Beware the mother of all golf courses

WINGED FOOT will be Winged

Foot, and that should be all it takes to produce a classic US Open golf championship in a year upended by Covid-19.

“This place tests every single aspect of your game,” Northern Ireland star McIlroy said of the Winged Foot West course in Mamaroneck, New York, where the 120th US Open tees off today in its unusual September time slot. “It’s all pretty tough.”

Tough enough that the US Golf Association, which prides itself on a national championship that is a “searching test” of every facet of a player’s game, will leave it up to the course to determine the champion, with no gimmicky set-up strategies.

“We will let Winged Foot be Winged Foot,“said the USGA’s head of championships John Bodenhamer, who added that he was inspired by comments from course architect AW Tillinghast, who was asked if the USGA would try to toughen up the course for the 1929 US Open.

“We’re not going to outfit Miss Winged Foot in any different way than she otherwise would be,” Tillinghast said.

“No fancy clothes, no special jewelry… just wash her face up for the party, and she’ll be good enough.”

Narrow fairways and rough ranging from three to five inches place a premium on accuracy off the tee. Subtly sloping greens make keeping the ball below the hole crucial.

“The golf course is in front of you,” said Gary Woodland, who finally has a chance to defend the US Open title he won in June of last year at Pebble Beach.

“There’s no tricks to it. You’ve just got to step up and hit good shots.”

With no spectators to trample down the rough – or offer clues to the whereabouts of errant balls – volunteer marshals will be on watch.

“So beware,” Bodenhamer said. “If you get it outside the rope lines this week, it’s going to be significant.” – AFP