Does the U.S. Open have identity crisis?

Koepka’s win at Erin Hills had a different feel to it

in Erin, Wis.

What is the definition of a U.S. Open champion? Brooks Koepka is this year’s U.S. Open champion. He achieved the feat in record-tying fashion on Sunday, shooting 16-under par and saving his best for the back nine. He emerged from a tightly-packed leaderboard and seized the moment, which makes for an exciting championship. He did it on a stunning golf course that demands all sorts of shotmaking, which required an exciting player.

Why then, a day after the championship, is the golf world trying to figure out if we liked what we saw at the season’s second major?

For some, it’s because once a year at the U.S. Open they expect to see carnage and destruction on the golf course. They want to see the best players in the world curled up in a ball on the fairway.

That’s fine, but it’s not a great argument for the game of golf.

For me, we’re scratching our heads because somewhere over the years we’ve lost the definition of a U.S. Open champion. There used to be such a thing as a U.S. Open-type player. Some of them were guys you might not think much about at other majors. Guys like Corey Pavin or Lee Janzen.

At the U.S. Open, if you hit the ball straight and were a great putter, you maybe had a chance. That is, as long as you were resilient, toughas-nails, and patient. Payne Stewart and Hale Irwin had this rare mix of character traits. At Erin Hills, Brian Harman had it. All you had to do was look at his face when someone called him “diminutive” for the hundredth time to know it.

But, alas, those days are gone. The U.S. Open has subtly rebranded itself this year. It no longer wants to be known as The Toughest Test in Golf. It wants to be the The Ultimate Test in Golf. Tight fairways, diabolically thick rough, and nightmarish greens have been replaced by ever-changing hole yardages, 100 different tee boxes, and a game of chess against USGA executive director and course setup czar Mike Davis.

Davis is an impressively thoughtful man, he is incredibly passionate about the game of golf and probably stays awake at night thinking about how to make the game better. He once said that he spent days as a kid drawing up golf holes in his backyard. Thing is, Davis’ sandbox is now the U.S. Open and not everybody likes the games played at his house.

The U.S. Open at Chambers Bay in 2015, which, like Erin Hills, had Davis’ fingerprints all over it, was supposed to be a links-style test but played more like a game of golf pinball in the fairways, and that was before the fescue grass on the greens died and led to endless ridicule.

A year earlier, the U.S. Open went back to iconic Pinehurst No. 2, which had been revamped to its Sandhills past and had all of the rough replaced by sand and wispy grass. The golf historian and environmental steward Davis loved it, problem was, the players played easily out of the naturalized areas. American Brooks Koepka poses with the winning trophy in front of the U.S. Open scoreboard after winning golf’s second major in Erin, Wis. on Sunday. The famous greens provided plenty of difficulty but the iconic shot of the championship was winner Martin Kaymer’s 205-yard 7-iron from 30 yards off the fairway to set up an eagle. Great shotmaking indeed, but making eagle from 30 yards off the fairway was a shot not possible in any previous U.S. Open.

If you wanted windswept golf with great recovery shots and a healthy dose of chance (or the rub of the green), you watched the British Open. At that championship there also is a particular type of player who has a unique chance to win. If you can play the ball on the ground, negotiate the elements, and be able to chuckle at the golf gods’ menace, you might one day drink from the Claret Jug.

For more than a century there were two distinct styles of play and sets of skills that would help at each of golf’s two biggest national Opens. And every generation, there were a handful of truly special players who had the game to win at both. Trying to survive the crucible of the U.S. Open yet flourish in the adventure of the British Open was, the original, ultimate test in golf.

By bringing the championship all over America with a new slogan and new philosophy, the U.S. Open hopes to grow the game and find new fans. If it’s not careful, though, it might lose itself along the way.