Hard, fast Pebble will present a true test

GOLF:OF ALL of the majors, this is a unique test. When players talk of the water hazard, you realise it's the Pacific Ocean – you can taste the salty spray in the air and you can see and hear the waves pound the rocks.

This US Open championship at Pebble Beach, if previous episodes are anything to judge by, will thrill and enthral. It will pose seriously tough questions, and whoever of the 156 players stands alone at the end will have earned the title.

Who will it be? Now, that’s a question that leads to more questions. Can Phil Mickelson, a five-time runner-up in this championship, pull the heartstrings as he did at Augusta?

Will the in-form Lee Westwood, the nearly-man of the majors these past two years, finally break his duck?

Is Tiger Woods’s game, and just as importantly his mental state, ready to allow him restart chasing down Jack Nicklaus’s record haul of major titles?

Where has Ernie Els’s early-season form gone?

Is Pádraig Harrington ready to win again?

You could pose 156 different questions. And, yet, every player knows that to win the US Open on a course drying out with each passing day will require so many things.

Like accuracy off the tee. Distance control with approach shots. Creativity around the smallest and trickiest greens in championship golf. Solid putting.

And, most of all, a mental toughness only the truly great possess.

There’s an almost universal acclaim among the players, on the range and in the locker-room, about how the USGA has set up the course – even if Mickelson, hardly someone who could be accused of stirring up anarchy, has issued a polite warning about the increasingly fast and firm greens.

“The one area of concern I have is the greens. They’re so small and they’re so firm and there’s no forecast of rain, I’m concerned that we could have 14 potential 7th holes (like) at Shinnecock, if we’re not careful,” said Mickelson, a reference to the 2004 championship where players were at their wits end to keep the ball on the green and where he three-putted from inside six feet on the penultimate hole in eventually finishing second to Retief Goosen.

It’s not just the course, with its tight fairways, oversized rough and tiny slick greens, which will ask questions, as the weather in this microclimate on the Monterey peninsula changes like a chameleon.

As we’ve found in recent days, you can have fog, or it can be cool and overcast, or it can be beautifully sunny. One thing, though, is a constant: the wind coming in off the ocean.

That is one thing which, you suspect, won’t put any fear into the record contingent of five Irish players, with three of them inside the world’s top-50.

Rory McIlroy (10th), Pádraig Harrington (14th) and Graeme McDowell (37th) are joined by Gareth Maybin and teenager Kevin Phelan, all seeking to get their hands on the trophy which was won at Bethpage a year ago by American Lucas Glover.

McIlroy – in the Quail Hollow championship – and McDowell – in the Wales Open a fortnight ago – have already savoured victory this season.

But, Harrington, who primes his game for the majors, proved with a fifth-place finish in 2000 that he knows his way around this links. Much has changed since, not least that he has won three majors.

“Yes, I’m a different animal,” remarked Harrington. “You’ve got to understand, back in 2000 I tried to cover every angle, now I only cover one or two knowing I don’t have to do everything right to win a major – I need to have my mental preparations as good as it can be.

“I now have a much greater understanding of what it takes to win a tournament. It’s not pot luck anymore. Turning up in 2000, every week was like a roller-coaster, it was hit and miss, a totally adventure. My goal now is to be fresh on Sunday, ready for the battle, if you are going to win it.”

He added: “I love this course, it’s good for me. Any time we get a windy course, I am happy.”

Mickelson, though, will start as favourite. Not that he is the player most in form, that would have to fall on the shoulders of Westwood, but because as a five-time runner-up in the US Open he clearly has a game he has tailored to suit the challenge.

Lefty, who turned 40 yesterday, is also coming in as the winner of the first major of the season, at Augusta. And this is a course he knows like the palm of his hand, having made his professional debut here.

As Mickelson conceded, the challenge ahead, for him and the others in the field, will require patience. What factors call for such patience? “The US Open is different. Distance isn’t a factor here. Accuracy, controlling the ball off the tee, putting the ball in the right spot in the fairways or the right spot in the rough if you have to, or missing the greens in the proper spot,” offered Mickelson.

It sounds like a wise policy. Executing it, though, could prove more difficult. For everyone.