US Open is predictably unpredictable

Everything seemed so straightforward back in the good old days. The good old days of 2002, that is.

When the time came to preview the four major golf championships you went directly to Tiger Woods and predicted he would win. More often than not you were right. Easy.

Heading into the United States Open on Thursday it is all very different. Your guess is as good as anyone else’s.

Woods, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson are the obvious four favourites, especially on a Shinnecock Hills course rated amongst America’s finest and toughest.

But, for the first time in the sport’s history, the last six winners have all been players without a major to their names. In case you’ve not kept up, that’s Rich Beem, Mike Weir, Jim Furyk, Ben Curtis, Shaun Micheel and Mickelson.

As each of them has triumphed – especially Curtis and Micheel – so others have grown in belief that they can add themselves to the list.

The fear factor has been reduced, if not totally removed, and it has spread to all levels of golf. Scott Drummond and Simon Khan on the European tour are recent examples of that.

Of all the majors, however, the US Open sorts the men out from the boys the most, purely by the severity of the test presented.

“We’re not trying to embarrass the best players – we’re trying to identify them,” a United States Golf Association official said years ago and it holds true.

This year’s examination, on New York’s Long Island, contains the extra dimension of a colourful history.

Shinnecock is one of the five founding clubs of the USGA, which was formed in 1894. It staged, albeit on a different site, the second US Open in 1896. The club was built on land that formerly belonged to the Shinnecock Indian tribe and many of them assisted in the construction of the course.

Controversy surrounded that US Open when other players threatened to boycott the championship if Oscar Bunn, a Shinnecock Indian, and John Shippen, who happened to be half African-American, were permitted to compete.

But USGA president Theodore Havemeyer proclaimed the competition would go on even if Bunn and Shippen were the only two participants. That announcement ended any potential walk-out and the championship proceeded with no further complications.

Shinnecock was also one of the first clubs to encourage females and juniors to participate. In fact, the first four US women’s amateur champions came from there – Lucy Barnes (1895) and Beatrix Hoyt (1896-98).

The original 12 holes were laid out through sandy scrub, bunkers being created by scraping away the face of ancient burial mounds. They were ideal hiding places for whisky bottles and for a long time afterwards a shot might not only bring out the ball, but also a bone or a bottle.

Designer Willie Dunn expanded it to 18 holes for the US Open, but it measured only 4,423 yards and it became obsolete when the rubber-cored ball came into wider use.

Changes were made, but in the late 1920s there were plans for a road through the property and the club realised they needed a new course entirely. Land was found over rolling, sandy ground covered with thick blackberry bushes on the other side of the clubhouse.

It kept the nature of the course close to the game’s Scottish roots, closer than any other in the States, in fact. It resembles duneland. Shinnecock has trees, but they rarely affect play. The wind is the over-riding defence the course has.

Designer Bill Flynn’s completed work was considered a masterpiece. The holes curve through the prickly scrub and the fronts of the greens are open, allowing for the run-up shot.

It became a par 70 with only two par fives. Almost all of the shorter holes play into the prevailing wind and most of the fairways are islands between areas of wilderness.

Two hours from Manhattan, the club has a small seasonal membership and closes during the winter. And there it lay for decade after decade until the USGA decided to stage the US Open there again in 1986, 90 years after the first.

The players raved about it. For the first round there were 20-30mph winds, with gusts even stronger, it was cold and it was wet. Only 47 of the 156-strong field were below 76 and 45 failed to break 80.

Bob Tway’s 70 led and he hit only eight of the 18 greens in regulation. The average score was nearly 78.

The weather did improve and Raymond Floyd, playing his last nine holes in 32 for a 66, beat Chip Beck and Lanny Wadkins by two at one under par. Bernhard Langer was eighth.

Nobody had played the last 54 holes of a US Open lower than Floyd’s 204 and he had no bogeys in the last 24 of those. At 43 he was the oldest-ever winner at the time. “I finally won me an Open,” he said famously.

The event returned in 1995, with Corey Pavin’s level par total being good enough to give him the title by two from Greg Norman. Europe’s leading player that year was Mark Roe in joint 13th.

Another chapter is about to be written. Woods, Els, Singh or Mickelson to win? Possibly, but who knows any more?