Torrey Pines, picturesquely perched on bluffs hugging the Pacific Ocean, will no doubt provide a stark contrast of beauty and brutality when the US Open golf championship starts on Thursday.
Torrey Pines South Course, which becomes just the second municipal course to stage an Open after Bethpage Black six years ago, was laid out by William Bell in 1957.
A 2001 remodel by Rees Jones saw more than 500 yards added to the course, which at 7 643 will be the longest for any Major championship.
Perhaps more of a challenge, several greens have been repositioned to take account of surrounding canyons and cliffs.
Greens at the third, fourth and 14th holes have been taken right to the edges, while another buffer was removed when eucalyptus trees were taken out of many canyons.
Many US PGA Tour pros are familiar with Torrey Pines, which hosts the Buick Invitational in January.
But the ocean-side conditions in June, coupled with the demanding Open set-up always favoured by the US Golf Association (USGA), could make the course a completely different animal than the one seen in January.
”The greens are going to be so much harder than anyone is ever used to here,” said Pat Perez, a San Diego native who worked at Torrey Pines as a youngster. ”I think come Saturday and Sunday they’re going to be really difficult.”
Perez certainly isn’t the only player with plenty of experience at Torrey Pines.
In 11 appearances in the Buick Invitational, world number one Tiger Woods has won six times — most recently in January.
That success had Woods touted as the favourite as soon as the venue for the 108th US Open was announced. But the 13-time Major champion arrives at Torrey having not played a competitive round since the Masters, after which he had surgery to repair cartilage damage in his left knee.
The status of his knee has put a question mark over Woods — who played nine holes on Monday morning — and raised expectations for Phil Mickelson, a San Diego native who still lives in nearby Rancho Santa Fe and has won the Buick Invitational three times.
Mickelson counts the South Course the toughest in the country, and the USGA will no doubt make sure it shows all its teeth this week.
Narrow fairways will be lined by three graduated bands of rough — so that misses further from the fairway are penalised more — while around the greens wayward shots could end up in rough up to four inches high.
”If they keep it in this kind of condition, with the greens firm like this and the rough up, it’s a great course out there,” Perez said.
”It’s awesome. I’ve never seen it in this kind of shape.”
USGA official Mike Davis admitted he’s also hoping for Mother Nature to add another level of difficulty.
”I hope we get a couple of days with wind,” he said. ”I’m not rooting for four straight days of a two- or three-club wind, but we want some wind. You’re on the coast in California, so you want that to be one of the factors.” — Sapa-AFP