Regular Golf Club

The U.S. Open brings pros closer to our level

by Ryan O./”Hollywood” Ben Hogan (craftylefty2126@bsky.social)

Lost balls. Angrily waved clubs. Loud, public complaints. A startling inability to hold the green. Three putting. A stunning lack of distance control.

If that sounds like your typical round, congratulations, you’re Regular Golf Club’s target audience. Thanks for stopping by, and welcome to the one week of the year when the male pros feel so like us.

Welcome to the U.S. Open.

It’s the one tournament every year where the combination of course and conditions makes the pros look like us Joes – the starkest reminder that this game is hard, even for its best practitioners.

This is the tournament about which USGA chairman Sandy Tatum once said, “We’re not trying to humiliate the best players in the world, we’re simply trying to identify who they are.” About which no less a talent than Seve Ballesteros said, “I would like to win the U.S. Open, but I don’t have a chance.”

They may even generate an emotion within you that you rarely feel for well-paid, highly skilled professionals.

Empathy.

As an avid consumer of professional golf, I spend most weeks happily admiring the swings of men and women who appear to have their ball on a string. That’s typically what we watch professional sports for – to see people perform at the highest level, completing physical and mental feats typically relegated to the realm of dreams for us mere mortals.

Not this week. No fucking way. This week is for feeling like we’re all in this together.

Scottie Scheffler, mouth agape at how that ball could’ve possibly missed the cup to the left? Just like us.

Hideki Matsuyama dropping his club and watching the wind condemn his ball directly to golf hell? Just like us.

Jon Rahm staring with murderous intent at a green that just repelled his Callaway? Just like us.

Tyrrell Hatton being, well, Tyrrell Hatton? Just like us.

Long gone – at least for four days – are the courses and setups where bombers can go long with impunity, ignoring the rough or any semblance of strategy. Golfers without absolute control of their approach shots need not apply. Hell, they’re already complaining about the par-3 11^th hole at Shinnecock, this week’s canvas for carnage.

What does that mean for you, dear viewer and weekend warrior? A lot of A-list golfers are about to have a C-level performance. To have a week for which “dogshit” is not an apt enough description. To encounter ankle-high rough, firm fairways and greens and comical amounts of players over par. In short? They’ll look a lot like we do on an average Saturday. They may even generate an emotion within you that you rarely feel for well-paid, highly skilled professionals.

Empathy.

So strap in for possible carnage, particularly at Shinnecock, which may be the USGA’s purest test of golf. And perhaps, for one glorious weekend, when your partner or pal asks if you could hit that shot, the answer might actually be yes.

Photo by Brandon Williams on Unsplash