Oakmont will be test like no other for Women’s Open July 8th, 2010
Used to be, we scribes and media snipers didnt have to experiment much with various live baits, work our way through the tackle box or fiddle with the lure selection.
It was real, reel easy.
On its face, Oakmont is a genteel country club. The course is something else. (Getty Images) Every year at one of the two national championships, it was simple to find somebody who would proclaim it to be the hardest U.S. Open course in history. Sometimes, they swallowed the bait without prompting, if not sang out a group response in 156-part harmony.
Then, philosophically, things changed over the past five years under the U.S. Golf Associations new rules and competition staff, which generally has made Open courses for both the men and women less Draconian, and arguably less dramatic. Grousing and griping disappeared, for the most part.
Before this weeks U.S. Womens Open, anyway, where Oakmont Country Club will almost certainly live down to its reputation as the most dastardly, cruel course in the country.
Nobody is hiding from that fact, and in a welcome switch reminiscent of the old days, they are actually embracing it. Even genial Mike Davis, who handles the course setup and agronomy particulars for the USGA, is fronting the chorus in singing a familiar Open lyric from years past.
“If Oakmont is firm,” Davis said this week, “it will be by far the hardest test the women have ever seen.”
Unlike on the railroad line and turnpike that run through the middle of Oakmont, which is situated a few miles outside Pittsburgh, the scores at th due north. Temperatures have soared into the 90s, and if it stays that way, the mercury readout will almost certainly match some of the scores.
By design, Open is supposed to be golfs toughest test, both between the ropes and between the ears, in major-championship golf. Hold it at Oakmont, and whole new levels of pain and suffering can be inflicted. Recall that in 2007, the sensory-overload sadists at Oakmont hosted the mens Open, and some members actually complained that the USGA made the course too easy. Mind you, Angel Cabrera ultimately won at 5 over, matching the highest winning total relative to par in 33 years, but members truly relish the clubs rep as the most killer track in the game.
Add that to the notion that, over the years, playing in the Open has been called akin to breaking into jail, tiptoeing through hell or extricating an electric eel from a bucket of slippery Gulf saltwater. OK, so I just added that last part, but that doesnt mean the characterizations wrong.
Its supposed to be like riding the meanest rodeo bull, and after a brief respite, this week is right back in our voyeurism and TV-watching wheelhouse. Well get to more of the hand-wringing particulars in a minute, but for you savvy golfniks, the most jarring information is contained in the following sentence: Oakmont will play to a projected course rating of 80.8 strokes with a slope of 147 for the Womens Open.
For comparison, a Golf Digest project recently estimated the ratings during the Masters at Augusta National to be 76.2 and 148. So, in other words, Oakmont has everything but hot coals.
Typical greens at a regular LPGA event, which are rarely overly punitive, run at around 10 or 11 feet on the Stimpmeter, the device that measures green speeds. By Tuesday, the greens are Oakmont were nearing a linoleum-like 14, or about 25 percent faster than the norm, and players were accidentally putting balls off the greens.
Oakmonts eighth will be one of the longest par 3s the Open players will see. (Getty Images) Newly minted world No. 1 Cristie Kerr, a former Open champion, won the last womens major by a record 12 shots and is playing the best golf of her career. Mentally, she is already prepared to take her antacids. For instance, she tried three times to hit a wedge out of a fairway bunker in practice and failed.
“This course really is about taking your medicine,” she said. “I said, You know what, being a hero is not going win this U.S. Open. Its whoever is going to take the medicine their best, save as many pars they can, and move on.
“Just try and save some pars, make some birdies, and just take your medicine. Youre going to have the patience of a saint here.”
The short game of somebody who cut a deal with the devil wouldnt hurt, either.
Davis has been asked myriad times to compare the setup to when the men played Oakmont three years ago, and only minor concessions have been made because of the differences in strength vs. the males, he said. The course has been trimmed by roughly 600 yards to 6,613, the greens are a shade softer and the rough isnt quite as deep.
But compared to what the women typically see at pushover layouts at regular events, its insufferably penal. At the first tee, they ought to hand out bandages with the scorecards.
“All in all, the goal for this week is to kind of replicate what happened in 2007,” Davis told a USGA video crew this week. “Oakmont might be the toughest test there is in the mens open, and we dont want it any different in the womens open.”
Select favorites were trying to psyche themselves into believing the setup might be advantageous for them in certain regards. Michelle Wie, who hits the ball fairly high, imparts some spin on the ball and is longer off the tee than the average female professional, might have a decent chance. She might also need some convincing.
“Yesterday we were like, Wow, these greens are firm and theyre only going to get firmer,” Wie said. “So, you know, I think that helps, I guess. Thats good.”
As long as shes sure. Oakmont, one of seven courses to stage both the mens and womens Open, hosted the latter in 1992, when Patty Sheehan won at 4 under. Unless it rains, its hard to envision anybody sniffing red numbers this week.
“Um, well, I played 18 today,” said Ai Miyazato, a four-time LPGA winner this year. “Seems like a really, really difficult golf course, like I never play like this situation, I guess.”
Players said there was a fair likelihood that some will be embarrassed this week by the numbers they are posting.
“I mean, everybody knows this golf course is hard,” Paula Creamer said. “Everybody knows theres not going to be 20 birdies made. I think its obvious thats not gonna happen. “You have to take what the golf course gives you. It wants you to do more, but you have to kind of, you know, be less aggressive. You cant be a hero. You have to go out there and just hit the fairway, hit the green, get your two-putt, and move on.”
If some figurative blood is shed this year, so be it.
“So will you see some higher scores? Absolutely,” Davis said. “But I also think that when we set up a golf course up, what were trying to do is identify a national champion.”
The forecast calls for a 60 percent chance of sto if the course isnt already dry-roasted by then.
“Its hot, its humid, its gross,” Creamer said, drawing some gallows-humor laughs. “You know, this golf course just eats you alive mentally. Its going to be the battle of the fittest, battle of whos going to stay the sharpest for 18 holes out there. “If you dont sleep well after every round out here, then somethings wrong with you.”