"We are not trying to embarrass the best golfers in the world, we are trying to identify them."

- Long standing USGA quote defending the difficulty of U.S. Open course layouts

If you believe that quote, then you must believe that Retief Goosen is going to win more major championships in the near future. After all (thanks to USGA wisdom) they have identified him as one of the world's best golfers, right?

Personally, I am betting the "under" on that proposition. Sure, I hope Mr. Goosen takes his U.S. Open victory and does something special with his career. But chances are, he's yet another "fluke" winner of the so-called "best test of championship golf" on the planet.

Retief, say hello to Andy North.

And Scott Simpson, Steve Jones, Corey Pavin, Orville Moody and Jack Fleck.

Combined "other" majors between these U.S. Open champs? Zero.

In fact, since 1987, only two U.S. Open winners (Payne Stewart and Tiger Woods) had won another major besides the Open. That compares to seven Masters winners in that span who were able to win a different major, seven British Open winners, and eight PGA Championship winners.

If you want a tournament to take a flyer on a nobody, or a par-shooting plugger, the U.S. Open is your place. It's not a place for particularly exciting golf. And the utterly boring group of starch-shirt-wearing, bow-tie-sporting blue bloods at the USGA doesn't seem to care.

Every year, I look forward with great anticipation to the U.S. Open. Not only does it fall in June, when golf season is in full gear, but it is also played on some of the most revered and mythical courses in America. Sadly, every year, I leave the U.S. Open feeling cheated and annoyed.

Cheated because the event is so often a four-day roll of the dice. Good shots are supposed to be rewarded and bad shots punished. Not the way the USGA trims these layouts. Fairways are turned into runways, greens into ice skating rinks, and roughs grown to dog-swallowing depth.

A guy pipes a drive down the middle, and then sees his ball skitter off the fairway by four feet into a clump of grass that would stall your lawnmower. And this is fair? Another guy has a putt from above the hole that he touches as lightly as a brain surgeon and it goes rocketing 30 feet past the hole. And this is a proper test of golf? At most U.S. Opens, a missed fairway is an automatic one-shot penalty because of the rough. Why not just save the trouble, and border the fairways with red stakes instead?

This of course, elicits the popular response from casual golfers along the lines of "Good, it's about time we saw these PGA Tour prima donnas scramble for par like the rest of us hackers. Make it hard, make it super-duper hard, make these guys sweat!"