Watching the US Open at Bethpage is quite enjoyable. You get to watch players like Padraig Harrington look mortal by shooting +6 over par and scrambling everytime he hits the ball into the rough. You get to watch 40 people search for an arrant tee shot because the rough is so long that there's no way 1 person would be able to find the ball. And then you think, I'm an ok golfer, I shoot in the 90s. What the hell would I shoot if I played Bethpage in the conditions they are now. At first I said 125. You figure the Par 4s that are 500+ yards you are completely screwed. If I sting my drive the best I can, I can maybe hit it 270. On the largest par 4 that would mean I would need to sting my 3 wood off the fairway 250 yards and somehow softly land it on the green. HA. In my dreams. So that's pretty much automatically a bogey at best.
Than you have to think about what happens when you hit the ball in the rough. The rough would easily go past my knees. So if I wasn't playing with a gallery I would likely just give up trying to find the ball every time I hit it there, but lets assume for arguments sake I could in fact find every ball. How far do you think you could actually hit the ball from the rough? 50 yards? Maybe? My drives are at best 50% of the time in the fairway, and that's at more generous fairways than the US Open.
And of course you also have the Par 3s that are 220+ yards. I'd likely be hitting a 5 wood into these holes and my 5-wood isn't much more accurate than my driver. In fact it might be a little worse.
Essentially I figure add 1 stroke per hole before we even start talking. So for me it would be like a Par 90. And then I'd shoot 35 over par. I think that's about right.
So how do you think you would shoot?
Comments