Villain’s Role

How does a golf course show it is the most macho? Simple, really. Just see what they do for the majors.

If you are Augusta National, you grow rough for the first time since Bobby Jones wore a green jacket.

If you are the U.S. Open, you find a place with greens harder than a runway and smaller than a USGA official’s heart.

At the British Open, you make the fairways narrow enough to induce claustrophobia.

And at the PGA, you . . . well, just what do you do?

That’s the question this week at Medinah, where the 81st PGA Championship will be played in the normal heat and humidity, not to mention probable humility, based on our current trend of mean-streak majors.

There’s sort of an arms race going on, a mission to add muscle to the courses so the players don’t clobber them.

Why is this happening? Blame Tiger Woods.

Ever since Woods touched Augusta National and won the 1997 Masters by 12 shots with a record 270, 18 under par, the majors decided they would make every effort to try to prevent this from happening again.

Consider the British Open. Mark O’Meara won in 1998 at Royal Birkdale at even par. This year, the winning score was six over. At the U.S. Open in 1998, Lee Janzen won at even par. Payne Stewart won in June at one under.

And now we have Medinah, which has been lengthened to 7,401 yards and becomes the longest sea-level course in major championship history. For the 1990 U.S. Open, Medinah was 7,192 yards.

There are exactly 4,161 trees--yes, somebody counted them--along the fairways and around the greens. There are 70 bunkers and a lake that comes into play on No. 2, No. 13, No. 14 and No. 17.

It’s not going to be easy, but that’s sort of the point these days. And that doesn’t bother David Duval at all. He says the players are bigger and stronger and the equipment is better, so something has to change and it happens to be the courses.

“That’s just evolution,” Duval said. “You have to do something. Now if we’re playing at 7,400 yards, they soak the fairways and have eight-inch or 10-inch rough, then you might have a problem. But I think it’s set up really perfect.”

Of course, that’s open to discussion. The problem is with the condition of Medinah’s greens, many of them a nice shade of brown. Extreme heat in recent weeks has baked the greens, nearly killing them, the worst being the No. 3 green.

“The greens aren’t great,” Janzen said. “They’re hard and I don’t think the weather has anything to do with it. . . . I don’t think heat should be an excuse for the lack of a perfect surface.”

Jose Maria Olazabal, who won the Masters on nearly perfect greens, isn’t experiencing the same feeling here.

“We might have a question mark on the greens,” he said. “That’s going to be maybe the problem this week. I don’t know if they’re going to be able to do much about it, but the rest of the golf course is really in great shape.”

Besides coming up short in the grass department, Medinah’s greens are also receiving low marks for their potential to spike up.

Fred Couples expects to see more than a few missed four- or five-foot putts because of the greens.

“I don’t know how they’re going to keep them from getting roughed up,” Couples said.

Stewart pointed out the other greens that don’t have a lot of grass: No. 13, No. 16 and No. 17.

Said Stewart, “It’s a great golf course, but I know the superintendent and the PGA aren’t happy with the condition of the greens.”

Maybe in private, but for public consumption, course superintendent Dan Quast said he thinks all is well. And the PGA’s chief officer, Jim Awtrey, said most of the greens are in good shape and although they may not look so hot, they’ll putt well.

Of course, the linking of the PGA and questionable greens brings to mind the 1995 PGA at Riviera, made famous for its greens that were on the verge of dying and spiked up like Swiss cheese. It can’t happen again, can it?

81st PGA Championship

* Where: Medinah CC, Medinah, Ill.

* When: Thursday-Sunday.

* TV: TNT (Thursday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday, 7:30-10 a.m.; Sunday, 7:30-10 a.m.); Channel 2 (Saturday-Sunday, 10:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.)