Robert Allenby was hanging around outside the United States Open scoring tent Sunday afternoon when Spike McRoy walked by.
"What did you shoot today?" McRoy asked.
"Par," Allenby said.
"That's unbelievable," McRoy said as he reached out to shake Allenby's hand.
Now there's an exchange you don't see every day on the PGA Tour where rounds of 63 or 64 are commonplace. But McRoy's surprise was genuine on a day when a par 70 result was an utter fantasy score for most everyone in the field. In fact, Allenby, from Australia, was the only player of 66 who did it.
Allenby was under no illusions during his round. Whether he shot 70 or 90, he wasn't going to win. Perhaps even more remarkable were the matching 71s that Retief Goosen and Phil Mickelson crafted while in the thick of the battle.
HARSH SETUP
The harshness of the weekend setup at Shinnecock Hills may have infuriated many of the world's best golfers, but it's clear that the public was delighted to see the professionals suffer in a way the rest of us take as routine.
Every year the United States Golf Association tries as hard as it can to make par a barely attainable score at the U.S. Open. USGA officials grow rough, they skimp on water, they mow and roll the greens until there's no live grass left. They do everything in their power to create a test that only the very best player that week might master. Or not.
And when you constantly push golf courses to the limit of playability, occasionally you get on the wrong side of that line that separates demanding from unfair.
The USGA did it this weekend, to the collective howls of the players, outraged to be made to look like fools at a national open. The other howls you heard were howls of delight from the fans on the course and those who were giggling at home.
In case you're doubting that thesis, then how do you explain a 13% increase in the TV audience Sunday, year over year at the Open? Nobody much cared to see Jim Furyk breeze to victory last year at Olympia Fields but they seemed to enjoy the pain that Shinnecock Hills inflicted.
Yesterday on talk radio stations all over the continent, it was apparent that few regular folks have any sympathy for the fine whine offered up by the players.
So who's right? To an extent, everybody.
The players have a point and the USGA itself grudgingly conceded its own miscalculations created a bad situation. It had no idea the course would change so dramatically from Friday to Sunday.
On Friday, it played tough but fair. On Saturday, it was borderline. And on Sunday, it was carnival golf. The player complaints were legitimate, if overdone.
By the same token it does the hearts of golf fans good to see their heroes eat a little humble pie. The same thing often happens at the British Open when the wind howls and the cold rain slashes sideways.
Back in 1998, at the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, during the Saturday round a virtual monsoon came in off the Irish Sea and many players expected play to be called.
One player suggested to a marshal that it was time to suspend play and the marshal said that wouldn't be possible.
"Oh, no, lad, we couldn't do that," he said. "You see if we suspended play, all the members would want to go out and play."
Major championships are supposed to be hard. Only in exceptional cases do people remember the numbers. They remember the competition.
CARNOUSTIE BRUTAL
At the 1999 British Open, the boys from the Royal and Ancient presented a setup at Carnoustie that was brutally hard. And when the weather became harsh, the tournament became a test of survival.
The man responsible for the course, John Philip, dismissed all claims by the players of his mismanagement, scolding them right back for being so preoccupied by par.
"It is an arbitrary number," he said. "If it takes 290 to win the tournament, shoot 290. What difference does it make where it stands in relation to par?"
Not much, really, but par made Robert Allenby stand very tall on Sunday.
