Big Apple and U.S. Open seem made for each other

Each of golf's major championships has forged its own unique identity. The U.S. Open, a tournament open to anyone with a dream and a game, is New York as much as New York is the U.S. Open.

By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM Site Producer

If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, New York, New York.

If Frank Sinatra spoke truer words, we haven’t heard them. Golf and Gotham, they are as intertwined as the Rat Pack and the 1960s, only with a much longer and deeper history that dates back to 1896, when the first New York City-area U.S. Open was conducted at Shinnecock Hills in Southampton, N.Y.

This year marks the 22nd time America’s national golf championship will be contested in or around the Big Apple, stretching from the suburbs of northern New Jersey, up through the rolling hills of wealthy Westchester County, N.Y., and out across Long Island.

Each of golf’s major championships has its own distinct identity: The Masters with its quaint Georgia charm of Augusta National, where four bucks will get you a sandwich, a pop and a bag of chips; the British Open with its rolling countryside of the U.K. out to its wind-whipped seaside villages in places like Sandwich; the PGA Championship with its glory’s-last-shot moniker and growing list of venerable host courses.

The U.S. Open? It’s everything New York City is. Big. Bold. Brash. Thick rough and thick accents, each of which can chew you up and spit you out. Like certain streets in New York, if you wander astray, you can find yourself in trouble in a hurry.

“Bethpage Black, if it was set up the way we played the Open every day, I don't think anybody would play golf anymore,” says Tiger Woods. “It's brutal.”

Big. Bold. Brash. Brutal. Any of those can be used to describe the course, or some of the fans who will be there.

“The humor in New York is very quick-witted,” says Phil Mickelson. “I remember Hidemichi Tanaka hit a shot over No. 9 [at Bethpage], over the green, a microphone is in his way, he picks it up to move it out of the way, and a guy yells out, ‘Hey, Tanaka, how about a little karaoke?’

“Stuff like that is funny, very quick-witted. And that's why I enjoy playing golf in New York, is some of the quick wit and humor that you hear.”

“It was a great atmosphere when we played in 2002,” added Woods. “The fans were truly into it. If you made a putt, people went crazy. It was fun to play in front of that, because it's always fun to play in front of people who appreciate shots and are excited that the guys are playing well.”

Pinehurst might be considered the birthplace of golf in America, but the U.S. Open, a tournament open to anyone with a dream and a game, is New York as much as New York is the U.S. Open. That’s especially true at big, bad Bethpage, one of two truly public venues in the rotation and a place where a sign on the first tee warns that the Black course is for “serious” golfers only. When people sleep in their cars to get a tee time, that qualifies as serious.

Call it East Coast bias, but there’s a reason why more U.S. Opens have been held in the shadows of the city that never sleeps than anywhere else. “We've got great golf courses in New York, and everybody gets it,” says Mickelson. “Everybody loves Bethpage.”

New York is the epicenter of seemingly everything -- business, pizza, nightlife -- and golf is no exception. Even the game’s governing body is located less than 50 miles from the middle of Manhattan.

This will be Ian Poulter’s first trip to Bethpage, but he played in two other New York City-area U.S. Opens at Winged Foot and Shinnecock Hills.

“The atmosphere is pretty special,” Poulter said. “It’s like the soccer matches in Europe. Certain stadiums have that electricity in the crowd. New York is one of those … they’re big golf fans and they’re loud.

“The fans are very knowledgeable at Augusta, in the U.K., and in New York, too. Certain cities have that. It’s just a great buzz.”

Buzz. Is there a better word to describe New York? Fuhgetaboutit.