Course Preview and Fits: U.S. Open

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With all of the drama surrounding the breakaway LIV Tour swirling in the media, we return to a bit of normalcy this week with the U.S. Open at The Country Club (TCC) in Brookline, Mass. The Country Club’s historic backdrop will provide a stark contrast to a glossy new tour; this famous site is hallowed ground to many in the golf world, having played host to Francis Ouimet’s famous U.S. Open victory in 1913 and the U.S. team’s comeback win for the ages at the Ryder Cup in 1999.

The Country Club is one of the oldest courses in the U.S. (and a founding five member of the USGA), and while it may not fit the mold of what we have seen lately at U.S. Opens (it will play a few hundred yards shorter than recent iterations of the U.S. Open at under 7,300 yards), it will certainly have all of the usual characteristics of a U.S. Open golf course: deep rough, narrow fairways, and firm, fast greens. We don’t have much information to go on, as the last professional event held at TCC was the 1999 Ryder Cup, but the U.S. Amateur was held here in 2013, when Matt Fitzpatrick took home the hardware. A lot of guys in the field played the course back in 2013, but a few rounds nine years ago do not make course history. This will also be the first time this particular configuration of holes will be played, as the USGA has put together a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster using holes from the championship 18 and the Primrose nine (Case in point: On the 13th hole, players will play from the Primrose No. 1 tee to the Primrose No. 2 green). The course has also been undergoing continued renovation over the last 15 years (by Gil Hanse, of course), so it won’t be exactly the same as in past years. We’ll once again be relying more on course fit to predict what skills will be necessary to contend here.