Golf”s major championship season is in the air all about Northern California as the 112th annual United States Open tees it up in a couple of Thursdays on June 14 at San Francisco”s Olympic Club. Believe it or not, tickets are still available although that may have more to do with the state of the economy than it does with local interest in the 2012 National Open.
An interesting story has been floating around the world of golf for the past few weeks. Golf columnist Dave Anderson asked well-known members of the PGA Champions Tour if they knew who had the most career major victories. Every one of those asked knew that Jack Nicklaus had 18 career majors, Tiger Woods was next with 14 major titles, Walter Hagen has 11 grand slam wins, and on and one.
Yet when those same senior golfers were asked who has won the largest number of senior majors, there were a whole lot more blank stares than there were accurate responses. Tom Watson stated that he didn”t know while Hale Irwin simply shrugged his shoulders. Watson and Irwin”s response are particularly intriguing because after Jack Nicklaus” eight senior major titles, Irwin has the second most with seven senior majors and Watson is tied for third alongside Gary Player with six major championship wins.
Also of interest is the fact that Gary Player feels he really has nine senior majors because he won the British Senior Open in 1988, 1990 and 1997. During those years, the British Senior wasn”t considered a major by the PGA Senior Tour. A further discrepancy is that Sam Snead has zero senior majors to his credit even though he did win the Senior PGA Championship six times between 1964 and 1973. The Senior PGA was first contested in 1937, yet it only counts as a senior major from 1980 onward, the inaugural season of the PGA Senior Tour.
The four majors of professional golf, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship, do not have the image issues of the PGA Senior Tour or, for that matter, the LPGA Tour. The seniors and the ladies have had five majors some years and four majors at other times, and they just so happen to come and go. The men”s professional majors have been etched in concrete ever since Gene Sarazen holed out that 4-wood for a double-eagle at the 1935 Masters. There is longevity as well as distinction in the arena of men”s professional golf majors.
The Masters is always contested the first weekend in April. It is always held at the Augusta National Golf Club, the iconic course designed by its founder, amateur great Bobby Jones alongside noted architect, Dr. Alister Mackenzie. The Masters features exotic Mackenzie greens with massive undulations. While the greens appear enormous in size, there are many false fronts as well as multiple quadrants, meaning that a well-struck iron can lead to a makeable birdie putt whereas an off-line approach could result in a 60-footer and a three-putt bogey. More often than not, the best putter wins the Masters at Augusta National.
The British Open, or the Open Championship as it is called everywhere else in the world of golf, is the oldest of the game”s majors, first contested at Prestwick on Scotland”s western coast in 1860. The British Open rotates from course to course in the same way that the PGA and the U.S. Open changes venues. The Open rotation is rigid, using four courses in Scotland, namely Troon, Carnoustie, Turnberry and Muirfiled, as well as English courses St. George, Hoylake, Lytham and St. Annes, and Birkdale. The Open Championship visits those facilities about once every 10 years. Every fifth year, the Open is held at the birthplace of golf, namely the Old Course at St. Andrews in northeastern Scotland.
The British Open is all about links golf. The trajectory of the ball must be controlled at the nine Open venues, all ocean-side courses. Putting is not the end all that it can be at the Masters and the U.S. Open. When all is said and done, it”s all about the weather. When the weather”s postcard perfect, as it was at the 1977 Open in Turnberry, then you have Tom Watson shooting 12-under-par to beat Nicklaus in the Duel in the Sun. When the ugly weather appears, you have something akin to the 1999 Open at Carnoustie with a three-way playoff at 6-over-par.
Without attempting to be too disparaging, the PGA Championship is the U.S. Open Lite. It often plays at traditional courses that have also hosted the U.S. Open such as Hazeltine, Medinah, Oak Hill and Winged Foot. It also does venture into the modern era when it plays at such locations as Whistling Straits, Valhalla, Sahalee and this year”s site, Kiawah Island. Scores are normally lower at PGA Championship sites as the rough isn”t as high or punitive, and the greens aren”t as diabolical. The PGA is definitely a major, but it”s the game”s fourth major.
The 2012 U.S. Open at San Francisco”s Olympic Club is being contested at a traditional site that will be hosting its fifth major. The Olympic Club is framed by tree-lined fairways. Many of the trees are 80 or more years old, so there”s no blasting it 30 yards off line and then hitting an open shot from another fairway like you can at the Masters. The fairways are always narrow, never more than 30 yards wide, and often much less. Lastly, the rough is punitive. You”d rather be in a greenside bunker instead of hitting a lob wedge from the high rough alongside the green.
Speaking of putting surfaces, the greens at Open venues are always fast. The Olympic Club features small greens, so iron play is crucial if you want to stay on the leaderboard. On occasion, the USGA has been accused of setting up the Open course as too difficult, too unplayable, and too diabolical, shades of the Olympic Club in 1998 and Shinnecock Hills in 2005. Nonetheless, someone is going to win and someone is going to get under par. The USGA folks claim they are merely trying to identify the game”s best golfer at the game”s most difficult major championship.
The U.S. Open comes to Northern California in 12 days. Expect a par fest with lots of up-and-down pars, lots of 12-foot par saves, and an eventual winner who is mentally tougher during those 72 holes than anyone else in the field. After all, it is the United States Open.
