What have they done with the U.S. Open?

This isn’t a U.S. Open golf tournament. It’s a tea party. Crumpets, anyone?

Guys who win the U.S. Open are supposed to walk off with blood on their pants, bandages on their arms. If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not a U.S. Open.

Pain is an essential. The U.S. Golf Assn. sets up its courses in consultation with the Marquis de Sade. Players who win this prepare by banging on golf balls half the time and on their shins the other half.

You ought to be named Tiger or Ben or Arnie or Jack. Rocco works too. In this one, you’re best if you are part street-fighter.

If somebody named Ricky shoots 67-65 and sets a U.S. Open record for a 36-hole total of 132, eight under par, it isn’t the U.S. Open, it’s the John Deere Classic. You don’t miss six cuts and have as your best finish of the year a 47th place and set records at the U.S. Open.

If you are in first place and wearing a painter’s hat, it has to be the Reno-Tahoe Open.

In a real U.S. Open, shots are supposed to hit the greens, which are prepared to the same softness as your garage floor, and bounce off into rough as thick as a hair brush. If the ball stops and spins back, it must be the Texas Valero Open.

The winner of the U.S. Open should lose at least five balls. He should curse and mumble a lot under his breath, secretly vow to take out a hit on the head of the USGA and never do much fist-pumping until the last nine holes, because then it is almost over.

On U.S. Open greens, you don’t putt the ball, you exhale gently on the back of it and hope it either hits the hole or doesn’t roll all the way to the river.

Saturday, at Bethpage State Park on western Long Island, where they are holding this fraud, the greens were soft enough to sleep on. Players filled their bags with three-irons and low-lofted hybrids and balls struck from these low trajectory clubs ran to the pin, not to the river.

This U.S. Open is the all-time leader in ball-mark repair.

Pro golfers love this stuff. They live for high shots, soft landings and seven-foot birdie putts.

But no matter how good it is, they still find little annoyances. With the soft conditions, there has been much discussion about having to hit shots with mud on their ball. Depending on where the mud is, one must calculate whether to feather the shot or shape it.

And you thought coal miners have it tough.

This year, the USGA, dedicated as always to destroying that comfort zone, got one-upped by a higher power. That there is such a thing has come as a surprise to the USGA.

It rained and stopped, rained and stopped. It made the tournament a soggy show for the group that teed off in Tiger Woods’ side of the draw sheet and a walk in the park for the other group. For half of the field, the most important utensil was not a putter, but an umbrella.

It drizzled for the last four hours of Saturday’s completion of 36 holes. A course originally prepared for torture of golfers was now ideal for gatherers of night crawlers.

Television, always in hot pursuit of a big story, handled the weather situation in Woodward-Bernstein style. It brought in Al Roker.

Despite Roker, the rain was docile enough to allow the completion of 36 holes and present the possibility of an on-schedule Sunday finish. That, of course, depends on Roker’s skills today.

The leader at the halfway point was the 28-year-old in the painter’s hat, Ricky Barnes of Stockton. His record 36-hole performance may be the single most important factor in keeping his hometown from repeating its February 2009 selection as “America’s Most Miserable City.” This could move it past Modesto in livability.

Poor Barnes. He is so close to having perfect genes to pull off an unthinkable sports upset. His dad is Bruce, who played football at UCLA and in the NFL. He is not related, however, to the most important Barnes in Bruins history. That would be walk-on quarterback John Barnes, who inexplicably led UCLA past USC in 1992.

Yes, miracles do happen. And could today.

Roker could be wrong. It could dry out. Shots to the green could start ricocheting into the gallery. Players could start four-putting from 10 feet. Some could lose their balls in the rough, four inches off the fairway. It could be wonderful, heartwarming, inspiring once again.

Tiger Woods could start feeling it, hitch up his pants and lock in that stare. Phil Mickelson could start hitting irons around sponsor tents and over freeway ramps.

We could have anxiety, anguish and anger, all the things that make this four days in late June among the best in sports.

Or, we could have more of the same and we’ll just call it the Shell Houston Open.

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bill.dwyre@latimes.com.