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Narrow fairways. Thick rough. Long par 3s. And steeply pitched
greens that slope and move like Augusta National’s and are so nuanced
that the Golf Channel’s Arron Oberholser (T16 in ’06) predicts they will
be very hard to learn in a matter of days, or even over the course of
the week.
Then there’s the finishing stretch of 16, 17 and 18 – three exceedingly difficult par 4s.
“Of
the three U.S. Opens that I played before I hurt myself,” Oberholser
says, “there was no finish like it, nothing that difficult. If you get
it done at Winged Foot, you are earning it.”
The thing about
Winged Foot, say Oberholser and others who know it, is that it can be
very hard to stop making bogeys once you start. (Harrington can attest
to that.)
“It was your typical old-school U.S. Open,” Furyk says
of ’06, when he missed a 5-foot par putt on 18 that would have forced a
playoff. “Tight fairways, heavy rough, have to get the ball in play. It
puts stress on you over and over and over again. It’s going to withstand
the test of time.”
Thomas calls Winged Foot really hard but also
fair and “not tricked up” and “right in front of you.” Webb Simpson, who
lost in the first round of match play at the 2004 U.S. Amateur at
Winged Foot, sang a similar refrain when asked about the course.
“I
love it,” Simpson said. “I feel like it’s just a brutally hard golf
course, but they do it the right way. We come to a lot of these courses
and they’ve got bunkers, you carry it at 295 or 300. Winged Foot, it’s
like Harding Park, it’s right in front of you. It’s long, it’s hard,
there’s really not a whole lot of birdie holes, so I think that’s a
perfect venue for a U.S. Open golf course.”
Of
the five U.S. Opens at Winged Foot, ’74 was probably the hardest
(especially with old equipment), but ’06 was hardest to watch. Other
than the 1999 Open Championship (Jean Van de Velde) it might be the most
“lost” major ever, a sort of golfing five-car pileup from which only
one man walked away. Not for nothing was it dubbed the Massacre at
Winged Foot II.
Few remember the misadventures of Harrington, Furyk and Montgomerie. They just remember
Mickelson making double-bogey on the last hole of the tournament after
hitting his tee shot off a hospitality tent, then trying a crazy second
shot that turned out more die than do.
“I am still
in shock that I did that,” he said. “I just can’t believe that I did
that. I’m such an idiot.” Now 50, he has been U.S. Open runner-up a
dispiriting six times.
Winged Foot is just 30 minutes north of New
York City, about which Frank Sinatra crooned, “If I can make it there,
I’ll make it anywhere.” A Winged Foot U.S. Open is the golfing
equivalent of that – take crazy weather out of the equation and there’s
just no tougher test.
“I hit a lot of fairways and consequently
hit a lot of greens,” says Irwin, who would win two more U.S. Opens
among his 20 TOUR wins. “So those kinds of courses were less problematic
for me than they were for other people, and my career showed that.
“But
that kind of a win can propel you on,” he added when prompted by the
Sinatra line about New York. “Once you’ve come through a Winged Foot
situation, other than coming up against terrible weather, you’re not
going to encounter much that’s more difficult than that.”
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Source: PGA tour
