U.S. Open is not as tough in this era

A year ago this week, Brooks Koepka won the U.S. Open Golf Championship by four strokes, shooting 16-under par at Erin Hills in Wisconsin.

Wait. Who? What? Where?

That’s right. The U.S. Open was reduced to the Phoenix Open. Or the Bob Hope Desert Classic. Dustin Johnson won the FedEx St. Jude Classic by six strokes Sunday, shooting 19-under. What’s the difference?

The 2018 U.S. Open arrives this week at Shinnecock Hills, and we have to hope that the U.S. Golf Association has been sufficiently shamed. Its great championship no more stood out last year than does the John Deere Classic.

Time was, the U.S. Open was different. It wasn’t a shooting gallery. It wasn’t wide fairways and navigable greens. Time was, the U.S. Open made the game’s greatest golfers quake. Par was a fantastic score. Under par was worthy of a parade.

In the 1970s, four times the U.S. Open champ finished over par, including a couple of winners who could play a little golf — Hale Irwin and Jack Nicklaus.

Same thing in the 1960s — four winners over par, including Gary Player.

The final six U.S. Open champs of the 1950s finished over par, including Tommy Bolt in 1958 at Tulsa’s Southern Hills.

And earlier this decade, the U.S. Open had back-to-back winners at 1-over par — Webb Simpson in 2012 at Olympic and Justin Rose at Merion.

But 16-under? That’s not the U.S. Open. That’s the Greater Greensboro Open.

Some blame it on the new courses, like Erin Hills and Chambers Bay, which hosted the 2014 U.S. Open. Both were built in the 21st century.

But Chambers Bay held up OK — Jordan Spieth won there three years ago at 5-under. We can live with 5-under. We can’t live with 16-under.

Some blame it on technology and how the courses haven’t kept up with the sport. No doubt some truth to that, though most courses have tee boxes that can be moved, creating longer holes and more different angles.

Some blame it on the USGA going soft and relenting to the constant complaining by golfers, who were frustrated by the likes of Winged Foot, where in ’74 Irwin won the U.S. Open at 7-over.

Whatever the case, perhaps Erin Hills was the tipping point. It’s one thing when Rory McIlroy tears up Congressional, as he did in 2011, winning the U.S. Open at 16-under, by eight strokes; or Martin Kaymer tears up Pinehurst, as he did in 2014, winning the U.S. Open at 9-under, by eight strokes; or Tiger Woods tears up Pebble Beach, as he did in 2000, winning the U.S. Open at 12-under, by 15 strokes.

It’s quite another when the whole danged field tears up the course.

Forty-two players were under par after two rounds. Thirty-one players finished under par. Seven of them were in double-digits.

That is not the U.S. Open of Hogan and Nicklaus and Player and Irwin. That’s not the U.S. Open that requires straight drives and just finding any part of a green.

Perhaps the USGA realizes the errors of its ways. Perhaps we’ll go back to the previous U.S. Opens at Shinnecock, where Retief Goosen won with a 4-under in 2004, and Corey Pavin won at even par in 1995, and Raymond Floyd won at 1-under in 1986 in what I consider the greatest U.S. Open of them all.

Maybe we can’t go back to 7-over par at Winged Foot. But can we at least avoid a 16-under at Erin Hills?