Honesty Finds Its Way Close To Washington, D.C.

There will be no 12-stroke victory at the U.S. Open. No one will shoot 18-under-par at Congressional Country Club.

If Tiger Woods is to follow his Masters victory with a win this weekend, it will take a completely different kind of effort.

While Augusta National is a free-swinging course off the tee that gets tricky around the greens, the U.S. Open requires patience and precision on every shot during the 72-hole test of will that begins today.

“It’s just a good, long, solid, honest all-in-front-of-you golf course,” Nick Faldo said Wednesday. “There is no let-up, no easy holes.”

Woods won the Masters in a runaway in part because the wide fairways and nearly complete lack of rough enabled him to unleash his awesome length off the tee without worries of the consequences of an errant shot.

“At Augusta, it was like a driving range, bombs away on the driving,” Woods said.

That is no longer the case. These fairways are narrow and the rough is not only 5 inches high but thick because of the cool, damp spring in this area.

On a course this long - 7,213 yards with eight par 4s over 430 yards - a tee shot that misses the fairway often means the player can’t go for the green but must merely pitch out of the rough with an 8-iron or less and hope for a one-putt par.

“You’re in 6-iron, 4-iron, 3-iron range a lot on this golf course,” Faldo said, referring to the demanding approach shots Congressional requires.

Those are clubs that can’t be hit out of this rough.

While Augusta was made for Woods’ game, the U.S. Open was made for players like Faldo, Colin Montgomerie, Greg Norman, Nick Price, Tom Lehman, Ernie Els and - among the best longshots - Jim Furyk.

That group of players drives the ball with accuracy and they all have the composure to deal with the frustrations of U.S. Open play. The winner will make many bogeys and likely will have a double bogey or higher on his card.

It is those inevitable disasters at the Open that require the patience to know that par is a good score, a very good score.

While Woods won the Masters at 18-under, the record for the Open is 8 under. And the consensus among players at the Open is that the winning score won’t be anywhere nearly that low this year.

“It has a chance to be over par,” Davis Love III, last year’s runner-up with Lehman, said Wednesday. “I’ll take anything under par and let them shoot at it.”

The U.S. Open is a tournament where par means something.

“It suits the way I play,” said Faldo, who won the 1987 British Open at Muirfield with 18 consecutive pars in the final round. “I am more than happy with it.”

Woods said he probably will use his driver only three times in each round at Congressional, on Nos. 6, 10 and 15, preferring a 3-wood and 2-iron off the tree for accuracy.

“You’ve got to be in the short grass here,” he said about the importance of putting the ball in the fairway off the tee. “This is a very demanding driving golf course.”

While a U.S. Open course at first glance may appear a poor fit for Woods’ game, his tenacity, creativity and competitive fire make him a contender anywhere.

“My mind is, I feel, the strongest part about me,” Woods said. “The biggest asset I have is to be able to think my way around the golf course.”

He cited his comeback from a 40 on the front nine in the first round at the Masters to a 30 on the back nine.

“That’s a perfect instance where my game wasn’t there, but I rectified it with my mind,” Woods said.

Woods has broken par only once in the five rounds he has played in his two previous U.S. Opens and last year experienced typical Open disaster in the first round at Oakland Hills.

Woods was 3-under when he walked off the 13th green and 6-over when he left the 18th green. Starting on No. 14, Woods went bogey, double bogey, quadruple bogey - hitting two in the water on No. 16.

“We’re very anxious to see what’s going to happen here compared to what transpired at Augusta,” Montgomerie said of the demands now facing Woods. “I believe he is 5-to-1 to win the tournament, and 5-to-1 to miss the cut.”

But it’s a sure bet no one will get to 18-under-par this week.