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Torrey Pines: The Perfect Test

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By MICK ELLIOTT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 12, 2008

SAN DIEGO - What makes a U.S. Open different than any other golf tournament, the three other Grand Slam events notwithstanding, is that it always fights back.

The winner gets a huge check, a nifty trophy, a place in history and bloodstains. Not since 2004 has the winner broken par. The last two champions finished 5 over. One week a year the USGA is put in charge and golfers actually need those clubs for self-defense.

"It's a U.S. Open, so it's going to be a little different," Sergio Garcia said.

And we haven't even gotten around to talking about Torrey Pines.

When first-round play begins this morning, the city-owned facility hard by the Pacific Ocean will join New York's Bethpage Black as only the second municipal course to host the U.S. Open. It also will bring the event to Southern California for only the second time in 60 years.

Home to a former U.S. Navy training base, the 36-hole complex opened in 1957 and is named after the rare coastal trees that are gnarled into spectacular shapes. Long considered the heart of San Diego's golf community, the course hosts the PGA Tour's Buick Invitational, and after open-to-the-public Bethpage's selection to host the 2002 Open made the decision to follow suit.

To get the already difficult South Course up to Open standards, a group called Friends of Torrey Pines helped raise $3.5 million to have Rees Jones, the "U.S. Open Doctor," lengthen the course, redo the greens and add bunkers.

Now the course will be set up at 7,643 yards, playing to a par of 35-36-71.

That makes it 379 yards longer than any previous U.S. Open course, although host sites in recent decades have played to par 70.

"The course is a lot tougher this week than what we see year in and year out in February," said Phil Mickelson, a San Diego native who grew up playing the public course. "But I am so excited about the way the golf course is being presented. I just think it's a fabulous place.

"I think the course is going to give the players a difficult test, but I think that it's a fair test. I think it's the best setup I've ever seen for a U.S. Open."

The course's visual impact will come from the 195-yard par-3 third hole and the 488-yard par-4 fourth.

Off the elevated third tee, golfers will aim at a small green while looking straight down jagged cliffs and into the Pacific Ocean. At No. 4, the entire left side of the fairway runs along the towering cliff with Black's Beach, a local nude sunbathing spot, located at the bottom.

Typically, the view is also enhanced by a squadron of colorful hang gliders that soar over golfers' heads, but the adjacent Torrey Pines Gliderport is closed during the Open, eliminating the flybys. The beach, however, remains open, possibly causing the MetLife blimp that provides television shots to also avoid the airspace.

The more traditional challenges of the week, as usual, will be savage rough and hard and fast greens - meaning the course will play almost nothing like it does in February for the PGA Tour.

"Make no mistake, this is a seriously difficult golf course," Masters winner Trevor Immelman said. "I think it favors a long hitter, just because of the weather. It's going to be damp and cold. The ball doesn't go very far.

"So I think a power hitter is going to prevail. But once you manage to hit the fairway, which is of massive importance, the greens are going to be tricky. They're going to be fast and they are already quite firm. You are going to have a lot of big, breaking putts that you have to pay a lot of attention to."

For the third year, the rough will feature three different cuts, growing deeper and more penalizing the farther a shot sails off line.

Adding to the potential for a thrill ride, USGA official Mike Davis has indicated plans to vary course yardage up significantly each day, even promising to have the potential 435-yard 14th to play at least once as a drive-able par 4.

"What the USGA has done is given itself flexibility," Tiger Woods said. "If the golf course is playing too hard, if the wind kicks up, if the greens are getting out of control, what happened at Shinnecock, they don't want to get into that situation again. They have the ability now to move tees up, play holes differently, give guys a chance to make birdie. And even so we've had more flexible tournaments, but the scores have still been over par."

Reporter Mick Elliott can be reached at

(813) 281-2534 or melliott@tampatrib.com.

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