OAKMONT, Pa. — If the U.S. Open is the most difficult golf tournament of the year, the implication is that it’s also the most miserable. By the simplest logic: making birdies is more fun than making double bogeys, and the U.S. Open is when words like “carnage” and “suffering” are liberally employed. If you were a parent trying to sell your kid on golf, other tournaments would fit better into the pitch.
But there’s a flaw in assuming the most challenging golf days can’t be enjoyable. It helps when watching players stumble around Oakmont this week, and it’s even more vital when thinking about the game the rest of us play.
For starters, if you listened closely to players describe the severe setup at Oakmont, there was also a small sprinkling of excitement.
“It's a challenge you need to embrace,” Jon Rahm said.
“If you have a decent lie, you might try to take some risk, and that's part of the fun,” Xander Schauffele said.
“I like feeling uncomfortable,” first-round leader J.J. Spaun added.
Maybe this wouldn’t be the type of golf players would choose to play year-round, but those who welcome it are choosing to grade themselves on a different curve. “Expectation management” is a popular phrase in golf, and the U.S. Open demands it of anyone looking to make it through 18 holes. Pars will feel like birdies, bogeys feel like pars, and even the double bogeys probably won’t be as devastating as they would normally seem. It’s not just a mindset based around math, but recognizing every shot has to be weighed against the context.
“I absolutely did because I like hitting crazy shots,” Robert MacIntyre said when asked if he had fun after shooting even par on Thursday. “It just feels like every shot is on a knife’s edge.”
Amateur Matt Vogt plays a shot on the third hole during the first round.
Ross Kinnaird
Perhaps it’s easier for a golfer who averted disaster to appreciate the challenge of a U.S. Open, but even those torched by Oakmont suggested the setup can provide rare moments of satisfaction. Matthew Vogt is the amateur qualifier who makes his living as a dentist. On the second hole, Vogt hammered a drive to the corner of the fairway and had to spin a pitch shot to a back pin. The ball settled nine feet from the flag, and applause was scattered. If this were a normal week on the PGA Tour, the shot might have been considered mediocre. But Vogt had grown up caddieing at Oakmont and had played there countless times. “You might say, ‘Oh just a little chippy wedge,’ but a couple of feet shorter than that, it’s coming down 20 feet. A couple of feet longer and you’re over green,” Vogt said. “There’s just a lot of nuance.”
There wasn’t much else Vogt could cite as a success on Thursday. He shot 82 and said it felt like he got “punched in the face.” Everything about Thursday was hard, he said, which is different than saying it was impossible to enjoy.
“I think it’s fun to play a golf course that’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced,” Vogt said.
This is the part that is worth remembering this week, and especially with our own golf, because the challenges always evolve. Some days the wind is blowing, or we’re nursing a sore back. As a result, your 86 one week might feel better than the 83 the week before. This isn’t to suggest the happiest golfers are the quickest to excuse their bad shots. But they’re usually the ones who learn to live with imperfection.
“Golfers who understand and love the game accept it rather than fight it,” the sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella wrote in Golf Digest. “They realize the essence of golf is reacting well to inevitable mistakes and misfortunes. They know they can separate themselves from their competition not by perfecting their games but by constantly striving to improve. I tell players that if there's one thing they should always be proud of in their games, it's how well they react to mistakes. I tell them that they will never have complete control of the golf ball. But they can control their attitudes.”