ShareThisThe last round of the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black took some of Sunday evening, all of Monday morning, and the early afternoon. It ended with a worthy champion in Lucas Glover and a joke of a final hole.
Glover did what he had to do, which was to make solid swings down the stretch and maintain the two-shot lead he took to the last hole over Phil Mickelson, David Duval and Ricky Barnes, who all tied for second place. But the 18th hole was rendered a nothing hole when the United States Golf Association moved the tee up for the final round so that the par-four played 364 yards rather than the 411 yards it was meant to be.
The USGA had a reasonable reason for playing the hole from the members' tee, in that the fairway had been a bog because of the relentless rain that plagued the tournament. The fairway is on the lowest part of the course and was built on a swamp. All the water-sucking equipment and all the well-meaning maintenance people working the hole couldn't keep it playable. The bog gobbled up balls for the first three rounds.
So the USGA did what it thought it had to do for the last round. It took the wettest part of the hole out of play by using a forward tee. The fabulous, scruffy bunkers that made players think off the tee were no longer in play. They could swing away with abandon.
Now, there's nothing wrong with a short par-four hole at the end of a major tournament. The 17th hole at the Oakmont was exciting during the 2007 U.S. Open because players could try to drive the green when the forward tee was used. The hole played 306 yards and provided tremendous drama.
Jim Furyk was tied for the lead when he tried to drive the 17th green. But he missed into deep rough, had no angle to the hole, and made bogey. Tiger Woods needed to birdie one of the last three holes to get into a playoff and tried to drive the green with a 3-wood. He missed into a deep greenside bunker and made par. Then he didn't birdie the last hole. Angel Cabrera won that U.S. Open.
If a championship is going to have a short par-four near the end, the green should be reachable from the tee to set up a possible birdie or eagle. There should also be enough trouble so that a player could make a bogey or worse if he tries to reach the green but doesn't. Neither was the case with Bethpage's compromised 18th hole Monday.
There was no drama, then, as the golfers in contention came to the last tee. They couldn't drive the elevated green, or get into trouble from the tee. Players whaled away at their drivers, which got them to the bottom of the hill within 50 yards or so of the green. Then it was a pop fly with a lob wedge to the green.
Yawn.
So it was that Glover came to the last tee with his two-shot lead. He was playing with Barnes, who was those two shots behind. Everybody else was done. If Barnes birdied the hole, Glover would need only to par the hole to win his first major.
It was unlikely that Barnes was going to make a bogey or a dreaded other.
The field had averaged over par on the last hole during the first three rounds. Fifteen of the 60 golfers bogeyed the hole in the third round, when the hole played its full length. Only four bogeyed the shortened hole in the final round, when the field average was under par. It was the fourth-easiest hole of the day relative to par.
Is that a hole fit for the end of the U.S. Open? True, nobody could have expected the relentless deluge that hit the area during the championship and pretty much ruined the way the USGA wanted the course to play. But the hole was also a problem when rain hit during the 2002 U.S. Open. Improvements had been made, but they didn't help.
The swamp that was the 18th fairway swept away any chance of much happening on the last hole. Lacking proper drainage, one of championship golf's finest final holes was converted into one of its weakest.
None of this should take away from the magnitude of Glover's accomplishment. But it did take away from the end of the U.S. Open that for a while looked as if it would never end. When it did, it limped in, soggy and whimpering.
(Contact Lorne Rubenstein at rube@sympatico.ca.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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