Green And Mean

Headin' home: The 462-yard, par-4 10th (center) and the 423-yard 11th (right) start Oakland Hills' stretch run.

Jones says his touch-up work on Oakland Hills brings it into the 21st century. New back tees mean players will hit the same clubs into greens that they did in the '96 U.S. Open, Oakland Hills' last major championship, even though technology has made quantum leaps since then. He moved bunkers closer to the greens, so the set-up men can hide hole locations. He flip-flopped fairway bunkers, eliminating front ones, adding back ones so they are in the properly pesky locations for today's equipment.

And the new bunkers aren't all 320 yards off the tee. A new center bunker on the par-4 15th is just 285 yards out.

"We're trying to make them think of options, like they had to at Torrey Pines," Jones says. " 'Should I try to hit driver and carry it? Or should I lay up and have two clubs longer in?' "

Despite all the nuances he feels he has added, Jones is not sure Oakland Hills will be as tough as Torrey Pines.

"Oakland Hills doesn't have as many diagonal greens as Torrey Pines, so it will be easier for players to make their club selections," he says. "But the green contours are more severe at Oakland Hills. At Torrey those fairway bunkers really came into play. Of course, there are more of them at Oakland Hills, so they'll probably come into play even more.

"I guess it all depends upon how they set it up," he says. "The Open is usually set up harder than the PGA."

The man in charge of the setup at Oakland Hills is Kerry Haigh, senior director of tournaments for the PGA of America. Haigh says he hasn't needed to do much in preparation for this year's event. He is sticking with the relatively narrow fairways established by the recent Jones redo. He approves of the massive tree removal and bunker enhancement. He thinks the four par 3s are particularly challenging. Haigh's primary task is to find enough difficult but fair pin positions on the greens.

"They're some of the most severe, challenging and exciting green complexes anywhere in the country," Haigh says. "They're fun, but they're scary. Oakland Hills is tough as nails, a very difficult course day in and day out. Our philosophy is to set it up so that if you're in trouble, you're punished, but it's not impossible to recover. You can still play and display your skills. That's what we try to do everywhere we go, allow the players and golf course to speak for themselves and not get in the way of that."

Bunkering is part of the Oakland Hills' storyline. Five bunkers protect the green at the 446-yard fourth.

Oakland Hills will play considerably longer than it did for the 2004 Ryder Cup, somewhere between 7,395 and 7,445 yards, par 70, up from 7,077 yards. Only two back tees, on Nos. 1 and 11, won't be used at all, for gallery circulation reasons. The remaining holes may or may not play to maximum yardages on any given day.

"I don't like to predict what we're going to do without knowing what Mother Nature is going to give us," Haigh says. "We'll make our best judgment each morning after seeing the wind direction and weather conditions. I will say that the new back tees do give us some options."

He also says the 387-yard, par-4 sixth will play as a 305-yard, drivable par 4 at least one day, probably Saturday or Sunday so as to avoid delaying the crowded field during the early rounds.

There is one more reason why the dog-days-of-August PGA should play more like a choking-dog U.S. Open, and it has to do with the player not in the field.

The absence of Tiger Woods will simply add pressure, not subtract it. That's because every player knows that with Woods on the disabled list, this year's PGA Championship is their best chance—for many their last best chance—for a major championship title. But they have to win it at Oakland Hills.