COMMENTARY : When Golf Becomes Nightmare

At the end of a glorious summer day along the shores of Carmel Bay, a day of sunlit splendor for anyone not encumbered by a golf bag, Nick Faldo of Surrey, England, decided the large scoreboard behind the 18th green at the Pebble Beach Golf Links did not do justice to the 92nd U.S. Open championship. The man thought something more concise than a list of the 10 leaders would have been appropriate to the occasion.

As was the case with a number of his peers, Faldo was displeased with the manner in which the U.S. Golf Association conspired with nature to turn America’s most celebrated golf course into an exercise in sadism. “The score,” said the two-time Masters and British Open champion, “should read Tom Kite 1, USGA 149.” Actually, it was 1 to 155 since 156 started the tournament on Thursday. By the end, only Kite was standing tall.

Well, you could make a case for Jeff Sluman, the only other player to finish below par. Faldo considered the possibility. “So they screwed everybody but two guys,” he said. “I hope they review the way they set up a golf course. If they want to keep the greens like this, I think I’ll take up topless darts.”

And Faldo was one of the more fortunate ones Sunday. He shot a 5-over-par 77 to gain a share of fourth place with Nick Price. Others saw little humor in being humiliated on national television.

Of the 66 golfers who teed off in the fourth round, 20 shot 80 or higher. Among them were three former U.S. Open champions -- Scott Simpson (88), Payne Stewart (83) and Raymond Floyd (81) -- former Master champ Craig Stadler (91) and former British Open champ Mark Calcavecchia (80).

“The course,” said Stewart, who defeated Simpson in a playoff at Hazletime last year, “was out of control.” More accurately, it was the players who had no control as the wind, docile for the first three days, blew in from the sea at approximately 25 mph. Not only did it play havoc with balls in the flight but, more significantly, it polished the already hard greens to the consistency of a billiard table.

“I thought the greens were very, very treacherous ... almost unputtable,” said Morgan, who set an Open record when he reached 12-under-par during the course of the third round, then lost 17 shots to par over the last 29 holes and finished in a tie for 13th. Yet, he declined to blame the USGA. “I could have played a lot better,” he said.

Other notables took less responsibility. “The U.S. Open is a joke,” harrumphed Floyd, who won the title at Shinnecock Hills in 1986 and was enjoying a remarkable resurgence at 49. “The USGA deserves what they are getting. There’s no skill involved. You miss the greens by five yards and the best players in the world can’t stop the ball.”

Simpson, who won in 1987 at Olympic before forcing the playoff a year ago, hooked his second shot into the bay on 18 for a double-bogey. He smiled. “It was (more) like a British Open, I guess,” he said. “Today the conditions were harder than I’ve ever seen in a U.S. Open. But Tom Kite sure played a great round.” Paul Azinger was so disgusted after finishing triple-bogey, bogey, bogey for a final-round 80 that he flipped his ball into the water after holing out and waved bye-bye to it. Good riddance. It reminded some longtime observers of George Archer’s farewell to the tournament on the same course in 1972.

The final day was similar that year, with the course bathed in sunshine and those venturing onto the water holes leaning into the wind for balance. Archer, from nearby Gilroy, had caddied at Pebble Beach and played many rounds here. But on that day the combination of the elements, the course management and the pin placements so infuriated him that he finished 18 only after intentionally driving two balls into the drink.

“You can’t do that,” said a USGA official after the first water shot. “Try and stop me,” Archer replied. He walked of with an 87.

That still was better than Simpson. Indeed, it was so difficult at Pebble Sunday that Andy Dillard the surprise good-old-boy of the tournament, was thrilled to get home with 77. “You won’t believe what a good score that was,” he said earlier in the day, before the leaders found out.

Billy Andrade, who played in the twosome before Dillard, was ecstatic with his 2-over 74, a score that lifted him into an improbable tie for sixth at 292. “If we had to play on conditions like this every week,” he said, “they’d put us all in a mental hospital.”

Perhaps that’s where the entire tournament should have been conducted. the enduring moment might have been Faldo up a tree in the second round. The whole event was so bizarre the tight-lipped Englishman turned into John Cleese.

“I stood on the seventh tee,” he recalled, “and had no idea what to do, no idea where to hit.” Faldo almost shot it over the cliff, settled for a double-bogey and thanked his stars he was still alive when it was over. “That’s about it,” he said.