit it off the women’s tees.”

    It seemed a throwaway remark (and, in truth, what male amateur hasn’t fantasized about how much better he would score if he played off the reds), but it seems Jenner’s transition could yet have a major impact on her golf, one of her favourite hobbies.

    According to TMZ Sports (you stay classy, TMZ Sports!), Jenner may find it harder to get her usual four-ball going at Sherwood Country Club, the course she has been a member at for 15 years.

    A source told TMZ the club remains heavily segregated along gender lines:

    For starters, the main dining room and bar are male only. They’re actually attached to the men’s locker room and women are not allowed. The women’s restaurant is way more scaled down … in other words, not nearly as nice.

    Our Sherwood sources say the board will enforce the rules, which means the camaraderie Bruce shared with the other members will be greatly impeded now that she’s Caitlyn.

    But we’re also told the board is open to an appeal by Caitlyn herself. She can attempt to make a case that she can keep the same privileges she had when she was Bruce.

    Apparently Sherwood is actually closed for redevelopment until December (now that’s a sign you are a one-percenter, when you can pay for membership to a golf club so exclusive it isn’t open for most of the year), delaying any confrontation for a period.

    Nevertheless, golf has had a long and well-discussed history of struggling with issues of gender politics far more black-and-white than in this instance. Perhaps this situation offers a high-profile chance for Sherwood Country Club, and by extension golf as a whole, to show a more progressive, understanding side.

    Or perhaps it can go the other way and reinforce decades of built-up perceptions about the game’s open-mindedness.

    Then again, according to Vanity Fair Jenner is planning a segment in her new reality show where she sees whether she can still hit a drive 300 yards, despite now having breasts. So there’s that too.

    3. You’re gonna die, clown!

    And finally, in news of contenders for golf-related tweet of the year, here’s last week’s Web.com event winner Kyle Thompson, who presumably stopped off at Subway before going to visit his grandma in the old people’s home.

    And on the subject of Mr. Gilmore, perhaps that clown would never have needed to die if only Happy had mad foot skills like the man known as Borgetti. Chubbs really missed the mark with his advice on that one…

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