LOS ANGELES — Max Homa, local son, Dodgers hat wearer and student of Kobe Bryant, hit the first tee at the Los Angeles Country Club early Thursday morning to begin his quest for the first major win of his career. The hometown crowd knew what was at stake. It turned up the volume and woke up the day. It was tight around the first hole in the LACC. It cheered him on his introduction as Homa tipped his cap and narrowed his gaze.
No not true.
The first tee at LACC is in front of a long deck that lines the front of a stately, white, extremely exclusive clubhouse. Perhaps 80 or 100 VIPs gathered there on Thursday morning to watch the start of the 2023 US Open. Distracted from the conversation, they looked over as Homa, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and two-time Major winner Collin Morikawa were announced their starting times. They smiled and clapped, then pulled out their phones to take videos.
With his tee shot, Homa found the first fairway to gentle applause. He then walked down a fairway lined on the left by a single row of fans along the rope line and on the right by a huge, empty, two-story hospitality tent. A single voice yelled, “Go, bears!” for Homas alma mater, Cal.
“It didn’t quite feel like a major because you don’t have a lot of people around you,” Homa said after a 2-under 68 game that earned him 14th place.
This has been a long time coming, and perhaps there are reasons for that. The possibility of a major championship returning to Los Angeles first arose in 2014. That summer, the USGA entered expanded discussions with LACC. It was then 75 years since the city had hosted an Open, since Ben Hogan’s victory at Riviera in 1948. LACC had rebuffed several USGA overtures to host national events. Long favoring secrecy and exclusion, the club chose to keep a classic George C. Thomas Jr. design to themselves and not let us homeless people see the design. The only outdoor events ever held there were the five editions of the old Los Angeles Open between 1926 and 1940, the 1930 US Women’s Amateur and the 1954 US Amateur. But finally, in 2014, the USGA managed to cross the finish line and return to the LACC. The club agreed to host the 2017 Walker Cup, the 2023 and 2039 men’s US Open and the 2032 women’s US Open.
However, we found out on Thursday that hosting a US Open at the LACC means you get the LACC version of it. Small, exuberant, vaguely interested crowd. Hedges with better shots than many of the players. A crimson leaderboard with record low scores.
A US Open has been turned on its head.
“The colors are different,” said Xander Schauffele. “Right now it feels like we’re in a park and we’re used to being a little bit on the east coast with bluegrass and lined fairways and different grass types that are a lot darker.”
But at the center of it all is a golf course worthy of the mystery that surrounds it. The LACC North Course is a masterpiece. Visually, your gaze sweeps down into sweeping valleys and up to the horizon lined with hills and the Los Angeles skyline. The endlessly mentioned Barranca — from 17th-century Spanish for “gorge” or “ravine” — slices through and slices through all parts of a 325-acre expanse. On this country a course that requires creativity, decisiveness and variability in the pocket.
On Thursday, Schauffele and Rickie Fowler had rounds of 8-under 62, the lowest single-round finishes in US Open history. 35 other players finished below average. The results contradict long-held assumptions about the tournament and reverence for par. Many traditionalists struggle with scoring. You’ll focus on the numbers, not the challenges it took to reach them. They also assume that this tournament will continue to be as pleasant for three more days. In reality, the USGA will likely allow the course to firm, pick some tricky pin positions, and try to tweak the screws.
“I think the golf course has a championship feel,” Homa said.
Schauffele said, “Just wait for this place to solidify. It’s going to be bad.”
While all the attention is on the low scores, it should be on the stakes instead. The best principles of the game are fully presented here. Take the #6. The 315-yard dogleg par 4 runs right off the tee. A blind downhill tee shot. A raised green. A long, slender green with an island to the rear left and a bowl to the front right. The hole tests everything in the pocket and between the ears. That’s the good thing. And there are plenty of those at LACC.
The sixth tee connects to the drain surrounding the fifth green, a beautiful monster with a front bunker that looks like it was pulled off an ice cream scoop. With a view of the mound, each player first decides whether to serve or aim for the green. Most can get there while wearing the headcover on the driver. Those who dj can head left into the widest part of the fairway or up the rabbit slope that runs along the right side of the fairway. Those approaching the green from the tee also have several spots to aim for but can’t really see anything. Schauffele nearly doomed Thursday’s record-breaking round when he landed his 4-Wood in tall grass on the front hill of the green. He narrowly escaped on par.
“I took a risk and in a way I paid the price for it,” said Schauffele. “It’s kind of funny at the end of the day. They’re playing a 300-yard par 4 and I was very happy with a four.”
Nevertheless, Schauffele is determined to try again tomorrow. Even on weekends.
“I think it’s going to be quite a spectator party,” said Schauffele.
And he’s right. Of the few holes with large galleries, the sixth filled its stands on Thursday. Earlier in the week, Brooks Koepka noted, “It’s going to be fun just to stand there and watch. If I were watching, I’d be standing there.” Apparently, people were listening.
As for the rest of LACC? The logistics — both the topography and the club’s location sandwiched between Beverly Hills and Westwood — have understandably limited attendance to 22,000 per day this year, about half (at least) that of anywhere else. US Open usually sound a certain way. roars. Buzz. Fans storm through the gates. Waves of galleries follow marquee groups. None of that is the case with LACC in particular. With so few of the tickets available being open to the general public, one often gets the impression that the tournament is the stage for a corporate social gathering and not the other way around.
“We’re also from Boston last year, where it’s just louder there,” Homa said of the 2022 US Open at the country club. “Their decibels are just higher than ours out here. People don’t wake up that early.”
The first group tees off at number 1 at the US Open on Thursday morning. (Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
Some areas of the LACC are spooky. The 13th green and 14th tee are completely isolated and removed from the tournament so that spectators cannot access the holes. From here you can look east all the way to the skyscrapers lining the west side of the city. This portion of the course is isolated and silent. As of Thursday afternoon, the lone sound was the hum of a landscaper blowing leaves onto a mansion’s tennis court on the 14th fairway. Until a cockatoo screeched and a monkey babbled. If anyone needed a reminder that this place existed in another universe, the Playboy Mansion across a manicured bush on the 14th tee was a good place to start. Although Hugh Hefner passed away in 2017, his exotic animal collection has survived.
But hey, it’s not the course’s fault that the venue is bizarre.
All in all, LACC is a perfect cocktail to illustrate why golf is so great and, at large, so disjointed. The Wormwood is a 112-foot bridge built exclusively for this week. The structure traverses four lanes of Wilshire Boulevard to expand the tournament area and accommodate a fan entrance and a giant merchandise tent. It was built in the middle of the night over Memorial Day weekend so as not to distract daily traffic too much.
“If anyone has crossed that bridge before, just remember: every step you take costs about $10,000 worth of steps,” said Mike Whan, CEO of the USGA. “No, I’m just kidding. But it’s pretty amazing.”
But was it him?
By this weekend maybe everything will be normal.
Or maybe it will be a US Open like no other, for better or for worse.
(Top Photo by Jon Rahm: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)