By accident, a super US Open

How did we like the new, kinder, gentler US Open?

The deserving champion, Gary Woodland, quite obviously loved it, but there are plenty of sadistic traditionalists who missed the USGA’s customary brutality at this event, even if it usually makes for a spectacle every bit as grim to watch as it obviously is to play.

I thought this year we had a fascinating championship, in extremely favourable playing conditions, with plenty to keep everyone who likes attacking golf entertained. In fact, the USGA got what it seemed to have been striving for in some recent years at Chambers Bay, Erin Hills and Shinnecock – a US Open that played pretty much just like the Open Championship does.

A winning score of -13 isn’t “too easy”, it’s normal. The obsession with manipulating a course and conditions to produce a 280 aggregate is what caused all the myriad of problems at the US Open in recent years in the first place.

I have no doubt the USGA’s intention for the week was a champion scrambling to the trophy at level par.

But a combination of circumstances, primarily the moist weather and the absolute terror of the blue blazers at the thought of mucking things up again gave us, mostly by accident, a first class US Open.

The season to end streaks

We in the golf media pore over outcomes incessantly trying to find trends that will make us look smart when they’re repeated.

This year, it seems the fates are not complying.

Gary Woodhead had a terrible record in closing out 54-hole leads – no victories in any of the seven occasions he’d led going into the final 18.

The most recent was last year’s PGA Championship at Bellerive, where he was easily reeled in by Brooks Koepka, so no wonder most expected the same to occur on Sunday.

But Woodhead was far from a dud; he’d won on three other occasions. What he clearly did on Sunday was to play as if he was chasing rather than defending.

Bold shots at 11, 14 and 17, when many a player’s instinct would have been to play conservatively, were duly rewarded and probably the making of his victory.

So ended his 54-hole streak, much like another one earlier this year at Augusta, where Tiger Woods finally ended one of T2G’s favourite stats, his never winning a major coming from behind after 54 holes.

This was a notable occurrence considering he’d won 14 majors, every single one of them leading from the front. It wasn’t a fatal flaw in Tiger’s career cv by any means, but it was certainly odd (eight of Jack Nicklaus’ 18 majors came making up a deficit after 54 holes, by way of example).

It just goes to show that golfers have a habit of making our carefully compiled certainties look a little silly. The game is unpredictable and the players are human, thank goodness.

Another hope dashed

Woodland will now be in exalted company in terms of draws at big events, which means we may never see one of T2G’s dream groupings.

It’ll take some drop in form for Woodland to play any time soon with young Scottish pro Grant Forrest and the Englishman Toby Tree in what would be the perfect arboreal threeball.

It’s still Brooks’ world

He came up three shots short in the end, but Brooks Koepka was in the mix right up until Woodland’s par save at 17, settling for a run of 1-2-1-2 in the last four major championships.

Just the thirtysomething finish at Carnoustie in last year’s Open mars his last two years of performances. It’s an astonishing run by any measurement.

Can it continue at Royal Portrush next month? Certainly, Koepka has no issues with cooler European conditions, plays decently in the wind and his caddie, Ricky Elliott, is a born and bred son of that corner of North West Ireland.

He’ll surely have as much local knowledge at his disposal as Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell. And even in defeat to Woodland, you still had the clear feeling that Brooks is the dominant force in world golf.

The fading of Rory and Rose

The premier disappointment for European fans was to see both Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy, Nos 3 and 4 in the world, slide out of contention just as it seemed they were in the middle of it.

McIlroy can’t seem to string together everything at the same time.

He started as the best putter in the field only for it to go suddenly cold, and didn’t capitalise on Pebble’s par fives all weekend.

Rose, to be entirely fair, seemed to be struggling with his long game for much of the week and repeatedly saved himself with his superior holing out.

That perhaps caught up with him in the end, and he stayed high enough to swap places with Rory in the rankings.

Both head for the Open with significant pressures; Rory playing an Open in his homeland for the first and perhaps only time at his peak, Rose the premier hope to end England’s 27-year drought.

Pebble in these conditions was a golden chance for both. Portrush is another one, but possibly the last for a while.

The absolute terror of the blue blazers mucking things up again gave us a first class US Open

Picture: Getty. A view from the galleries as Gary Woodland is presented with the silverware after his victory at Pebble Beach in what was a ‘super’ US Open.