US Open Golf 2012: Breaking Down Holes 1-6 at the Olympic Club

PGA golfers will never be smacked in the face with a more difficult challenge to open their rounds than they are at the Olympic Club. The first six holes are brutal, and the results certainly prove that. 

In the first two rounds, the field carded 675 bogeys, 114 double bogeys or worse and only 89 birdies. Following the narrowing of the field, the first six were played at 133 strokes over par on Saturday. These are staggeringly bad numbers for the world's best golfers to produce, but it is not surprising. 

Hole No. 1 is not tricky, but it is a par four that had played as a par five in the previous times this course has hosted the Open. It takes an amazing effort to card a birdie on the opener. 

With the switch of No. 1 to a par four, five of the first six holes are par fours. They are all long, narrow and uneven. This makes for a hard shot should a player land in the fairway, and a nearly impossible shot if they miss it.

The par four sixth hole was lengthened for this event, and that was done so the only fairway bunker on this course would be in play. This leaves the players with a choice of trying to thread the needle on the insanely narrow stretch of fairway on the side of the bunker, or to lay up short. Either way, par is a wonderful score there. 

The only non-par four in this group comes at the par three third. This is a long par three with a narrow green and it all slopes away from the tee, which makes stopping the ball on these hard greens nearly impossible. 

The best chance is to land it short and run it up, but the narrow entry into that green leaves little to no room for error.

These holes are unusually brutal, and they are the perfect beginning for the hardest test in golf: the U.S. Open. 

For more videos and highlights, check out USOpen.com.