GOLF:The Congressional has come a long way since its days of pampering US presidents, writes PHILIP REID
THE VIEW from the grand clubhouse here at Congressional Country Club – in a part of the world where there are more movers and shakers, certainly in politics, than anywhere on this planet – is of hilly, tree-lined terrain. It is what is called The Blue Course and here, starting on Thursday, the 111th US Open will, as it does every year, seek to provide the toughest examination of any of golf’s four major championships. At 7,574 yards long, certainly the restructured par 71 course will ask many stern questions.
But length is only one aspect of it. The greens will be lightning fast, running at between 14 and 14½ feet on the stimpmetre (two feet quicker than when the championship was last staged here in 1997); and the rough has been graduated and cut down around bunkers, part of the USGA’s ploy to make it a mental as much as a physical test.
As the USGA’s Tom O’Toole put it: “The philosophy is, in short, the US Open should be the most rigorous, the most difficult yet fair test in championship golf, an examination which tests both the players’ physical capabilities, including all shot-making, (and) also tests the players’ mental capabilities and tenacity. In conclusion, we want well executed shots rewarded and poorly executed shots penalised.”
Congressional – on the outskirts of the US capital – is an exclusive club, to be sure. The membership waiting period is up to eight years and a number of former US presidents – William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford – have been members in their time. With an indoor bowling alley, tennis club, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, it is a members’ club that is more than just about golf. But not really: golf is its heartbeat.
Originally built in the 1920s as “an informal common ground where politicians and businessmen could meet as peers, unconstrained by red tape”, the course – designed by Devereux Emmet, redesigned by Robert Trent Jones in the 1950s and now given a make-over by his son Rees Jones for this third staging of the US Open – is visually stunning.
As Graeme McDowell, the defending champion, observed: “Aesthetically it’s beautiful, real old school. Great trees, great definition, really well-bunkered, great greens . . . big, undulating.”
The club, though, only survived World War Two by leasing its property as training grounds for the super-secret Office of Strategic Services. In 1955, the club offered to play host to the US Open but was told in no uncertain terms that it lacked the demands of being a genuine championship test and, so, Robert Trent Jones was engaged. Among the changes he made was to combine a par four and a par three hole to make a gargantuan par five, now the 636 yards ninth hole.
There have been significant changes made to the Blue Course for the championship compared to 1997 when Ernie Els triumphed in the final round over Tom Lehman and Colin Montgomerie. At 7,574 yards, it is one of the longest in US Open History – only Torrey Pines in 2008 was longer – and seven new tee boxes have been constructed. All 18 greens have been rebuilt, the sub-soil replaced, and the goal to make it a more challenging course than the one on which Els triumphed has been achieved.
Interestingly, the par from the course has been increased from 70 to 71 but the most dramatic change has been a re-routing where the famed 18th – a par three – is no more. The short hole was seen as anti-climatic by the USGA and, now, the 18th (the old 17th) is a monstrous par 4 that requires a tee shot down the right and a mid-iron approach to a peninsula green.
Where once a single landing strip of a tee was the sole launchpad for the hole, Jones has replaced it with four different angled tee boxes: the tee for the US Open stretches the downhill par four to 523 yards (the longest par four in a Major) and is slightly to the right of the three tees ahead of it, closer to the right-hand tree line, making it harder to hit a draw off it.
Rees Jones also removed high hills in the fourth and sixth fairways to provide visibility and dropped the second and seventh greens to make both uphill par threes less blind off the tee. He cut and filled areas on the 13th to convert that former uphill par three into a slightly downhill one. And, perhaps most importantly, he reversed the direction of the old par three 18th and turned it into the par three 10th to improve traffic flow and ensure that the new finishing hole was a potential championship breaker.
Many of the changes which Rees Jones has made for this US Open are ones, he insists, which his father would have made if more money and better equipment were available to him half a century ago.
“My father’s approach to preparing a course for an (US) Open was to preserve par, to keep the winning score around or above par . . . my approach is much different, I try to make the course play fair, to give everyone more options as well as more challenges . . . the best golf will most often win. You don’t have a fluke winner.”
A case in point is Rees Jones’s remodelling of the par four 11th hole here. Encouraged by Tiger Woods – who had a run of bogey-bogey-double bogey-bogey en route to his ATT National win on the US Tour in 2009 – the course designer removed fairway bunkers and moved the landing area close to the creek that runs down the right. The result is a fairway that is just two paces from the stream and makes for a much more daunting tee shot.
The decision to rebuild all 18 greens was actually taken by the Congressional club, to improve drainage and to get rid of the perceived troublesome poa annua greens which traditionally suffered in the summer heat. The new greens are a hybrid bentgrass with a deeper root structure, The green staff used GPS technology to replicate the existing contours. But, while the old contours are replicated, the new grass will allow the greens to run considerably faster on the stimp. But the USGA have shown a degree of fairness too, especially with the decision to make the sixth a par five rather than a par four which increases the course par from 70 to 71.
As Mike Davis, chief executive of the USGA, explained: “When Tom O’Toole and I went around and looked at the course, we were convinced that the sixth hole, which had played as a par four in the ‘64 Open and the ‘97 Open, would actually be a better par five.“With the green complex there, it’s got a pond that fronts the green and also is very, very tight to the right side of the green, and we just felt as a long par four trying to put hole locations up against the water was not only unfair, it was just really over the top. The guys are good but they’re not that good.”
That’s not to suggest the USGA have gone soft in setting up the course. For the most part, on virtually every single shot, this 111th US Open at Congressional – 10 miles north of the White House – will likely prove itself a very worthy examination to eke out the best player in the field.
Just as you’d expect it to do, really.
CAPITAL PAIR Previous Congressional winners
1964
Ken Venturi
Without a win on the US Tour in four years, the American defied excessive heat and dehydration to emerge a four-shot winner over Tommy Jacobs. Trailing Jacobs by two shots going into the last round – the last occasion 36 holes were played on the final day – Venturi was advised by his doctor not to continue due to the heat. Between rounds, he downed fluids, took salt tablets and used cold compresses and ice packs to alleviate the effects of dehydration as he staggered around the course in the final round, shooting 70 to Jacobs' 76.
Winning score
278 (2 under): 72, 70, 66, 70
Prize money: $17,500
1997
Ernie Els
Won his second US Open by closing with a one-under-par 69. He hit a five-iron into the tough, par four 17th for a par, then made a five-foot par putt on the 18th. Tom Lehman hit into water on the 17th and Colin Montgomerie missed a par putt on the 17th to squander another chance in a Major.
Winning score
276 (4 under): 71, 67, 69, 69
Prize money: $465,000
