Plotting a dangerous course
TCC layout will challenge the world's best players
There will be a distinctive local flavor when Wellesley amateur Michael Thorbjornsen launches the opening shot of the 122nd U. S. Open off the first tee at 6:45 Thursday morning.
Fran Quinn of Holden, who got through both local and final qualifying, will have the honor off the 10th.
Accuracy off the tee will be at a premium over the next four days as the 156-player field contends with The Country Club, which has a reputation as a second-shot golf course thanks to golfers having to negotiate its small, treacherous greens.
Inability to find the fairway off the tee will make it nearly impossible to control the golf ball and keep it below the flagstick.
Players have given largely positive reviews to the layout. This will be the first time this routing has been used. A short par 4 was removed — the fourth hole from when the U. S. Open was last contested here in 1988.
In its place is the very short par-3 11th, listed at 131 yards but playable at less than 100 yards, which has been inserted into the routing for the first time since The Country Club first hosted the event in 1913, when 20-year-old amateur Francis Ouimet defeated Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in an 18-hole playoff.
“It’s probably my favorite U.S. Open venue I think I’ve been to,” Cameron Smith said earlier in the week. “Lots of options off the tee. Have to strike the ball well, obviously. Yeah, just a real typical old school course. I love it.”
The Australian ranked sixth in the world is making his seventh start at the Open and finished tied for fourth in his debut at Chambers Bay in 2015.
“The golf course is great. It’s in great condition, the setup is great,” said Kevin Na. “I think it’s playing difficult, but fair. I think it’s going to be a good test.”
There are five blind tee shots — Nos. 3, 4, 10, 13 and 15 — to contend
with, and all are par 4s of at least 490 yards, with the exception No. 13 at 450 yards. That means if players miss those fairways, it will be next to impossible to reach the green.
The Country Club also presents opportunities for a wedge or short iron for the second shot as five of the par 4s are 450 yards or less, including the drivable fifth at just 310 yards.
“It seems pretty playable off the tee,” 2011 U.S. Open winner Rory Mcilroy said earlier in the week. “There’s some rough, but if you just miss a fairway, you can certainly get it to the green. You’re going to lose control of your ball and not be able to spin it into the greens.”
Spinning it into greens becomes important because the greens at TCC slope from back to front — with the exception of the par-3 sixth — and will be lightning fast.
Downhill putts will be especially problematic.
The graduated rough is expected to be about 5½to-6 inches deep around the greens, and the wiry fescue is thick for early in the season and can shut the clubhead down quickly and compound mistakes.
“One, two, three, four is a brutal start,” said Jim Furyk, who won the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields and was part of the winning United States Ryder Cup team in the “Battle at Brookline” in 1999. “If you get through that, you’ve got some opportunities with some shorter clubs in your hand. Not that you’re attacking, these greens still jump up and bite you.”
The chance to gain ground will be on the final five holes of the front nine. The short fifth, which has four bunkers guarding the front of the green bisected by a neck about 10 yards wide.
“I think you get it up there,” New Englander Keegan Bradley said of the approach he will take. “Unless it’s blowing hard in, but the second shot if you lay up is completely blind. If you lay too far back, you can’t even see the flag. You’re hitting up at sky, there’s no trees behind or anything.”
The 557-yard, par-5 eighth typically plays downwind and is reachable in two for most players if they can find the fairway off the tee. If they come up short on their approach to the elevated green, the upslope to the green will cause balls to roll 40 yards back.
On the back nine, the 373yard 17th has played pivotal roles in the previous three Opens, including in the 1913 playoff when Ouimet birdied it in both the final round and again in the playoff while Vardon made a double bogey in the final round and both British pros made bogey in the playoff.
“This course and the history of Francis Ouimet, 1913,” Mcilroy said. “That’s what’s so good about golf is the history and the tradition and these stories. The fact that he grew up just off the 17th hole here and we’re still talking about it to this day over 100 years on. That’s so cool. That’s the great thing about this sport.”
Each of the three previous Opens at TCC have required an 18-hole playoff to determine a champion, Ouimet, Julius Boros in 1963 and Curtis Strange in 1988. Should a playoff be required this time, a two-hole aggregate will be held on Nos. 1 and 18, which follows the former horse track that predated the club’s founding in 1882.
USGA Chief Championships Officer John Bodenhamer said the player who has played the different shots that figure to come up during practice rounds and previous scouting trips should have the best chance to take home the gold Nicklaus Medal, the silver trophy and $3.15 million.
“Francis Ouimet said in playing this golf course well, it takes a lot of knowing,” Bodenhamer said. “So those that have done their homework, some came in early months ago, last week, I think it’ll pay dividends.”