What’s a barranca? US Open golfers hope they don’t find out
NOT many major golf championships have also served as an opportunity for fans to broaden their vocabulary, but this year’s US Open at the Los Angeles Country Club may do just that.
Across the four days of the tournament, which began on Thursday (Jun 15), expect broadcasters – and perhaps the golfers themselves – to routinely use a word that may be unfamiliar to anyone else.
The word is barranca (pronounced “burr-ahng-kuh”) and it describes a narrow, winding, steep-walled gully or river gorge typically found in Southern California landscapes.
The barranca on the Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course comes into play repeatedly during the 18 holes, especially as protection in and around the greens. Errant golf balls that land inside the barranca may be unplayable and result in a one-stroke penalty.
In other instances, expect to see competitors descending into the barranca with hopes of rescuing their golf balls. It may be a successful recovery ploy, or it might just provide a good photo opportunity – a golfer submerged several feet below the fairway thrashing away to try to make par.
The Los Angeles Country Club barranca, however, is far from a random curio of the course layout. It serves an important, effective drainage role during rainy seasons and adds a natural, craggy aesthetic to the course design, which originated in the 1920s.
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By the 2010s, however, the barranca, which meanders throughout the property with tributaries extending in multiple directions, had largely been grassed over. A renovation of the grounds, completed in 2017, by golf architect Gil Hanse, with his design partner, Jim Wagner, and a design consultant, Geoff Shackelford, restored the barranca to its original appearance – and tactical purpose.
It first comes into play on the second hole, a 497-yard par 4 where players will face a long approach shot over the barranca. The golfers will encounter the barranca five other times on the front nine.
At the 520-yard, par-4 17th, Hanse removed several trees so the serpentine barranca would be visible from the tee, reminding players of the danger that lurked. It could test the nerves of the tournament leaders entering the championship’s penultimate hole in Sunday’s final round.
“The barranca just flows throughout. There’s a brilliance to how it is used,” said John Bodenhamer, the chief championships officer of the United States Golf Association, which conducts the US Open.
He noted that the barranca had about one metre of water running through it when he visited the site in March. The water was still as high as 60 cm last month. But with a limited amount of rainfall in June, added Shackelford, the barranca was now mostly sandy or dry, a condition that was expected and desired.
“You’ll see players playing out of them. That’s how they were intended,” Bodenhamer explained. “You’ll see a lot of heroic shots, a lot of excitement. The barranca is just magnificent.”
And maybe educational, especially to those hoping to add to their vocabulary.
Fowler, Schauffele tie major record
Rickie Fowler fired 10 birdies in a US Open record-low round of 62 on Thursday and Xander Schauffele matched it minutes later to share the first-round lead at the third major of the season.
Fowler, who missed the past two US Opens, overcame two bogeys in his eight-under-par effort and surpassed the previous tournament record low round of 63, first set by Johnny Miller at Oakmont in 1973.
Schauffele, the 2021 Olympic champion playing two groups behind Fowler, had eight birdies without a bogey. He had a 27-foot birdie putt at his final hole, the par-three ninth, but left it four feet short.
Both Fowler and Schauffele matched the lowest round recorded in any major championship – Branden Grace’s 62 in the third round of the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale in 2017.
They were two strokes ahead of two-time major winner Dustin Johnson and Wyndham Clark on six-under 64, with four-time major winner Rory McIlroy and Brian Harman a further stroke back on 65.
Fowler, a former world No 4 who fell to as low as 185th as he struggled with his game in 2021 and 2022, got his charge going with a six-foot birdie at his first hole, the 10th.
He bounced back from a bogey at 11 with birdies at 12, 14 and 16, rolling in putts of 18, 11 and 13 feet. After a bogey at 17, he birdied four straight, launching the run with a 15-footer at the 18th.
His most head-turning shot was from the sandy scrub of the barranca at the par-five eighth, where he would go on to make a 13-foot putt for the birdie that moved him to eight-under.
“I knew with where that pin was, I could get a wedge close,” Fowler said. “Stuck in the ground a bit, but I’ll take it. We ended up with a good look and walked away with four.”
Fowler did most of his damage on the greens, leading the field with 4.73 strokes gained putting.
Schauffele, who has five top-10 finishes in six prior US Open starts, admitted he wasn’t thinking 62 when he set out.
“It’s not what you expect playing a US Open,” the world No 6 said. “But monkey-see, monkey-do. Was just chasing Rickie up the leaderboard. Glad he was in front of me.” NYTIMES, AFP
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