Mad dogs and golfers go out in Tulsa sun

And now the weather. Scorchio! Scorchio! Scorchio! You could fry an egg on your Big Bertha, get a tan on your Titleist pro ball and watch the flags wilt and droop on the greens. If you'd just leave the air conditioned tents, that is.

Southern Hills, a series of wealth-kissed goose-bumps on the awesome tabletop-flat landscape of Oklahoma, is baking this week; the course is blanketed in a heavy, oppressive heat which promises to have as much influence on proceedings at the 101st US Open as the long, thin fairways and the stingy greens.

Even the locals are whining and swooning and they've seen it all before. Most often the conditions recall those of 1982 when the USPGA was played here and won by Ray Floyd in a sauna-bath. That competition is remembered fondly as the Sweat Hog Invitational.

In a region which has experienced June temperatures in the low hundreds there are certain bragging rights which go with just living here. The blow-hards of the local paper, the Tulsa World, managed to put a news story about the heat on the front of the main section yesterday and a little jibe at whining British journalists "used to pulling two turtlenecks and three sweaters over their big white bellies and covering a tournament in the fog" on the front of their sports section. "This is only warm", chuckled our cold-blooded colleagues.

From the hill where the air-conditioned press centre, club house and swimming pool sit, the oil derricks which made this town are just black silhouettes visible through the shimmering air and the high-rises of downtown Tulsa. On the course below, spectators labour around the undulating fairways, their shirts dark and wet in the soupy air. Water, somewhat criminally, is being retailed at $2.50 a bottle and the first aid people have to make constant warnings that fans should be drinking water and not beer as they follow the players.

So far this week an average of three people a day have been hospitalised for chest pains and organisers expect that figure to rise sharply as competition gets under way in earnest today and the out of breath and out of shape begin stampeding the course in pursuit of their heroes. As well as first aid tents, organisers have two first aid teams covering the fairways on bicycles.

By eight yesterday morning the temperature was 78 degrees. By mid morning it was pushing the high eighties and only the whisper of a mitigating breeze. By early afternoon the figures were in the nineties and only mad dogs, English scribblers and golfers were going out.

The golfers are divided on the business of playing in a kiln. From the players locker-room there has been a low grumbling but public utterances on the matter have been made with stiff upper lips. David Duval, raised in the humidity of southern Florida, wasn't about to add temperature to the list of mental tics which stand between himself and a major title.

"I'm in the minority right now but I think it's been pretty nice out the last few days. It's been hot and a little humid but not anywhere near as humid as it can be. The problems we might face are after a bit of rain and then the sun comes out. That's when it gets unbearable."

Rain followed by sunshine and the sort of humidity you can cut with a knife are scheduled for tomorrow. Lee Westwood came to the press area aglow with sweat and not in the sort of whippet-like shape Duval keeps himself in. He was talking a good game about the heat but sounded unconvincing. "It's pretty hot in Malaysia, if you've ever decided to go there. If you look at the first few months of the European Tour schedule they encompass places like South Africa and Malaysia and Australia, places where it gets fairly hot."

Best get it from an expert then. Thongchai Jaidee is the first Thai player to qualify for a US Open. He's 28 years old, in great shape and he finds it, well, "The weather is similar to in Thailand. I thought Palm Desert where I was training was a little hot this time of year and it feels like this. 93 degrees and 90 per cent humidity is perfect for me. All the players are complaining but I love it."

But what hope is there for our boiled Harringtons, deep-fried Darrens and poached Montys? Darren in a three-way tie (with Mark Wiebe and Steve Lowery) for heaviest player in the Open and Monty out just after noon today will be the perfect road tests for conditions here. Harrington, well conditioned and out early, should find the going tolerable.

And if there were doubts that God is a Tiger Woods fan, if not in fact a blood relative or a major sponsor, players have also been lamenting the fact the heat permits the big boys to drive the ball further and straighter. Woods has just been smiling. We'll see, we'll see.