The US Open, dubbed “golf’s toughest test”, has never been a friendly or low-scoring affair.
Besides Rory McIlroy’s destruction of Congressional in 2011 and Tiger’s near faultless display at Pebble Beach in 2000, no player has cracked double figures under-par to win a US Open.
In reality, most players are relieved to shoot one round in the red – let alone all four – on the frighteningly difficult tracks devised each year by the USGA.
So what will they dish up at Pinehurst No.2 this year?
Fairways the width of a two-lane road?
Greens so hard and so lightning fast, that you wouldn’t dare breathe within six feet of your ball?
No, according to actor and comedian Will Ferrell … it will be much, much more penal.
Booby traps, jaguars and barbed wire … Will Ferrell offers his advice for setting up Pinehurst this year.
WILL FERRELL’S TIPS FOR MAKING THE US OPEN MORE CHALLENGING
*Extreme hazards – “Dig little pits that if you step in, you fall 20 feet to a pit full of snakes and barbed wire.”
*Four-legged opposition – “At any point during a hole, release big game cats that haven’t been fed in a month.”
* Survival of the fittest – “Turn it into the Hunger Games meets the US Open. You don’t know … three or four golfers, they may not make it to the end. They’ve fallen into a pit of death or eaten by a jaguar from the Amazon jungle.”
* Exploding golf balls – “That would be a little appetiser.”