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What is the USGA going to do about such an easy course?
For decades, the U.S. Open has been billed as the hardest golf tournament of all, from selection of a reputedly brutal course to the measure to make breaking par almost impossible.
Usually, it is played on courses with narrow fairways, tough carries and demonic greens. Well, what happened in the first round Thursday? Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele both shot 62 at the Los Angeles Country Club, a score that has been posted only once in the last 127 years of the Open.
Fowler’s round was the 47,336th played in the U.S. Open and his score was lowest in that span. It surely wasn’t expected after he began on the No. 10 and had a birdie-bogey start to his round and shot even par 35 at the turn.
But on the front 9, which was his back nine, Fowler made eight more birdies for a 27. When he tapped in for a par on No. 9, or his 18th hole, his wife, a former All-American pole vaulter, jumped almost to her own record.
That is why everyone from USGA board members to greenskeepers pulled an all-nighter to decide how they can make the course far more difficult in the tradition of the national championship.
To start, the LA Country Club has wider fairways than most Open layouts. Sure, they allowed the roughs on both sides of the fairways to grow up enough that players who missed the short grass had very treacherous lies.
But today’s professional golfers are so accurate off the tee, whether hitting driver or another club, they had to be ecstatic when they first saw the course set up early in the week.
Fowler had been in such a slump coming into the tournament that he had fallen out of the top 150 players and sat out the 2022 event. Qualifying this year, he was not expected to do much when he arrived from his home in Florida. But he said he just relished being back on the course.
Fowler held the record for exactly 20 minutes before Schauffele, the sixth-ranked player in the world, joined him in the scorer’s tent. That didn’t make the brass any happier with two record scorecards signed.
The only possible remedy, which is usually reserved for the final round on Sunday, is to make the hole locations almost unputtable outside of 5 feet.
Check the scores tonight. Nothing close to 62 will be posted.
Featured image via Associated Press/Lindsey Wasson
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