Simon Lewis, Bethpage
The talking is over at the US Open and all that is left are 156 players and the 7,426 brutish yards of Bethpage Black laid out in front of them.
The warning sign on the first tee that reads: “The Black Course Is An Extremely Difficult Course Which We Recommend Only For Highly Skilled Golfers” is meant to scare off the weekend hackers at this magnificent municipal complex on New York's Long Island, not the guys lining up for glory today.
But it may just plant a few seeds of doubt among the more faint-hearted in the field.
Henrik Stenson diligently negotiated the pitfalls of TPC Sawgrass last month on his way to victory at The PLAYERS Championship and the Swede joked on Tuesday that the only warning signs he had encountered in his sporting life had been on ski slopes.
It was a gimmick, Stenson had decided and yet, he added, there may have been a “little bit of seriousness about it”.
There is no denying it. Bethpage Black is intimidating. Walking the course on Wednesday, in part to catch what could be the last sunshine of the entire week before the rain arrives today, you cannot escape the narrowness of the fairways, the density of rough and the terror-inducing distance of some of the carries off the tees.
Three of the par-four holes measure more than 500 yards, a first for any US Open. The 525-yard seventh is eight yards longer than the par-five fourth and another of them, the 504-yard 12th, has a 260-yard carry from the tee box over a deep, left-sided cross bunker at the apex of its dog-leg.
And, in between, the 10th tee shot may have been made easier since 2002, when players of the calibre of David Toms and Nick Price failed to even reach it, but as Ian Poulter joked from the tee box via Twitter during a practice round on Tuesday: “Guys, I think someone has stolen the fairway. I can't see it.”
And that's before the rains start to come down.
The downpours are forecast to begin this morning and continue throughout the weekend, which could spell carnage for the majority of the field as the Black plays even longer than its 7,426 yards.
That would suit a certain Tiger Woods to a tee but also maybe one Padraig Harrington. Where better a place than a US Open for the Irishman to break out of his slump and storm to a remarkable fourth major victory of his career?
Harrington triumphed in adversity at a soggy Oakland Hills near Detroit last August when he lifted the Wanamaker Trophy as the first European winner of the US PGA since 1930 and the tougher a challenge the better he becomes.
Add in a pro-Paddy crowd of Irish Americans to give our hero the boisterous atmosphere he craves and we could be game on.
And what we wouldn't give for a Harrington-Woods final pairing on Sunday afternoon. Gettng goose bumps just imagining it.
