U.S. Open's 'green ice' will produce plenty of whine

The golfers are playing nice. For the moment.

The U.S. Open has come to a new course with a layout that trashes the traditional template. Chambers Bay is unfamiliar and unconventional and promises to be almost unplayably hard at times. The links track that rolls along Puget Sound should make for visually captivating golf – and audibly irritated golfers.

They did some complaining in the weeks leading up to this Open, but it's bad Tour etiquette to bring your bitching on-site during practice rounds. So they're trying to keep it civil.

"If you are going to talk negative about a place, you're almost throwing yourself out to begin with, because golf is a mental game," said Masters champion Jordan Spieth. "Plus, the U.S. Open is about as challenging mentally as any tournament in the world. So you have to go in positively."

Added 2010 U.S. Open winner Graeme McDowell: "I think the golf course has been a lot better than I expected. It's important, I think, this week not to fall in love with any certain negativity that players, everyone associated, might sort of feel about the golf course. You've got to take it for what it is. Someone's going to lift the U.S. Open trophy this week, and having the right attitude off the bat I think is key."

By noon Thursday Pacific Time, expect that attitude to change for a whole lot of competitors. When the ugly scores start rolling in, the bitchathon will begin. Pin placements, tee boxes, firmness and fastness. Expect all to be targets for criticism.

Which is weak.

For one week a year, pro golfers should be able to handle playing somewhat like the rest of us. They should flail and fail, without whining. They should embrace the struggle.

Through 22 PGA Tour stops leading to this point in 2015, the winning score has averaged 15.4 shots below par. Ten times the winning score has been minus-18 or lower. Six times it has been more than 20-below. Not once this year has it been less than six-below.

That's a whole lot of swaggering golfers bringing courses to their knees. There's nothing wrong with a one-week role reversal.

The U.S. Open is supposed to be dog-cussing difficult. A couple of other majors – the British Open and PGA – usually carry that potential, but not always that certainty. These are the four days that should most mercilessly try a Tour pro's soul.

Let there be bogeys. Let there be blood.

"If you think about a U.S. Open most years, it really is the most difficult test that the best players in the world face," said USGA executive director Mike Davis, the guy in charge of course setup and thus the guy who will hold players' psyches in the palm of his hand. "So by that very nature we're setting it up closer to the point – closer to the edge, if you will, where a well-executed shot is not rewarded. … We don't want that. It's not – certainly not one of our goals. It's not to make it the most ridiculous hard test that we can, it's to make it a good test, where well-struck shots are rewarded."

That's fine. But unforeseen adversity should be part of the package as well. American Tour golf often is numbingly predictable – the courses are conventional enough that they take unpredictability out of play.

That shouldn't be the case at Chambers Bay. This is unlike any other U.S. Open course, ever.

So you will hear a lot about fescue grass this week. You will hear about wind direction. And elevation. And undulation. And fluctuating course length. And even intruding trains. Tiger Woods on Tuesday actually raised the possibility of sprinkler heads playing a major role in the outcome.

It is probably inevitable that some competitor will call the course "unfair." Someone will say the USGA is out to "embarrass" the golfers. It will be nonsense.

If the course is "unfair" for one, it's "unfair" for all. (The exception being playing conditions that change dramatically from early tee times to late, or vice versa.) The concept of embarrassment springs solely from the golfers' own vanity – as if they'll suffer irreparable harm from having a well-struck iron shot roll off a devilish green.

In short, these guys are going to have to suck it up this week. Because the usual rules of U.S. Open golf have been tossed into Puget Sound and replaced with British Open shot-making scenarios.

It will be impossible to tell where fairways end and greens begin. Rory McIlroy compared the course to the past two British Open layouts, virtual bobsled runs at Hoylake and Muirfield.

"At the high level, this is like green ice, this is like downhill skiing in the Olympics," said course architect Robert Trent Jones. "They're not skiing on snow, they're skiing on ice. … Now, the better players like this, because it separates the big boys from those who are a little bit not psychologically ready for the test.

"Those who adopt it and embrace it, they like it. They're telling me they enjoy it. Those who are uneasy with the newness of it, we'll listen to them, but they probably won't make the cut."

If those who miss the cut choose to leave town bitching, let them. But nobody should feel sorry for them.

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