Time to push rhetoric aside and focus on golf

If you accept as truth what has been widely reported, that this northern California city is one of the world’s most beautiful, the evidence was not readily available yesterday morning to substantiate that claim.

Blanketed in a clam chowder-like fog and saturated in a heavy mist the final day of practice before the start of the 112th US Open got off to a miserable start.

Cold. Raw. Dreary. It was uncomfortable but fitting. After all, this is the most uncomfortable of all the major golf championships.

It is not by accident, however. As a golf body, the United States Golf Association subscribes to simple philosophy: Try and take the golfer out of his comfort zone.

Thus, come mid-June every year, for four days, the rough is higher, the greens are faster and the pace is slower than what players are used to on a weekly basis. But what’s more, USGA officials toss in mega security, maze-like traffic hurdles and disjointed practice areas made necessary by old, antiquated golf courses that were built decades before this golf business turned into a stage production. Then there’s a curve-ball of major league proportions – namely a two-tee start but one that uses the first and ninth holes.

Proud to put on what it considers “the toughest test in golf,” USGA officials stand tall in their blue blazers and are seemingly oblivious to the added burdens they have tossed into the recipe. But if you study the landscape close enough, you’ll understand how easy it is to make these players uncomfortable. With every year, they seem to be more spoiled, more pampered and more prone to complaints.

Lee Westwood talked of being weary from flying from Stockholm to San Francisco after winning the Nordea Masters. We assume lifting all that cash took a great deal of effort.

Just two weeks ago Phil Mickelson cited “mental fatigue” in withdrawing from the Memorial Tournament, since he had played three weeks in a row in golf tournaments and capped that by a high-end trip to Italy and France to celebrate his wife’s birthday. Rory McIlroy also talks of being worn out by too many golf tournaments and too much travel while Tiger Woods years earlier set the bar by taking off weeks at a time.

Now to be fair, before a critique could be offered of these complaints, one would have to know how much of a challenge it is to fly private all over the world and play weeks in a row with the chance to win millions of euros.

So, on a cold, dreary morning the wish is even stronger for an end to the practice and a start to the competition. Because it’s only when the peg goes in the ground and the balls get airborne for real that we can push the nonsensical pre-championship rhetoric aside and focus on golf.

Yeah, yeah. Players are tired, the rough is high and small greens are very fast. And sure, tee times are left for luck of the draw and it’s not easy to get around this old, traffic-plagued city. They’ve lengthened the course, reduced par and changing weather conditions.

This morning none of that will matter. The tee box will be open, the suggestion box close.

Thankfully, it will be about the golf.