Cervantes' Don Quixote occupies a special place in my hero lexicon. You have to love someone who dreams the impossible and has enough faith in himself to try.
I was playing golf a few weeks ago with a couple of friends at Pilgrim's Oak. That course can be a great deal of fun, but there are some hole locations that can make finishing a hole a battle of wills. On that particular day, the greens-keeper had decided to put the flagstick up front on Hole #11 (you can probably lie down across that green and touch the right and left fringes in that area of the green). Uphill second shot, and if you don't want to run your putt of the green (left or front), you have to land the ball about 3 feet short of the hole and pray that the ball stops in its own pitch mark....
.... which reminds me that this week the best golfers in the world will be returning to Pebble Beach for the U.S. Open (the USGA's prize of prizes, its showcase event). The USGA's currently getting pummeled by a number of PGA tour pros for their annual bungling of course setups for the U.S. Open. A number of players have also reportedly considered boycotting the U.S. Open in an attempt to rein in the USGA's penchant for protecting par as a meaningful 72-hole tournament score, even if they have to make the best players in the world look like complete fools on the international stage to do so. And therein lies the problem - there comes a point on many holes when a nice day on the links turns into complete and utter exasperation.
For us at Pilgrim's Oak, that exasperation just meant we were walking off the green with double bogeys for our futile efforts. We weren't on TV, we could laugh about it and shake our heads, and throw a dirty look to the greens-keeper who was watching from his cart behind the green as we went through. The competitors this week will be facing similar requirements on nearly every hole - lightning fast greens (cut twice, rolled and watered only minimally), and evil pin placements. The last time the USGA hosted the Open at Pebble, I can distinctly remember the evilness that is the 14th green (a long uphill par 5 in which the approach with a wedge is nothing but pure terror - big bunker on the left, false front on the right, pin usually up top on a plateau about the size of a damn picnic table).
Is it any wonder that there are threats of boycotts? In the professional arena, this week must be like having to swallow barium, spend an evening on the can all for the pleasure of enduring a colonoscopy. Frankly, I have a lot of respect for USGA winners - they usually pay a high price for that trophy.
All the same, the governing body of golf runs the thing, and if the PGA tour pros had their way, they'd like to have a chance to vent. No other major tournament approaches testing golfers the way the USGA does. In an era in which the ruling body has relaxed some of the rules and penalties to make the game more fun for the average golfer they have not indicated that the setup for Pebble Beach will be any different this year. If Pebble is right on the hairy edge of unplayable and winds kick up there could be a lot of angry players. That's not the right image for golf, the USGA, or the United States Open Championship. I think we'd rather have a group of around 10 players within 3 shots of the lead going into the final round with the players deciding their fate rather than the will of a bounce or a putt that just won't stop wandering until it trickles off the the green an back down the fairway. Here's hoping the course setup becomes a moot point this week.....
P.S..... and what a great tournament it was. Course setup was certainly demanding but no hole was impossible. There were a number of players (Rory for instance) that had trouble with the pin position on #14 on Friday when a shot just short and right of the hole found itself running all the way off the green, but the players knew what to expect there. At least this year the left bank of the green hadn't been shaved to run toward the out-of-bounds. Hats off to Gary, he deserved that win.