Thursday, June 16, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.
PINEHURST, N.C. -- Showing little of the accuracy his game is known for, Ryan Moore scuffled through the opening round of the U.S. Open and will have to work hard to make the cut Friday.
Moore fired a 5-over 75 this morning at Pinehurst No. 2, making no birdies and carding three bogeys and a double bogey. United States Golf Association officials did not make Moore available for comment after his round.
Continuing a streak of recent mediocre starts to tournaments that began at Mountain West Conference tournament, Moore hit just four of 14 fairways and hit only five of 18 greens in regulation. He trails early clubhouse leaders Olin Browne and Rocco Mediate, who both shot 3-under 67.
Moore needed some special work on the greens just to keep his number to what it was. A 15-foot par save at No. 7 preceded a 10-foot save at No. 8, but Moore closed his round on a sour note by hitting long at No. 18 and failing to get up and down for par.
He struggled with the No. 2 course that is designed for danger.
"I think this golf course epitomizes what the USGA wants in their championship, which is a golf course that challenges every aspect of the player's game, including the mental component," Browne said after his opening round.
This course appears to do just that, in a style that only a USGA championship seems to capture. Imagine if one game every season, the NBA forced Tim Duncan to shoot at tilted 15-foot-high rims, or if the NFL made Barry Sanders run an uphill field full of potholes. Ludicrous, right?
Basketball courts are uniform, football fields and hockey rinks are close and baseball fields vary only the fences. But golf, already tough enough to make athletes from all of those sports regularly look silly, is new look every week and Pinehurst No. 2 is one heck of a look.
The fact that golf courses are snowflakes, as no two are exactly alike, is both a charming and maddening aspect of the game. Yet the United States Golf Association ramps up that notion to critical mass once a year at the U.S. Open, taking the focus almost entirely away from the players and moving it to the treachery of the course setup.
It's no different here as the world's best players have exited their practice rounds all week to find questions about greens once described as inverted salad bowls -- and then covered with linoleum -- and thieving rough of at least 3 inches biding its time to welcome inevitable stray drives.
"Honestly speaking, I think this is the hardest U.S. golf course I've played from tee to green and around the greens," Vijay Singh said. "It's going to be one hell of a test."
Phil Mickelson, last year's runner-up, offered the most dangerous indictment of the course on Tuesday.
"I think the winning score will be much higher than it was in '99 because we got rain, and we're not expected to get any rain this week," Mickelson said. "If it dries out and plays anywhere close to what it did (Tuesday), quite a bit over par would be the score I would anticipate winning."
That reaction isn't universal, but it is relatively common among players. There is no secret in the USGA's desire to stretch the limits of what the pros feel they can handle. It's the calling card of the U.S. Open, and the Tifway Bermudagrass fairways and Penn G-2 bentgrass of the greens of the par-70, 7,214-yard Pinehurst No. 2 course is a poster child example.
Listening to USGA officials talk about setting up a U.S. Open course, it sounds as though they are kneeing each other beneath the tablecloth and trying not to laugh about the panic-inducing craziness of what they created.
"What we try to do is set it up to make the golf course the most difficult test in championship golf, and we want the players to be tested," said Walter Driver, chairman of the championship committee. "But they're going to shoot whatever it is. And if it's 10-under, it's 10-under. If it's 10-over, it's 10-over. I don't know what is going to be the winning score."
An average par-4 asks players to hit shaped tee shots into fairways of no less than 20 and no more than 28 yards width. The intermediate rough of 6-foot width gives way to the nasty Bermuda mix of 3-4 inches, although the USGA coyly states in its press kit that six holes "may have rough a bit higher." Someone just got jabbed with a pencil under the dinner table.
Staying the fairway is just about the only way to think about birdie for two reasons. First, this Bermuda mix in the deep rough is holding balls way down for bad lies. Singh said he can't advance the ball more than 100 yards if it sits down. Second, the greens just do not hold shots not heavily spun and properly placed.
Many players are content to miss the green in the correct areas, giving them a good opportunity to get up and down with a chip and a solid putt. Most weeks, that is a grinder's par. This week, it is a universally accepted victory.
"Every green will have a position where you can have a very good makeable birdie putt, but you need to put the ball on the proper side of the hole location to take advantage of that," Driver said. "And if you miss it on the wrong side, you're going to be welcome at the Donald Ross gym here at Pinehurst No. 2.
"We hope everyone appreciates the creativity that calls for from the players and recognize that that is really the nature of the game here."
USGA officials acknowledged that they let the greens at Shinnecock Hills get out of hand at last year's U.S. Open, blaming it mostly on hot, dry wind that finished off putting surfaces already being stretched to limits. It is not likely to encounter the same trouble at Pinehurst, where the greens are scary enough without weather.
The term "domed green" is thrown around as the signature of this Donald Ross design first opened in 1907. That doesn't cut it. Whereas the greens of Augusta National look like a mischievous toddler drew their shape and curves with a crayon, the greens at Pinehurst give the distinct impression that equally mischievous adults honed their Crayola skills and created more monstrous monsters.
Asked about the challenge of putting the greens here, defending U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen said, "Well, you've first got to get onto the greens somehow." He was being only slightly facetious.
