Posted on: Tuesday, June 12, 2001

U.S. Open could be a downhill challenge

Associated Press

TULSA, Okla. — During his U.S. Open practice round yesterday, Sergio Garcia tapped his putt from about 15 feet above the hole on No. 9. Then the show began.

The ball trickled toward the cup, began to pick up speed, slid past the hole and kept on rolling down the slope. One of his playing partners finally just stuck out his putter to keep the ball from rolling off the green.

That's life on the side-by-side greens of Nos. 9 and 18 at Southern Hills Country Club.

Any putt from above the cup will be wickedly slick. Any approach that is less than precise to the elevated greens is likely to roll backward onto the fairway.

"If you hit the ball in the middle of the green, it's going to roll back off of it," Charles Howell said after walking off No. 18. "It's going to be interesting during the tournament, that's for sure."

It could be a repeat of '98 U.S. Open at The Olympic Club, where the hole location on No. 18 in the second round turned into a fiasco.

The late Payne Stewart had a 10-foot birdie putt that dropped just below the hole, and then trickled 25 feet down a slope. Kirk Triplett used his putter to stop one of those runaway putts.

Tom Meeks, who sets up the course for the U.S. Open, got an earful that day.

"That was a learning experience for me," he said in advance of this year's tournament. "I certainly don't want that to happen again. I think it was a big lesson for me.

"We're going to have to set some holes here, that if a player gets above the hole, he's going to have some difficulty. If he's off green and chips it, he's going to have his work cut out."

Hal Sutton said he spoke with Meeks after playing a practice round at Southern Hills last week. The fairness of both greens, he said, "was pretty iffy."

"That's not what golf was intended to be," Sutton said. "I played here last Wednesday, and I hit a good 3-iron (on No. 18) that landed 20 feet up in the green, ran up in the top of the slope and then ran within a foot of running 50 yards off the green.

"I don't think that's what they want to see when their champion is coming in on 18. I don't think that's golf."

USGA agronomist Tim Moraghan said Sutton is right.

"We want to make sure that a player who has a 210-yard shot into the wind and lands it on the middle of the green doesn't roll back off the front and have a 60- or 70-yard pitch shot," Moraghan said yesterday, watching groundskeepers give the 18th a thorough watering.

"It could be hit-and-giggle golf, and I don't want to do that. I don't want to embarrass anybody."

He said the USGA will try to cut all the greens so they're the same speed. The 5 percent pitch on 18 makes that difficult.

Moraghan said he and Vijay Singh were on the course Saturday. At that time, if Singh rolled a ball to the middle of the slope from below the green and the ball rolled well back into the fairway. Yesterday, the ball would either stay or settle.

"He said, 'I can see you're not messing with it, you're trying to get it better,' "Moraghan said. "And that's what we're trying to do."