USGA director Mike Davis believes the first six holes at this year's US Open will be the most "brutal" in the championship's history.
San Francisco's storied Olympic Club is this year's venue for the event and Davis has warned that the contestants are in for a rude awakening after the record low scores shot at Congressional last year when Rory McIlroy won with a sparkling 16-under tally on the yielding, rain-softened greens in Maryland.
"I am convinced that this will be the hardest start of any US Open," Davis said after walking the course this week.
"The first six holes are going to be just brutal. I would contend if you play the first six holes in two over, I don't think you'll be giving up anything to the field."
The course this year will stretch to 7,170 yards - 373 yards longer than the last time it staged the US Open in 1998 when Lee Janzen shot an even par 280 to win the title for the second time.
Davis, who'll be responsible for setting up the course, says he wants to avoid any knee-jerk reaction, despite the fact that runner-up Jason Day's eight-under score at Congressional last year would have been good enough to win 46 of the previous 50 US Opens and force a playoff in three others.
That was certainly what happened in 1974 when the USGA responded to Johnny Miller's 63 at a rain-softened Oakmont in 1973.
They produced a set-up so brutal that Hale Irwin was able to win with 7-over-par total and led to that year to the championship being called the "Massacre at Winged Foot."
"We don't want to see well executed shots penalized," Davis said.
"When setting up a course as tough as the US Open, it's really splitting hairs sometimes of not actually doing that. Our goal is to test the players mentally and physically, and test their shot-making skills."
He feels that when setting the Olympia course, it should be born in mind that nature is sure to add to the test with windy conditions and the threat of the city's famous fog making this hilly course with fast fairways even tougher.
The front nine will play to par of 34 with the back nine a par 36. The first hole is now a par 4 and the 17th a par 5; the eighth hole, once one of the easiest on the course, is entirely different to what it was in 1998 with little room for error along a right side boarded by dense trees.
The par-5 16th can play as long as 670 yards on the back tees, which Davis expects to happen on "at least two days." The previous longest hole in Open history was the 667-yard Par-5 12th in 2007 at Oakmont, according to the USGA.
"I'm going to try to park my cart and watch that hole," Davis said of the 17th. "Probably hide when I'm doing it, but nonetheless, I think it's going to be a very, very exciting hole."
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