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Why not allow mulligans and gimmes?

Shaun Powell

June 21, 2004

It's a darn shame what they did. They took a beautiful course and our national championship and they did something that just isn't seen very often: They made golf funny.

When history looks back at the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, history will bend over in knee-slapping, stomach-knotting laughter. You know what yesterday's fourth round became? A multiplex showing nothing but slapstick comedy. It was "Caddyshack" playing on the seventh hole and "Happy Gilmore" over on 10. It was golfers contorting their faces in ways you never figured possible.

It was a game and a tournament that reluctantly had to dig deep to find a sense of humor.

Either that, or cry.

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And that's exactly what many of the contenders and pretenders did yesterday. They shed so many tears, they could've watered down all the dry greens. They didn't play golf, they played bawl. They complained in unison about the final round's course conditions, made difficult by man and by nature.

"I played what I thought was my best golf and couldn't make par," pouted Phil Mickelson.

"I actually feel sorry for the leaders," whined Robert Allenby.

"Some holes were unfair," boo-hooed amateur Bill Haas.

"Some holes I thought were absolutely unfair," growled J.J. Henry.

"It was a little comical," said Jerry Kelly.

No, it was hysterical.

At least if you were watching and not playing. It's rare when dozens of the world's greatest golfers look like a bunch of hackers on a corporate outing, but that's what the U.S. Open resembled. They sprayed balls in every direction, sometimes on the same hole, sometimes on the same shot.

The cruelest stroke was the "loop." That's when the ball heads for the hole, then treats it like a mountain and travels around it, then races back to the putter as if it were magnetized.

When this happened yesterday, which was often, the crowd roared and groaned and laughed in the same breath. I can't explain what that sounds like, but if somebody were to make that noise in the woods, several moose in heat might come running.

Early yesterday, a few trucks with hoses raced toward the No. 7 hole, and not because it was going up in flames. The winds that blew through Shinnecock left the greens extremely dry and therefore very fast.

Have you ever shot marbles on your mother's linoleum floor? Then you know what the golf ball did. It raced back and forth and up and down the slope. It held up play and riled up players. And it turned the tournament into an adventure.

The fans loved it. They flocked to No. 7 in anticipation of a car wreck and weren't disappointed. When the grounds crew repeatedly watered the hole after each group passed through, the fans booed. They wanted the comedy to continue.

And it did to varying degrees on a good half-dozen other holes, especially 10, which averaged a bogey yesterday. As the course worsened - or toughened - the scores went up, the blood pressure of the players went up, and so did the entertainment value.

Hey, when Retief Goosen is your U.S. Open champion, you need something to make you chuckle.

Seriously, though, the course was unfair. In a four-day span, the tournament went from being too conquerable to being virtually unplayable. Officials goofed by inadvertently rolling the seventh green just before the third round, and then were late soaking other holes in a panic yesterday. Plenty of players landed good shots on the green and were punished when their ball rolled on without brakes. No one shot under par yesterday, and only Goosen and Mickelson finished under for the tournament.

"They're not respecting this golf course," said Henry, who shot a 76 and finished plus-26.

Of course, none of the complainers mentioned how everyone was affected, not just a few. It's sort of like one baseball team whining about being inconvenienced by a rain delay.

In a nutshell, the Shinnecock Open forced the best from the players as the tournament progressed, and that's supposed to happen. The only player with a decent case against the course was Ernie Els, who started the day two shots behind the lead, only to lay an 80.

Nobody else could cite the course as the reason he lost. The final round was projected as a tight contest between Goosen and Mickelson, and it delivered, right until Mickelson double-bogeyed the par-3 17th.

For a tournament deprived of the presence of Tiger Woods down the stretch yesterday, it went about as well as could be expected. A proven player won and Mickelson barely missed a second consecutive major title.

The tournament had theater. It just happened to be a comedy on the marquee.