In Chamber of Commerce Weather, Torrey Pines Surrendering

Excuse me, but I was under the impression that the Wall Street Open, or whatever it’s called this year, was being played at Torrey Pines.

I took a look at Thursday’s scores and almost went to the Presidio par three by mistake.

I know Torrey Pines is not PGA West or Pebble Beach, but I didn’t think it could be taken apart like some flat, treeless layout in Albuquerque. I heard they had done something with 52 sand traps on the South course, but I didn’t think they had moved them to Black’s Beach.

Torrey Pines seemed to have its hands up in the air. The golf course was a batter taking a oh-and-two pitch, a football team punting on first down or the Indians surrendering to Custer. A PGA course is supposed to rise up and snarl, not take a beating on its back.

And this tournament, for some reason, does not even have a premier field. Sixteen of the top 20 money winners of a year ago took a vacation this week, which is difficult to explain since coming to San Diego is a vacation.

Maybe the name has gotten so twisted and convoluted that they didn’t realize the tournament is in San Diego. Really, where is the Shearson Lehman Hutton Open? Tournaments are becoming as cloned as the players, and this name is about as geographically identifiable as the Beatrice Western or Kemper or Centel or Deposit Guarantee. Give me the Chattanooga Open, for heaven’s sake.

Regardless, what if all the flower and power of golf were here? What if this were a U.S. Open or PGA field? It would probably take a 240 to win the darn thing. Oral Roberts would have a better chance hitting against Orel Hershiser than the golf course would have against that kind of field.

And so I headed to Torrey Pines Friday, expecting to see that the trees had been removed, the bunkers grassed over, fairways resculpted to run downhill (and probably downwind), ponds filled, the rough trimmed like a mustache and greens as manageable and flat as the Astrodome infield.

I expected to find that a Charger defensive coordinator from the pre-Ron Lynn days had set up the course so that some kid could step off a miniature golf course with a purple ball and a putter and shoot 80.

I found so many red numbers that it seemed the scoreboard needed a tourniquet . . . or stitches. It was obvious anyone who shot a mere par would be headed to the next tournament, and anyone above par should just go home. Everyone was going to beat the course, but someone was going to beat everyone else.

However, what was amazing to me was that the course did not really look any different, which is to say easier, to me. The rough was scraggly rather than tough, but that’s normal because of the play Torrey Pines gets from us weekend hackers. The work on the traps essentially lowered their lips and made them easier for us, but traps do not bother the pros one iota.

Then I realized what is was.

Torrey Pines was not getting any help. The weather was perfect, unless a gentle ocean breeze could be considered intimidating.

This tournament needs a nice rain storm or a pelting of hail or a stiff wind, regardless of where it comes from. Torrey Pines needs something so the weekend isn’t a walk in the park, which is what municipal courses really are . . . parks with flagsticks.

As it turned out, it took a three-under-par 141 to make the 36-hole cut. Exactly 109 players shot par or better. There were so many guys under par that it looked for a while as if there was not going to be room to list the guys over par, few that there were, on the press room summary board. Heck, 87 players bettered par, including 12 at three under, 14 at four under, 13 at five under, 18 at six under and 10 at seven under before positioning got a little more exclusive at the top of the leader board.

It would be an exaggeration to say that anyone still in the tournament has a chance to win it, but not by a lot.

If Friday’s weather becomes Saturday’s weather, look out.

Escondido’s Mark O’Meara, who putters around on a back yard green the way some guys tinker in their garages, started to talk about Friday’s weather and then surrendered to logic.

“The course did play relatively easy until the wind came up,” he said and then thought better of it. “But even then, it wasn’t that hard. These were ideal scoring conditions.”

O’Meara was likely initially inclined to blame an afternoon breeze on the fact that he was two strokes behind Mark Wiebe and Steve Elkington rather than tied for the lead. After all, it was after the wind picked up a bit that he bogeyed the 18th hole on the North Course. This was a revolting turn of events because the 18th is a birdie hole, and a birdie would have tied him for the lead.

The bottom line was that a fellow could not afford to bogey a birdie hole when everyone else was tearing the course apart.

“I was hot,” O’Meara said. “That hole was playing so easy for a par five.”

But his litany of problems was like a tale so many weekend golfers have told. Push right. Pull left. Fat out of a trap. And . . .

“I three-putted to top it all off,” he said. “That was a little whipped cream on the cake. I could have been tied . . . but I’m not.”

Mark O’Meara, of course, was introducing the human element, which can lose to any golf course on any given day. He did not seem too concerned. Two more rounds were left to play, and humans were overcoming their shortcomings quite nicely as Torrey Pines. And O’Meara happens to be one of the better humans playing this game.