Tiger can go distance and reign at Merion

So what’s it going to be? A thoroughbred major winner with killer course management and length to spare? A major virgin with a hot putter and an even hotter wedge? How about a straight-hitting gut-player with a laser-like long game and a brain?

Whatever the weather happens to throw up at storied Merion in Philadelphia’s north-west suburbs this week, it’s unlikely to be a place of brotherly love, despite all the doomsday predictions of record US Open scoring.

Soft as a Christmas pudding she might be but Merion, as the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jim Murray believed, is no pushover.

“Whatever else she is,” Murray wrote, “Merion ain’t no lady.”

The championship may well settle the distance debate for good and for all. Can a course measuring “just” 6,996 yard resist the modern player who is capable of driving the ball 350 yards? In dry conditions, the USGA believed it could keep the winning score around par, but while the course is softer than an Irish bog in spots, beating Rory McIlroy’s record 16 under par total from 2011 will still take some serious golf.

When it last held the US Open in 1981, Merion’s compact East Course gave up a seven under par winning score. It wasn’t the lowest in US Open history by any means. Jack Nicklaus had won with eight under at the more muscular Baltusrol the previous year.

The fact is that while Merion measures less than 7,000 yards, making it the shortest course to host the US Open since a hard and fast Shinnecock Hills (6,996 yards) in 2004, when Retief Goosen held his nerve on a course that was so fast that the seventh hole became almost unplayable.

Tiger Woods is the overwhelming favourite to end his five-year drought in the majors and claim his 15th grand slam title. But even Woods knows that he isn’t going to score at Merion if he doesn’t put the ball in play.

“I’ve won the Open in both conditions,” Woods said. “At Torrey it was dry. Pebble was dry. And Bethpage was soft and slow.

“The execution doesn’t change. You’ve still got to hit good shots and get the ball in play, especially now with the rough being wet. It’s imperative to get the ball in play so we can get after some of these flags and make as many birdies as we can.”

There’s the rub. Merion’s lack of overall length is deceptive. Yes, there are five par-fours that measure less than 400 yards and there’s even a 115-yard par three. But that’s just six of 18 holes and if you want to shoot record numbers, you are going to have to play the other 12 exceptionally well.

The remaining three par-threes — the third, ninth and 17th — average out at a whopping 246 yards. The fifth is a 504-yard par four and the 18th an uphill slog of 521-yards with zero run on a sodden course.

Then there’s the narrow fairways, the rain forest rough and the fringe topped bunkers, some which have little islands of rough or elephant grass. There’s out of bounds everywhere. And there’s pressure.

The bookies make Woods the 6/1 hot favourite ahead of Matt Kuchar, McIlroy, Graeme McDowell and Phil Mickelson with Masters champion Adam Scott and the English pair of Justin Rose and Lee Westwood not far behind them.

That’s eight players with one great strength, they all have either stellar US Open records or are imperious ball-strikers.

But with the likes of Brandt Snedeker and Luke Donald just outside the pool of favourites, it’s easy to understand why the likes of Kuchar or Pádraig Harrington find it so hard to pick the archetypal winner this week.

Woods is rightly the favourite given his three US Open wins and four PGA Tour victories from his last eight starts.

With McIlroy off the boil, it will take something special for him to light a spark in the damp while McDowell’s lack of real length stopped him contending in soft conditions at Bethpage and Congressional in 2009 and 2011.

Jack Nicklaus once said: “Acre for acre, Merion may be the best test of golf in the world.” Woods is the game’s greatest active player. It appears to be a match made in heaven.

Old dog Trevino talks up Irish chances

No-one talks US Open at Merion like Lee Trevino — the man who threw a rubber snake at Jack Nicklaus in that Monday playoff in 1971 and walked away with his second national open in four years.

It’s been three years since Graeme McDowell won the 2010 US Open at Pebble Beach but Trevino, also known as ‘SuperMex’, sees a lot of himself in the big-hearted Portrush star.

“I love Graeme,” he said with a grin. “He’s just like me. He’s got a lot of guts. Graeme has got a shot here.”

Trevino also fancies Rory McIlroy to make a run at his second US Open but he warned the Holywood star — and Tiger Woods — that they must keep it on the short grass to emulate his play-off win over Nicklaus 42 years ago.

“McIlroy also has a shot but only because they will be able to keep that driver away from him,” Trevino insisted. “Rory and Tiger will spray it a little bit. They want to hit it 390 and you gotta hit the fairways.

“Remember one thing, you can have the finest car in the world and if you don’t have the key, you don’t go anywhere.”

Meanwhile, Darren Clarke is bracing himself for a tough US Open return having missed last year’s edition at Olympic Club through injury. With just six events under his belt this year, Clarke has no idea what to expect from his own game.

He said: “I’m hitting it nicely, but it’s a bit of a broken record. I keep saying it but my scoring just hasn’t been there.

“I can practise all I want and hit it as well as I want to in practice, I just have to score a little bit better. If I can do that this week, then we’ll see.”

Today’s tee times

Starting at No 1 (all times Irish)

11.45: Cliff Kresge, Roger Tambellini, Ryan Yip (Can)

11.56am: John Parry (Eng), Yui Ueda (Jpn), Rikard Karlberg (Swe)

12.07pm: Nick Watney, Hunter Mahan, Peter Hanson (Swe)

12.18pm: Lucas Glover, Paul Casey (Eng), Bill Haas

12.29pm: Aaron Baddeley (Aus), Rory Sabbatini (Rsa), David Lingmerth (Swe)

12.40pm: Marcel Siem (Ger), Martin Laird (Sco), George Coetzee (Rsa)

12.51pm: Jerry Kelly, Charley Hoffman, John Huh

1.02pm: Henrik Stenson (Swe), Ryan Moore, Robert Garrigus

1.13: Ted Potter, Jr., Simon Khan (Eng), Ryan Palmer

1.24: Michael Kim, Shawn Stefani, Nicholas Thompson

1.35: Doug La Belle II, Andrew Svoboda, Christopher Doak (Sco)

1.46: Matt Weibring, Randall Hutchison, Kevin Sutherland

1.57: James Hahn, Ryan Nelson, Cory Mcelyea

5.30pm: Jose-Maria Olazabal (Spa), David Toms, Darren Clarke (N Irl)

5.41: Paul Lawrie (Sco), Geoff Ogilvy (Aus), Angel Cabrera (Arg)

5.52: Luke Donald (Eng), Martin Kaymer (Ger), Lee Westwood (Eng)

6.03: Graeme McDowell (N Irl), Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson

6.14: Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy (N Irl), Adam Scott (Aus)

6.25: Thongchai Jaidee (Tha), Gonzalo Fdez-Castano (Spa), Thorbjorn Olesen (Den)

6.36 Webb Simpson, Steven Fox, Ernie Els (Rsa)

6.47: Joe Ogilvie, Kyle Stanley, Luke Guthrie

6.58: Josh Teater, Eddie Pepperell (Eng), Yoshinobu Tsukada (Jpn)

7.09: Jung-Gon Hwang (Kor), Edward Loar, Morten Orum Madsen (Den)

7.20: Matt Bettencourt, Russell Knox (Sco), Max Homa

7.31: Adam Hadwin (Can), John Nieporte, Jim Herman

7.42: Jesse Smith, Grayson Murray, Brandon Brown

Starting at No 11

12pm: Dustin Johnson, Nicolas Colsaerts (Bel), Bubba Watson

12.11: Phil Mickelson, Keegan Bradley, Steve Stricker

12.22: Brandt Snedeker, Justin Rose (Eng), Matt Kuchar

12.33: Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa), Charl Schwartzel (Rsa), Tim Clark (Rsa)

12.44: Padraig Harrington (Irl), Stewart Cink, Sergio Garcia (Spa)

12.55: Boo Weekley, Jason Dufner, Ian Poulter (Eng)

1.06: Jason Day (Aus), Rickie Fowler, Matteo Manassero (Ita)

1.17: Hiroyuki Fujita (Jpn), Freddie Jacobson (Swe), Y.E. Yang (Kor)

1.28: Robert Karlsson (Swe), Scott Stallings, John Peterson

1.39: Jay Don Blake, Michael Campbell (Nzl), Brandt Jobe

1.50: Mike Weir (Can), Jaco Van Zyl (Rsa), David Hearn (Can)

2.01: Kevin Phelan (Irl), Harold Varner III, Wil Collins

2.12: Geoffrey Sisk, Cheng-tsung Pan (Chn), Mackenzie Hughes (Can)

5.45: Brian Stuard, David Howell (Eng), Justin Hicks

5.56: Brendan Steele, Estanislao Goya (Arg), Peter Hedblom (Swe)

6.07: Marcus Fraser (Aus), Marc Leishman (Aus), John Senden (Aus)

6.18: Scott Langley, Chris Williams (Rsa), Morgan Hoffmann

6.29: Casey Wittenberg, Michael Thompson, Michael Weaver

6.40: Carl Pettersson (Swe), K J Choi (Kor), Francesco Molinari (Ita)

6.51: Jamie Donaldson (Wal), Kevin Chappell, Scott Piercy

7.02: Bo Van Pelt, D.A. Points, Kevin Streelman

7.13: Sang-moon Bae (Kor), Russell Henley, Branden Grace (Rsa)

7.24: Jordan Spieth, Billy Horschel, Hideki Matsuyama (Jpn)

7.35: Steve Alker (Nzl), Alistair Presnell (Aus), Mathew Goggin (Aus)

7.46: Matt Harmon, Bio Kim (Kor), Gavin Hall

7.57: Brandon Crick, Ryan Sullivan, Zack Fischer