An Insider's Guide to the US Open at The Country Club

Jerry Thornton6/14/2022 4:00 PM

[Author's Note: This article was edited to accurately reflect the location of the famous fairway bunker. I regret the error. It's not the first time I got my holes mixed up. Author's Note 2: I apologize for that joke. But it stays.]

As the old credit card slogan used to say, membership has its privileges. Specifically I'm talking about the membership of others to The Country Club in Brookline, site of the 122nd US Open during one of the most tumultuous periods in the 2,000 year (give or take a millennium) history of the game.

A few years ago a member at the club reached out to me to invite me to play, and naturally I accepted. Which led to this exchange with my brother Jimbo. Who, just as an aside, was at a corporate tent near the 18th green on Sunday of the legendary 1999 Ryder Cup. I found this out when he called me at around 6 p.m. that night, drunk on top shelf liquor, high on gourmet seafood, and insisting that he had called me that morning to invite me to come along with him. That "call" actually consisted of him ringing up my land line, waiting for the old answering machine to pick up, then hanging up instead of leaving a message, as was his custom. Apparently under a belief handed down by our tribal elders that allowing your voice to be recorded in your brother's kitchen would give him possession of your soul or something. A simple "I can get us to the golf. Call me back" would've had me present (and even drunker) at one of the most dramatic sporting events in my lifetime. But I digress.

So of course when I was going to play TCC, I called him first.

Jim: "Do you know this guy?"
Me: "Not yet."
Jim: "So you've never met him, but you're golfing with him."
Me: "Yup."
Jim: "Well, what if he turns out to be a weirdo and rapes you?"
Me: "Well then, I'd have played The Country Club. At this point, is this temple I live in so pristine that I can't have it violated to play one of the most stories courses in the world?"
Jim: "Good point."

Needless to say - but I can't stress this enough anyway, because that's how rumors get started - there were no violations of any kind, other than those of the Rules of Golf. Other than that, everyone was a perfect gentleman. My only requirement was that he keep his range finder handy when we went by Tom Brady's house, so that I was sure to stay at least 100 yards away from the property line. You paw through a man's garbage looking for bits of hair and clothing and the courts think you're a weirdo. The GOAT's restraining orders may have said "No," but his eyes always said, "Yes."

And a storied course it is. I've probably been this definitively non-weirdo gentleman (and had him and his fellow members respect my bodily autonomy) five times or so since. And if you have even the tiniest respect for history, it would be impossible not to come away impressed by the rich tradition of a place like The Country Club. On every hole, you're walking in the footsteps of giants. The 17th has the fairway bunker that played a critical role at the 1913 Open, that came down to a playoff between British champions Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, and American Francis Ouimet, a former caddy at the club who grew up across the street. That would be the match that was the subject of 2005's The Greatest Game Ever Played, directed by the late, great Bill Paxton (RIP). Ouimet shocked the world with that victory and it helped put US golf on the map. Which is why the Open returns every few decades, such as the 50th and 75th anniversaries.

And that history is very much a part of the place. There was some consternation among some of the older guard members when it was announced the clubhouse was being fixed up, both for newer members and for this Open. But this is still Boston, where people would chain themselves to the scaffolding if anyone ever tried to tear down a neon Citgo sign because you used to be able to see it from Fenway Park. For sure they weren't about to gut the locker room where the greatest golfers of all time used to change into their spiked and rip Chesterfields. All they did was modernize the bathrooms and put some framed memorabilia on the wall in the bar. Such as Payne Stewart's Ryder Cup shirt (the ugliest article of clothing since every tux at my prom), which was donated by his widow:

… and the original Stimp Meter, which belongs alongside the Wedge, the Pulley and the Lever on the list of simple machines that changed the world. Before its invention we had no way to tell the speeds of greens short of having old sea captains measure it in knots or something. But rest assured, the old rusted green lockers that wouldn't pass muster in a Planet Fitness but which may have once held Arnold Palmer's mistresses' phone numbers and John Daly's bag of blow have been preserved.

One more piece of history before we get to the course as it's set up for this weekend. There is a little known fact about the place that is about to be a lot of known, because I am sharing it with you now. Feel free to pass it on and amaze your friends with your vast storehouse of arcane knowledge. When they were founding the course in the 1880s, they were searching for just the right name. And one importer/exporter who had spent quite a bit of time in one particular foreign land suggested they borrow the name from a place he had been to over there, "The Country Club." It had just the right blend of class, elegance and non-specificity to make a smooth cocktail for the ears, and it was adopted. What was this country he was referring to? England? Scotland? Australia, perhaps? None of the above. It was China. And what would you imagine he was exporting out of there in the late 19th century? It wasn't tea, cheap toys, cell phones or carry out food boxes. Hint: This was during the height of the Opium Wars. The Country Club was named after a place in China by an international drug smuggler. You heard it here first.

As far as the course itself, one thing that strikes you as you walk the grounds is how unspectacular a location it is. Like the aforementioned World's Most Beloved Ballpark [TM], it's been there a long time and is shoe horned into a residential area. There are stockade fences running along some of the holes and you can hear cars driving up Clyde Street on the other side. (On another personal note, my also legendary Irish Rose's mom grew up on Clyde Street, and my future father-in-law used to hop those fences with his clubs and sneak out for a round. They're both covered by the statute of limitations as well as their own deaths, so I feel free to talk about this.) There is one green that has condos over looking it. And I'm not talking about some grand, elaborate, rich person's condos. These are like 1970s architecture, and that was the 20th century's most embarrassing decade. They look like the kind you might rent from AirBnB in a college town for your kid's graduation. And probably cost more than my hometown.

My point being that NBC is going to be hard pressed to find that breathtaking B-roll footage you see coming in and out of every commercial break. The sweeping drone video over the rolling hills outside of Tulsa or the waves crashing onto Pebble Beach. My guess is we're going to see the same stuff you see during the NBA Finals. The bridge. Faneuil Hall. Paul Revere. Some short fat guy in an apron pulling a couple of lobsters out of a pot. Zzzzz …

Make no mistake, this course is going to be a monster. A leviathan lurking for these guys starting Thursday, ready to swallow them whole. A little shakin', a little tenderizin', and down you go. There are 27 holes on the course, some combined into one, some tee boxes reconfigured, a couple from the nine that is typically just set aside for members and their families are put into the mix, which get shuffled up in a deck, the cards get split, and what gets dealt are 18 grueling holes for a championship such as this. The goal being to achieve the Open's annual goal to make even par a winning score, as well as to have a Par 5 on the front and back nines.

So one thing they did was bypass No. 4, which has a blind tee shot over the mountain Maverick has to lead his squadron over pulling 10 Gs in order to save the world and be worthy of bedding down with Penny Benjamin. That one was Ouimet's nemesis, to the point he Frankensteined a 7 wood head onto a long shaft, just to get the loft he needed. But that one was eliminated for the Open because the walk back from green to the 5th tee, which is now the championship 4th, would be too far for these finely tuned athletes.

Let's discuss that one in the Tweet above where I delivered a wedge tight to a difficult pin. That is normally No. 12 on the regular course, No. 11 for the Open. The inspiration for it was the 115 yard Par 3 at the Open at Merion in 2013. The day I was there, it was playing at just under 100 yards and is listed at 131 for the championship. But they've cut the rough down to almost nothing and increased the putting surface by about one-third, allowing for diabolical pin placements and nothing to keep you out of either the traps or the nastiest grasses, nettles and weed you'll ever find at your local muni. It's going to be like landing a ball on the hood of a car. And if you miss, you're playing out of a spinach salad with vinaigrette:

Back right and front right on this little angry elf of a whole will require a cut wedge. Which to me is one of the simple machines I referenced awhile back while you were nodding off. It's certainly not a shot I have in my game. Not many do.

Speaking of the rough, in the now seven weeks since I graced the course with my intimidating presence, it's all been reclaimed by nature, with no interference from a mower. The fescue is reportedly so grown in that you can lose your ball while staring it down while it bounces in. And given the fact that they've got the fairways narrowed to the point an America's Next Top Model winner couldn't catwalk from tee to green without brushing her 24-inch hips on the tricked up rough, keeping you ball on the short grass is going to be a major challenge in this major. But an imperative.

I gave you the shortest hole, behold the longest:

This is actually within lob wedge distance of Brady's old house, but he and I have moved on and found new people. Behold the distance marker in the lower left. This 625 yard Par 5 is the 14th, and is followed by a 510 yard Par 4. Doing the math, that's 1,135 yards, and you're expected to play them in nine strokes. And it's not like either are doing you any favors with the layout. This one has water and slight dogleg. The next is uphill. And it's not just any hill. After hitting your approach, you've got to trudge up an incline that has the approximate slope and height of an escalator at the airport. If you're going to the tournament and looking for a perch to hang out for a while, I'd suggest that one. For chubby guys in their 50s like Phil Mickelson, it's going to be like climbing the Hillary Step on Everest.

And speaking of Phil, all this LIV Golf drama is only going to serve to make the 122nd Open at The Country Club that much more special. I'm not one to get into the metaphysical when it comes to sports. But God has a sense of humor when it comes to this particular sport. And this place has a history of bearing witness special things happen. I can just imagine Mickelson or one of these other vocal LIV guys winning and making it awkward for everyone. Or better yet, a LIV rebel and a PGA loyalist in the final pairing on Sunday, going tour mano y tour mano for the championship. Whatever happens, it will be history in the making.

And speaking of both special things happening and history being made, one last TCC story. In '99, Justin Leonard was playing a practice round getting ready for the Ryder Cup. He had with him a veteran caddy who happened to go by the name of Bones. Whether it was an homage the more famous Bones or an Office Space "Why should I change? He's the one who sucks!" scenario, no one seems to recall. Anyway, it just so happened that this Bones happened to know the PGA of America guy who was in charge of pin placements. So he believed that on Sunday, some of them would be diabolical. As close to the edge of the greens as allowable by the laws of golf, physics, and humanity. When they got to 17 - which is already a two tiered green with the height difference of a split level home. Leonard was on the lower level, and Bones dropped his wallet in a spot where he thought the hole might be on Sunday, on the top tier. Leonard took a whack at it and missed by the kind of distance they marked on old maps with "Here Be Dragons." So Bones told him, "Don't putt what you think you see. Just hit it straight at it." Leonard dropped another and hit the wallet right on the driver's license window. As fate would have it, the spot where he found his ball on Ryder Cup Sunday was within a foot or two from that second practice putt. The cup was right where Bones wallet was. Leonard drained his putt, completing the greatest comeback in the history of that match, if not the sport. While Jimbo stood a few hundred yards away washing down another shrimp cocktail with another vodka and tonic and I sat at home watching on my crappy old low def TV. But that's my cross to bear. At least I got to bring the course to its knees 23 years later.