The rough and greens of Oakmont might make this the hardest U.S. Open ever

When executed properly, there’s an argument to be made that the U.S. Open is golf’s greatest event.

It’s truly America’s open championship -- anyone with a 1.4 handicap or better can enter. Almost every edition’s tee sheet has a smattering of dudes no one will ever hear from again, and nearly every weekend warrior that’s tasted success at the collegiate or amateur level still holds onto that dream -- finishing T-128 and missing the cut and returning to talk about it at work on Monday. Playing in The Masters is in a stratosphere far, far away for most competitive players and talking about such in a clubhouse or bar with friends would draw unrestrained laughter. The U.S. Open? “I could hang 68 or 69 and get out of the local, I’ve played well at [X Really Difficult Local Course] before! And then, hey, the sectional’s a crapshoot, maybe I get hot for 36 holes? Boom, U.S. Open.”

This scenario is embarrassingly implausible and unlikely for a host of reasons. I still dream about SB NATION WRITER WINS U.S. OPEN headlines while hitting range balls after work. Please don’t tell my mom and dad.

But beyond the from-nowhere underdog stories, there’s no championship that scrapes the surface of testing all areas of the game like the USGA’s signature event. For the best players in the world, it’s the equivalent of being tossed face-first into a tumble dryer. Most tour venues put a premium on one or two areas of the golf game. The U.S. Open requires brilliant play in, well, all of them. It’s the most difficult test in golf, bar none.

Of course, that difficulty often walks a thin line teetering on sadistically unfair to even totally unplayable. And, yes, even for the best players in the world.

Watching the world’s best toil in a difficult test is fine, when the setup is fair. Last year’s mess at Chambers Bay was a textbook example of the USGA botching the course setup and agronomy in the weeks prior — leading to the disaster on the greens during the championship. Golf.com’s Alan Shipnuck reported on it in-depth here, but most anyone with a basic understanding of agronomy knew what had gone on just by watching the event. The USGA has always demanded firmness on a golf course -- and such a trait was the only thing that could protect an otherwise fairly wide-open Chambers Bay track. They greatly reduced watering in an attempt to protect scoring in the weeks ahead of the event, which would have been fine if the Pacific Northwest had received the rain it normally does during May and early June last year. It didn’t, it got really hot, the grasses on the greens went dormant, the fairways got too firm and putting became something closer to Plinko than anything else.

This exhibits the two problems with USGA setups for U.S. Opens, and Mike Davis & Co.‘s over-compensatory need to protect scoring and assure a winning score that’s hopefully close to even par:

Oakmont isn’t Chambers Bay. It’s an established, famed U.S. Open track ready to host the event for the ninth time, a record. The course will be pristine and it would be a shock if the greens roll anything but perfectly this week -- fastest in the world, but still true. And it’s a golf course that deserves to elicit the high scores it does by penalizing the correct things. Players’ complaints at Chambers Bay were about the bumpy greens — something that can affect good shots as much or more than bad ones. If there’s a cauliflower growth of poa annua that knocks a perfectly played birdie putt off line, that’s a legitimate gripe. The USGA didn’t have much of an answer for that. Players’ complaints at Oakmont will be about the length of the rough. OK, cool, fine. Hit the dang fairway.

Still, stiffening up any golf course like the USGA is prone to do leaves little margin of error for changes in weather conditions that can turn an incredibly fun major championship into an unwatchable hell show. And if the rest of the week in Pittsburgh mirrors Sunday’s conditions during practice rounds, uh, welcome to Mike Davis’ Third Ring of Hell.

With winds kicking up and hot temperatures, here’s what led Jordan Spieth to speculate that we might see a winning score above Angel Cabrera’s +5 that took the title at Oakmont in 2007.

First, here’s a Justin Thomas lie from just off the 17th green.

Here’s AP golf writer, good guy, and definitely not tour pro Doug Ferguson trying to play a ball (yes, there’s a ball in there) out of green-side rough.

Here’s Keegan Bradley’s view of his lie -- yes, there’s a ball in there if you look closely.

And here’s video from Byeong Hun An showing what strong winds can do on the linoleum kitchen floors greens at Oakmont, which are expected to run around 14 or 14.5 on the stimpmeter.

Rickie Fowler’s Snapchat from earlier in the day captured some of the same never-ending rollout.

If those conditions remain all week — high winds, rough that will force players to play laterally rather than vertically from it, and lightning-slick surfaces — you can expect historically high scores at Oakmont, which is already hailed as the toughest course these pros will ever play.

It will undoubtedly be difficult, but the question to ask is whether or not it will be fair. Greens didn’t roll at 14 or 15s on the stimpmeter when Oakmont opened in 1903, and high winds could make the greens nearly unputtable -- which could even dictate a stoppage of play like we saw at last year’s British Open.

The good news for players and less-sadistic fans is that conditions for scoring should improve, in theory, this week. Wind speeds are supposed to drop through the week, and rain is in the forecast for both Thursday and Friday, which should soften up the golf course and make greens more receptive. The other side of wet conditions at Oakmont? Trying to advance a ball any distance out of the rough would be an exercise that might lead to more wrist injuries than birdies.

In any case, if scoring conditions are anything but perfect this week, the USGA will again toe the line of a difficult championship-level test appropriate for a U.S. Open vs. a rollicking golf trash fire that doesn’t accurately determine the week’s best player.

It’ll also make for fantastic sporting theater.