US Open Preview Thoughts

Oakmont is going to be a bitch. I say that because this is a blog and not a more polished column, but it's true. And every player knows it. There have predictions in a winning score from +4 from Tiger Woods to +10 from Vijay Singh. Oakmont's head pro mysteriously believes that a winning score could even broach the skin of par, but I honestly don't think that will be a reality even after day one.

It is interesting that Johnny Miller's triumph almost 35 years ago at Oakmont then led into the first Massacre at Winged Foot. The second Massacre, last year's horrific US Open, was the opening act to whatever will happen this week at Oakmont. I don't think that the tournament this year will be any more trying than last year was for the players. And I certainly don't think that Oakmont is set up to yield a lot of good scores.

Sergio Garcia said he honestly feels the golf course should be played as a par 78. 78 is 8 over par. That means - in his mind - if he does better than +32 for 72 holes, then he has managed something extraordinary. That may be taking it a little too far, but this golf course probably is a par 74 or 75. If someone were to then fire 288, or 72 in each round, then he would be in the -8 range.

That is how I'm going to think about par this week. But, the setup at Oakmont, the USGA's commitment to par, and what happened at Bay Hill this year is leading into a larger discussion about the meaning of par. Really, no matter how many over par some player is at the end of the week, somebody has to win. That somebody is the person that completes 72 holes in the fewest number of strokes. So, that is par - the goal players are striving to achieve.

In the end, par is what you make of it. It will help guide the players to some extent for expectations, but I think that guiding force will go out the window for every player when they get into the tournament. We may be seeing the redefinition of championship par this week and that may become a bigger storyline than the tournament itself.