Almost a full work week has passed since J.J. Spaun finished the U.S. Open at Oakmont with a 64-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole that sealed his place in major championship history. By the end of that late Sunday afternoon in western Pennsylvania, the sport was ready to move on from a brutal and unforgiving golf course that lived up to its reputation as the most difficult venue for a major championship with its dense, deep five-inch rough, penal bunkers and narrow and sloping fairways.
As the Travelers Championship begins Thursday at TPC River Highlands outside of Hartford, Conn., the best players in the world are thankful for this more forgiving layout, where Scottie Scheffler won last year in a playoff over Tom Kim after they both finished regulation at 22 under par.
“After a week like I had at Oakmont last week, where you’re not quite in the mix but you might feel you find something in your game, you’re excited to come back and play again,” said Rory McIlroy, who finished 19th at Oakmont. “This is the perfect sort of chaser for what Oakmont was last week, and nice to get out on a golf course where you feel you can make a lot of birdies.”
What do we want from our golf tournaments and major championships? At times, Oakmont felt like a horror show that ran as the intermission between the Disney-like affairs that routinely occur from week to week on the PGA Tour. Listen to players long enough and they will tell you they don’t mind difficult setups as long as they're fair. Was it fair to ask them to hit shots off steep slopes of bunkers in five inches of grass at Oakmont that should have been cut short to let balls fall into the bunker?
Tyrrell Hatton, who finished in a tie for fourth at Oakmont, didn’t think so. “I feel I’ve missed it in the right spot and got punished, which ultimately I don’t think ends up being fair,” said the 33-year-old Englishman on Sunday after he took a bogey on the drivable par-4 17th hole at Oakmont after his drive finished on one of the steep slopes instead of falling into the greenside bunker.
Playing one group behind him and tied for the lead, Spaun hit the drive of his life at the 17th hole, where he finished with a two-putt birdie to take a lead that would have been good enough to win even without the bomb he made on the 18th hole. This is the great shotmaking that we want to see at the biggest and baddest major championship.
But unfortunately all too often in a world dominated by superstars, it matters a lot to many people who performs the great shotmaking. It was supposed to be Scottie Scheffler and McIlroy or the Sunday fan favorite, Adam Scott, making those clutch shots down the stretch on Sunday at Oakmont, not Spaun. Guys like him aren’t supposed to win majors, but when they do you are reminded just how good they really are and why none of his peers were truly surprised to see him pull it off.
This U.S. Open at Oakmont was a reminder of how difficult the game can be for the best players in the world with setup features like deep rough and tight fairways that force more thought and temperance in making course decisions. Even with the great reverence that many of today’s players hold for the timeless designs like Oakmont, their great technological advancements in equipment and sports performance have armed them seemingly with a sense of entitlement to spectacular golf.
For four days, the Travelers and TPC Cromwell will give both players and fans the assurance of those eagles and birdies that were missing at Oakmont. There will be no cut to force any player to smash a couple of lockers in rage on his way to the airport. The regular old PGA Tour, the one in a standoff with LIV Golf, brings a normalcy to the world of golf week after week with a mostly consistent show for viewers, where there is a compelling winner and a brood of small children running on the 18th green with their mother to hug daddy after he has won the tournament.
Oakmont mostly kept to this formula with some significant differences. Notable players such as Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas missed the cut: robbing us of their fierce embrace of pressurized moments and a charisma that will make them must-see TV in September at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. Scheffler, McIlroy and Jon Rahm all made the cut, but they were never truly in contention on Sunday.
Brian Rolapp, who was announced this week as the CEO of the PGA Tour, will inherit a brand not much interested in losing its stars on the weekends or embarrassing them with overly difficult courses. But right now with several of its top players exiled to LIV, the PGA Tour doesn’t have all the stars that it wants. Four times a year when all the best players do come together at the majors, it’s an acute reminder of the absence of some of those players on the PGA Tour’s regular schedule. What might Hatton have done this week at the Travelers after nearly winning at Oakmont?
But the show must go on. It is a show and Spaun gave us one even though he wasn’t expected to be so late at the party. The game has long ago moved on from Oakmont and the type of golf that privileges hitting fairways. We’ll have the time of our lives at TPC Cromwell and hardly anybody will complain about how easy it is.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Oakmont Was Great, but One Brutal Test Per Year Is Enough for the Game’s Best.