Hole No. 1-430 yards, Par 4
     You're feeling the pressure as you step on to the tee of this downhill par-4, which doglegs sharply right to a narrow, sloping green. Slice the ball here and trees will block your approach shot, so you're determined not to. You aim a little left, hit it a little thin, but hit a decent, fading drive. You get it out there 225 yards (owing to the elevation drop) and find the middle of the fairway. That's the good news. The bad news is that you have 205 yards left to reach the green, and between you and the flag are the edge of a greenside bunker and some very thick rough. You didn't come here to lay up, though. You're determined not to play these long par 4s as par 5s unless you have to. So you grab your 3-wood, and blast away. You do slice this one a bit, and it finds the aforementioned bunker. You blast out toward the pin, but the ball finds the slope in the middle of the green and rolls all the way off the front of the putting surface, which like all the others is stimping at 13 for Open week. Putting now toward the back hole location (but deathly afraid of going past the hole), you leave your first putt short-it barely gets up over the ridge- and you two-putt for your first double-bogey of the day.
SCORE: 6   |  TOTAL: 6 (+2)

Hole No. 2-398 yards, Par 4
     The second hole at Bethpage Black is the only par 4 that measures less than 400 yards, so you're champing at the bit on this tee. Unfortunately, the hole is a dogleg left, which doesn't really suit your ball flight. And it plays uphill to the green, so it really plays more like 415 yards. True to form, you hit a semi-slice that runs through the fairway and finds the right rough. From there, you can only see the top half of the flagstick and are left with a shot that, due to the elevation, is playing 195 yards. You try to muscle a 5-wood out of the thick grass, but don't get all of it. Your ball line-drives into the deep, front-left bunker. Now you can't see any of the flagstick. Your first bunker shot advances out of the bunker, but hits the grass face and rolls back into the sand. You focus on your fourth shot and this time, get it up and on to the putting surface. Two putts later you have your second double-bogey.
SCORE: 6   |   TOTAL: 12 (+4)

Hole No. 3-232 yards, Par 3
      They've built a new tee for you on this hole, making it the course's longest par 3. The green is set on a diagonal from the tee, angling away from you toward the back left. Three greenside bunkers await your ball - two on the front left and one on the front right. It would take your best shot with a driver to reach this green, but that's not what you hit. Your tee shot lands in the rough, 35 yards short. From there, you hit a decent lob wedge shot to the middle of the green, but the shot just won't hold. Your ball rolls past the back hole location and off the back of the green into some thick rough. You chili-dip your first chip shot, then manage to get your second shot to stay on the green, but just barely. From there, you leave your first putt seven feet short and miss your second putt. On the shortest hole you've played yet at Bethpage, you've made your highest score, a triple bogey.
SCORE: 6  |  TOTAL: 18 (+7)

Hole 4-517 yards, Par 5
      For the pros, this will be a birdie hole> It's reachable in two for longer hitters despite the fact that it plays uphill. It's neither a birdie hole nor reachable in two for you. There's no way you can carry the yawning fairway bunker set into the face of the hill on your tee shot. But determined to shake off the triple bogey you just made, you hit a good drive that finds the right side of the fairway. From this position, you need to hit your second shot up and over the huge, 100-yard-wide cross bunker that guards the center and right of the fairway. But there's just no way you can hit it far enough (and high enough) to do this, either. So playing it smart, you take your 5-iron and lay up just short of the bunker. From there, a perfectly hit 5-wood might just get you to the putting surface. But you can't see the green from down there and don't want to risk hitting into one of the green-front bunkers or going long and over the green. So again, you lay up - this time with a 6-iron. Cresting the hill, you see that your ball has found the fairway 125 yards from the green and its front-left hole location. You hit a solid 8-iron to the middle of the green, two-putt, and walk off with a bogey. The idea that you didn't come here to lay up is now the farthest thing from your mind.
SCORE: 6  |  TOTAL: 24 (+8)

Hole No. 5-478 yards, Par 4
      Okay, so now you're into it. Though this hole plays downhill from the tee (before playing back uphill to the green), it's still longer than many of the par 5s you routinely play. Your 210-yard drive, even downhill and downwind, cannot reach the reach the fairway. To make matters worse, there's a cross bunker the size of The Sahara to the right of the fairway - the place where you usually hit your drives. You try to bust a drive to the left of this bunker but come off it and are lucky to find the sand rather than the thick rough around it. You now have 265 yards left to the green, uphill, out of sand.
     It occurs to you that you don't have that shot, so you punch a 5-iron out of the sand, finding the fairway. Your next shot is only 125 yards, but steeply uphill; again, you can't see the green, only the very top of the flagstick. You debate between taking one or two clubs extra to compensate for the hill, settle on one, and then proceed to overswing and hit the ball thin, grinding it into the face of the hill, where it disappears into the gnarliest rough you've seen yet. With the help of some spectators, your ball is located. You swing a sand wedge and advance it into the deep, front-left bunker. You hit a good bunker shot, though, and then two-putt. Behind the green there's a refreshment stand. You consider getting a beer and instead get two.
SCORE: 7  |  TOTAL: 31 (+11)

Hole No. 6-406 yards, Par 4
      Your tee shot here has to carry 160 yards or so over a little valley and another 30 yards to reach the fairway. The two fairway bunkers, one right and one left, are not in reach for you. You hit your best tee shot of the day and as you stride to your ball have visions of knocking your next shot on the green and making par. Your second shot here lasers out at 205 yards, but it's sharply downhill. So the good news is that it will only play around 190. The bad news is that as you look at the green, you see that it's almost completely encircled by sand. The green, in fact, looks like the flight deck of a very small aircraft carrier that's surrounded on all sides by raging waves of sand. It's an intimidating shot, but you think to yourself: What's the worst thing that could happen?
     You've already made two doubles and two triples. So you swing away and for a moment, it actually looks like your ball may skirt the front-right bunker and roll up on to the green. But at the last second, it dips to the left, into the front-left bunker. Compared to the other sand pits you've been in so far, this one is relatively shallow. You screw your courage and explode your ball to 20 feet. Do you make the putt for par? No, you don't. But the bogey is heartening and as you leave the green there's a new spring in your step.
SCORE: 5  |  TOTAL: 36 (+12)

Hole No. 7-525 yards, Par 4
     As you step on to this tee, full of new hope, you do a double-take. The sign behind the tee says: "Hole 7, 525 yards, Par 4." Surely that's a typo, you think. A 525-yard par 4? Alas, it is no printer's error. You have arrived at what is perhaps the toughest hole on the front nine. The hole has been modified for this year's Open, with more fairway added on the right side to give players room to challenge the tree line and shorten the hole. Between you and this enlarged landing area, though, there is what appears to be a five-acre bunker, over which you have zero chance of carrying a tee shot. You have to aim well left instead, which only serves to lengthen the hole even more.
     Sadly, aiming left when you know you really need to go right creates doubt in your mind and in your swing, leading to what is commonly known as a banana ball. Your tee shot lands smack dab in the middle of the bunker, a point from which you'll need to carry your second shot some 50 yards just to get back on grass. This challenge proves too much for you. Your first attempt is hit fat; the ball goes just ten yards. Determined not to do that again, you hit your second attempt at escape thin, rocketing the ball into the lip of the bunker. You explode out in to the nearest patch of fairway and apologize to your playing partners for taking so long. You are now laying four and you still have 290 yards left to the green. I'll spare you the details (skulled 3-wood, sliced 3-wood, chunked wedge from rough, good wedge from fairway, two putts) and tell you that you end the hole with a 10. It has taken you almost 20 minutes to play this one hole and you think to yourself that maybe that second beer wasn't such a good idea.
SCORE: 10  |  TOTAL: 46 (+18)

Hole No. 8-230 yards, Par 3
     This downhill par 3 requires a carry over water to reach the putting surface. This year, the USGA is planning to mix up teeing grounds and hole locations, so that the hole can play anywhere from 135 to 230 yards. Today, you're in luck. The tee is on one of the forward tee boxes, making the hole play just 165 yards. The hole has been cut in the front of the green, on a new section created this year that allows for two, new, front hole locations. Since it's downhill, and the pin is in the front, your caddie tells you that it's really playing just 153 yards-right in your wheelhouse. He also tells you that whatever you do, don't come up short, since short of the green there's nothing but a steep slope that will steer your ball straight into the pond. So you play your "160 shot," a smooth 5-iron that, because you have taken enough club and have not lunged at it, tried to kill it, come over the top or looked up prior to impact, flies straight toward the flag with just a little fade. Your ball lands on the green some fifteen feet behind the hole, takes one bounce, and rolls to a stop some 35 feet past the cup. "Oh dear," your caddie says. "What do you mean, 'Oh Dear?" you ask him. "It's on the green." "Yes," your caddie says, "but that's a very fast downhill putt from there. You really didn't want to go long here, either." Petrified, you proceed to baby your first putt, baby your second putt, just miss on your third putt and are lucky to make your fourth when the ball lips in, side-door. Leaving the green, you mumble something about wasting a good tee shot.
SCORE: 5  |  TOTAL: 51 (+20)

Hole No. 9-460 yards, Par 4
      At the 2002 Open, this hole played the easiest of the par 4s. The USGA, in its infinite wisdom, decided that something needed to be done this year to make the hole more challenging. So Rees Jones returned to Bethpage and added a new tee box, lengthening the hole by some 40 yards. You don't know this as you step on to this new tee. All you know is that it's a long, long way to the fairway bunker (also new) that guards the left side of the fairway.
     In fact, it's a full wedge for you just to reach the tee box in front of the one you're on. You tell your caddie to go ahead and fore-caddie (since you won't be able to see where your 200-yard tee shot lands) and swing away. One nice thing about standing on the ninth tee knowing that you have no chance of breaking 90 is that you don't care anymore and can just swing freely-which is just what you do. Your ball soars into the sky, fades a little, and just barely manages to hop out of the rough and on to the fairway.
     The fairway bunker that was out of reach on your tee shot now becomes an obstacle, as it rises up from the rough and obscures your view of the green. You have to hit over it and just hope for a good result, which you do nicely with a 5-wood. Your approach shot doesn't reach the green (how could it from 255 yards?) but it doesn't reach the rough in front of the green, either. You now have a short wedge shot from a tight lie to a slightly elevated green. Fortunately, the pin is in the back, and when your perfectly struck pitch shot refuses to spin and instead rolls right to the back of the green you're okay. Faced with an 8-footer for par, your knees are knocking but your spirit is unshaken. You drain it. A par. On a hole where you couldn't see your target on both of your full swings. Maybe, you think, that should tell you something. As you leave the green, you hear someone in the gallery mutter something about a blind squirrel.
SCORE: 4  |  TOTAL: 55 (+20)

Hole No. 10-508 yards, Par 4
     In the 2002 Open, the championship's shorter hitters complained that they had trouble reaching the fairway of this long par 4 from the tee. The USGA has extended the fairway some 35 yards farther back toward the tee for this year's event, but 15-handicappers still have no chance of getting to the fairway on their tee shots. Your caddie tells you to aim for the narrow strip of mown grass where the players walk from tee to fairway, hope for the best and swing hard. You actually hit a good tee shot here and on your home course would be the last in your foursome to be playing next.
     Here on the 10th at Bethpage, though, it leaves you in thick rough, with nearly 300 yards to go. You choose a 7-iron, hack it out, and advance the ball some 125 yards. Now you have just 175 yards left. But the green is elevated, with bunkers fronting the green on both sides and a closely mown area behind the green from which getting up and down is nigh impossible. It's either go for the green with your 7-wood or lay up and try to wedge it close. You hit the 7-wood, find the right-front bunker, and get another double bogey to add to your collection.
SCORE: 6  |  TOTAL: 61 (+22)

Hole No. 11-435 yards, Par 4
     The 11th hole parallels the 10th at Bethpage and features 10 bunkers of various shapes and sizes, most of which frame the edges of the fairway. Determined not to slice the ball off the tee this time, and full of confidence after your last stellar tee ball, you make a good hip turn, a good shoulder turn, and proceed to duck hook the ball into the high fescue grasses that border one of the bunkers to the left of the fairway. Your ball is so far from the short grass that even yelling, you wouldn't be able to make yourself heard to your playing partners. You can't see the green, can barely see any of the fairway, and are lucky to gouge a sand wedge out of the high grass and into the first cut of rough some 210 yards from the green.
     You hit 5-wood from there, but it comes off the toe and winds up in the second cut of rough, left of the fairway. Now you've got a 40-yard shot out of some thick grass to another green with deep bunkers guarding it. It occurs to you that if you weren't so far from the clubhouse you'd just walk in. Instead, you dig the ball out of the rough and on to the green. Unable to spin it from that lie, though, you can't stop it and it rolls over the green and halfway down a hill behind the green. Your pitch shot, back to a front hole location, just doesn't stop and rolls 15 feet off the other side of the green. From there, you just take a putter, and three strokes later you're out of your misery.
SCORE: 8  |  TOTAL: 69 (+26)

Hole No. 12-504 yards, Par 4
     After the brutal 10th and 11tth, two of the toughest par 4s you'd ever want to play, you're hoping that the 12th will be easier. It's not. A long, dogleg-left par 4, it gives the pros a couple different options off the tee, but for you, there's only one. You can't carry the cross bunker at the left elbow of the fairway-that would require a 260-yard carry, a shot you just ain't got. So instead, you bang away with the driver, aiming right at the bunker, firm in the knowledge that you can't reach it, much less carry it.
     Sadly, there's no fairway on this line, so for your second shot you just blast an 8-iron over the bunker in the general direction of the fairway. Miraculously, your ball finds the fairway, but you still have 185 yards to the middle of the green. You buckle down, determined to lift yourself out of your funk, and smoothly strike a solid 5-wood shot that rolls up on to the green to the polite applause of the handful of spectators watching you. Fortunately, your ball has stopped on the same tier as the hole, so you can easily two-putt for your bogey, which is the best score you could possibly have made on this hole. Quit now, and you'll have shot a sizzling 74 at Bethpage.
SCORE: 5  |  TOTAL: 74 (+27)

Hole No. 13-605 yards, Par 5
     You don't play 600-yard holes every day. In fact, you've never played a 600-yard hole, but you're going to today. Thanks a new tee, the 12th plays 50 yards longer than it did in 2002. This brings a fairway cross-bunker into play on your second shot. Or in your case, your third shot. After a decent drive and even better 3-wood, both of which found the fairway, you now have 215 yards to the green. Feeling peckish, you munch on a Snickers bar as you contemplate your options. You decide to lay up with a 7-iron and wedge in from there. But you block your wedge shot and it rolls into the deep greenside bunker. It takes you two shots to get out, and two putts to hole out. You're happy just to finish the hole.
SCORE: 8  |  TOTAL: 82 (+30)

Hole No. 14-158 yards, Par 3
      Finally, a hole that doesn't require the strength of a Schwarzenegger. The 14th is Bethpage's shortest hole. And this year, the hole is actually shorter than it was last time around because the green has been enlarged since then. This has allowed the USGA to create a new hole location in a new but narrow section of putting surface that juts out between the two greenside bunkers.
      And unfortunately, that's exactly where the hole is located today. Being no dummy, you don't aim at the flag. Instead, it's a smooth 5-iron to the middle of the green. Now you have a slick, downhill putt that's breaking from right to left. You barely breathe on the ball and watch as it trickles, trickles, keeps trickling, heading straight for the hole, then stops just two inches short. A tap-in par. Life isn't good, it's great.
SCORE: 3  |  TOTAL: 85 (+30)

Hole No. 15-458 yards, Par 4
     Bethpage's easiest hole gives way to one of its toughest. Looking at the slight dogleg-left par 4 from the Open tees, you can't imagine anyone being able to par this hole. The narrow fairway looks unhittable to you with your slice, and in fact, it is. Despite hitting a decent, though thin, tee shot, your slice carries the ball well to the right of the fairway and over toward a village of USGA hospitality tents. You find your ball and almost wish you hadn't. It is in deep, deep grass. Your caddie hands you a sand wedge, with which you attempt, unsuccessfully, to get the ball back to the fairway.
     Your next lie is only slightly better, but you do manage to get the ball back on the short grass. From your new vantage point, you can see the 50-foot hill on top of which the green is perched, and you can see the two deep bunkers set into the face of that hill, but you can't see any way of hitting the ball high enough or long enough to reach the green. Two-hundred-and-eighty-five yards is a long to hit it, after all, especially uphill. So you play smart and aim toward the end of the fairway with your 7-wood.
     Your aim, unfortunately, isn't that good and you yank your shot into the left rough now-the second cut. You haven't even reached the hill yet, and already you lay four. Ah yes, the hill. Where you're standing, it's all you can see: the thick, dark-green grass of the hill and the glistening sand of the bunkers. Somewhere up above there's a green, but you can't see it. Standing over the ball, you realize that the problem you have now is that from your lie in the second cut, you may not be able to hit the ball high enough to get it up that damn hill.
      And then what? More rough to contend with. More thick grass to hit through. More bunkers to try to avoid. You see the problems so clearly that, of course, you do exactly what you have feared doing. Your 5th shot gets halfway up the hill and dives into the thick rough. Your sixth shot, from halfway up the hill now, buries in the face of a bunker that you thought was a greenside bunker but which is actually some 30 yards short of the putting surface. You blast once and remove the ball from its buried lie, but not from the bunker. You blast again and get the ball out, but it's still on the hill and still in the rough. Frustrated, you walk up to the ball with your sand wedge and without giving it a thought just hack at it, sending the ball up on to the green.
      Exhausted, you step on to the front of the green and see that your ball has gone skittering to the back of the putting surface-to a spot from which you will have the fastest of downhill putts. You address the ball, barely tap it, then watch in horror as the ball rolls on and on, past the hole, and all the way back to the front of the green. By now you've taken many more strokes than you ever have without just picking up. But here, you have to hole out. Three putts later, you do just that. Then you have to do something that's even harder than playing the hole was: you have to add up your score. For the record, the number of strokes you've taken to play the 15th hole is considered an unlucky one.
SCORE: 13  |  TOTAL: 98 (+39)

Hole No. 16-490 yards, Par 4
     From the tee, you notice something different about the 16th hole at Bethpage Black: you can see the fairway. You can even see the green. Of course, the fairway looks about as wide as a two-lane road. And even though the hole plays downhill, you have no chance of reaching the green in regulation. But still. Other than the oak trees that line the left side of the hole, there doesn't appear to be a lot of trouble; there's nothingthat should cause you to score 13 again. After your adventure at the 15th you're a little tired, though. And your playing partners try to be encouraging after you block your tee shot straight right into the wispy fescue. Resigned to the fact that you're not going to break 90, or 100, or even 110, you play quickly, hacking the ball from one spot in the right rough to another before finally, with your fourth swipe, getting the ball back to the fairway and within reach of the green. Here, the gods take pity on you and from a distance of exactly 117 yards, you hit your best shot of the day, a 9-iron that stares down the pin and dances to a stop a mere meter from the hole. You concentrate on the putt, stroke the ball with a smooth, flowing motion, and celebrate as the ball drips over the front edge of the hole and into the cup. You have just done something that no competitor in the history of the U.S. Open has ever done: you've improved your score by 7 strokes from one hole to the next.
SCORE: 6  |  TOTAL: 104 (+41)

Hole No. 17-207 yards, Par 3
     You're in the home stretch now, and on the heels of your superb approach shot at the 16th, you're feeling your oats. This tough par 3 with its shallow, hourglass-shaped green, calls for a high, soft, 200-yard shot-a shot that's not typically in your arsenal. Today, though, you're not afraid to try anything. You whip out your driver, tee it a little higher than usual, and let fly. Amazingly (to you and everyone else) your ball actually lands on the green. It doesn't stay there, of course- it rolls off the back right edge into some greenside rough. But it's only a few feet off and you haven't been that close to hitting a green in regulation very many times today. So you consider it a victory of sorts. The problem you have now is that the hole is located in the front-left of the green. Your chip shot will have to cross a ridge that bisects the green before bending back toward the front of the hourglass where the hole is located. You muff the shot, and the ball ends up at the front-right of the green rather than the front-left. You now have a 40-footer for par. Which you do not make. But you do make the 6-footer for bogey, and as you walk to the final tee, it occurs to you that if all the holes at Bethpage had been par 3s, you might not have scored that badly.
SCORE: 4  |  TOTAL: 108 (+42)

Hole No. 18-411 yards, Par 4
     It's almost over. You're almost there. Just one more hill to climb. From the tee, it looks to you like Rees Jones went a little bunker-crazy here. There are six bunkers to the left of the fairway and another four to the right. Two more bunkers guard the front-left and front-right of the green. But what do you care? The 19th hole is in sight and you haven't had a beer since the 5th fairway. So you tee it up, swing away, and watch in amazement as your ball flies straight down the middle of the fairway, coming to rest just 180 yards from the hole. You have an uphill shot now, can barely see the top of the flagstick, but you're not daunted. You smash your 5-wood and marvel at the purity of the shot. It rises majestically, just right of the hole, clears the front edge of the green, and incredibly, stays on the green. As you stride up the hill to the applause of the gathered faithful, you almost wish it wouldn't end. Almost. It's been a great day, though taxing for sure. You're happy when you two-putt for your par and smile when one of your playing partners suggests that you go back to the first tee and keep playing.
SCORE: 4  |  TOTAL: 112 (+42)

     It's been a long day-a frustrating, maddening, disconcerting but ultimately exhilarating day. You've shot 112, about 20 strokes higher than you usually shoot. But as you take your first sip of beer in the grille room it occurs to you that averaging only a stroke or two higher per hole on a U.S Open course than you do on your familiar home track isn't so bad. And you were getting better just as you ran out of holes. It dawns on you that the British Open is at Turnberry this year. Maybe-just maybe-you'll head over there and see if you can do a bit better on a championship links course. You always did want to play Turnberry...