US Open Golf Scores 2012: USGA, Brutal Olympic Course Real Winners of Tournament

The United States Open Championship is supposed to be one of the most grueling competitions in all of golf, and after a one-year sabbatical in which Rory McIlroy laid waste to Congressional in 2011 the USGA has made it very clear that there will be no 16-under par scores recorded this season.

In fact, any score "in the red" (i.e. under par) may just be enough to win the entire tournament, which is as it should be at the Open, an event that tests endurance and resiliency as much as length off the tee.

The Lake course at Olympic Golf Club in San Francisco certainly hasn't disappointed USGA organizers who wanted to insure that there would be repeat of last year's assault on par, with a grand total of three golfers recording a red score after 36 holes (by all of one shot each, mind you).

To get an idea of just how not like last year's course this year's event is at Olympic, one need go no further than to ask the tournament's co-leader after two rounds. Tiger Woods, when asked about the conditions in California this week by The New York Times, quipped “Look, this isn’t Congressional. This is really hard. Shot after shot.”

The 7,060 yard Lake course at Olympic has wasted no time in giving the world's best golfers fits. The very first hole, a beastly 520-yard par four, has been the most difficult hole of the tournament to date according to Sports Illustrated, with the hole netting a staggering 170 scores of bogey or worse through two rounds.

The next five holes aren't much easier, and as Woods remarked to The Washington Post recently, “The first six, if you play them for four straight days even par, you’re going to be picking up just a boatload of shots. They’re just difficult.”

The weather hasn't been very cooperative either, as the rain that slowed conditions in Maryland last year has given way to a dry, fast course. Those conditions leave much less room for error off the tee or with approach shots, as a slight hook or errant roll is all it takes to land a shot in a hazard or rough that looks more like the African savannah than northern California.

Things aren't going to be any easier over the weekend, as the further we progress into the tournament the more dastardly the USGA will likely get with pin placement, making every approach shot to the green a gamble that could pay off beautifully or end in catastrophe.

The thing is, that's how the US Open is supposed to be. It's meant to be the most daunting test that professional golfers face on the North American continent, a gauntlet of golf where any red score is a badge of honor.

That is evidenced by the fact that outside last year's anomaly only two golfers since 2000 have won the tournament with scores of five-under par or better (Woods' demolition of Pebble Beach in 2000 and Jim Furyk's win at Olympia Fields in 2003), and four times over that stretch even par or worse was a good enough score to win the event.

Granted, there have been grumblings through the years about the US Open being "too hard," especially in 2006 and 2007, when five-over par was the tournament's winning score, leading some to label the '07 Open at Oakmont Country Club one of the most difficult US Opens in history.

The 2012 US Open at Olympic likely won't receive such a dubious distinction, and it's still possible that one or more golfers could play out of his mind this weekend and post a surprisingly low score. Still, this year's venue is apt to elicit more groans than smiles from the professionals attempting to tame it, and that's exactly how the US Open should be.

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