Well, what’s the verdict on Oakmont? “Off the tee, I've never played a golf course as hard,” said Robert MacIntyre.
What? Even tougher than Glencruitten? A US Open in this particular parish tends to pose the kind of relentless questions that would make the Spanish Inquisition look like an amiable chat by the woodburning stove.
While the defending champion, Bryson DeChambeau, had to settle for a three-over 73 and Masters winner, Rory McIlroy, stumbled home on the back-nine for a 74, Scotsman MacIntyre stood firm and emerged relatively unscathed with a spirited level-par 70 as things got underway in the third men’s major of the season.
It was hardly surprising that the Oban lefty, making the fourth US Open appearance of his career, was cock-a-hoop with his shift at the unforgiving coalface.
“That was superb,” he cooed after a job well done which left him sitting four shots behind early leader, JJ Spaun. “It’s in the top-10 of rounds that I’ve played. It’s just so hard. Honestly, on every shot is like you’re on a knife edge.”
Most of us crude amateurs probably feel like that when we’re thrashing away at the local municipal. Oakmont, of course, is one heck of a test.
Stray off the straight and narrow here and you’re facing a daunting salvage operation that’s usually reserved for maritime wrecks.
“I played absolutely beautifully, to be honest, off the tee, because that’s where the real punishment is and that’s as good as I can drive the golf ball,” added the reigning Scottish Open champion.
“I wasn’t really hitting long drives. I wasn’t trying to hit long drives. I was just trying to stay in the short stuff and manufacturing shots.
“Whether it was 3-wood, whether it was driver, I was just trying to hit the shape that I needed to find the fairway. I’ve never played a golf course as hard.”
One-over to the turn, MacIntyre managed to prise out a couple of birdies on the 12th and 15th – that one was a 40-footer - to get into the red.
A bogey on the last dropped him back to level-par but the former Scottish Amateur champion certainly wasn’t going to grumble about that.
Indeed, MacIntyre revelled in the Oakmont examination on a course where his illustrious compatriot, Colin Montgomerie, lost out in a three-man play-off for the US Open back in 1994.
Did he have fun? “I absolutely did because I like hitting crazy shots,” responded MacIntyre as he embraced the challenge with great gusto.
His caddie, Mike Burrow, may have had a different opinion on it, mind you. “I said to him, ‘there are going to be some shots that I'm going to hit and you're going to be like, ‘there's an easier shot’,” smiled MacIntyre.
“I've just got to ride the horse and just let the horse go at times. On a course like this, he’s telling you where to go, where the lines are, what the centre lines are.
"But it's my job to get it there. And he's not to worry about how I'm going to get there or the way I'm doing it.
“I know that it will get tougher but if you shoot four level-par rounds, you’re walking away with a medal and a trophy. I’m sure I’ll take that.”
As MacIntyre trotted off as happy as Larry, McIlroy was left cursing a damaging inward half as he sagged to a four-over finish.
After that epic, emotional Masters triumph in April which finally gave him the career grand slam, the hangover goes on. McIlroy could do with a hair of the dog at this rate.
The other week in Canada, he posted a 78 to miss the cut. A 74 in the US Open means he’s 12-over for his last two competitive outings.
It could’ve been worse, of course. In a practice round at Oakmont last week, he posted an 81. Things were going along quite the thing for McIlroy as he reached the turn in two-under, having started on the 10th tee.
It all unravelled on his inward half, however, as the world No 2 trudged back in 41 which included the debris of four bogeys and a double-bogey.
His playing partners, Justin Rose and Shane Lowry, didn’t fare any better. Rose, the Masters runner-up, went round in 77, while Lowry, joint second the last time Oakmont hosted the US Open in 2016, could only muster a 79.
At the head of affairs, Spaun’s wonderfully assembled 66, which featured four birdies and no bogeys, was the lowest opening round in a US Open at Oakmont.
Like MacIntyre, he was justifiably chipper with his day’s work. There’s plenty of work to do in this US Open, though.
