Yeah, well the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills had something for everyone I guess. Sun, rain, complaints about the course. I was convinced until yesterday most of the complaining was justified and the stories about groundsmen sneakily raking the deep rough only inches off the fairways towards the tees to make it even harder for the players to blast their way out were rubbing against the grain of the fundamental interest of golf. However, I wasn’t really sure what the fundamental interest of golf was but I have more of an idea today.

Championship golf is a test of nerves. It’s not like the golf you and I play. It’s not like the golf you and I play even if it’s for 5 bucks a hole. It’s how a player can keep their head over 72 holes, not tremble in the short game, block out the thousands of people watching, not overdrive the fairways, get out of the sand, not land it in the water, not land it on the drinks tent, etc, etc. First and foremost it’s about a human battling with itself.

After all the bitching in the first couple of days about the preparation of Oakland Hills I thought okay, I agree the public want to see the pros with real chances of sinking birdies and want to see the players fighting with themselves to stay in the hunt. It shouldn’t just be about the course. It shouldn’t be about the players fighting against the fact the course is so tough it’s just not fun anymore.

“It’s such a tough golf course that they don’t need to trick it up,” Robert Allenby said. “The fairways are running 30 to 40 yards. The greens are like concrete. It’s not enjoyable to play. They’ve taken an OK golf course and turned it into a lot of crap.” Well that’s telling ‘em. Lee Westwood also had a moan, “I can’t think of a reason why they would do it (rake the rough) other than to irritate the players,” said Westwood, whose round included five bogeys, one double-bogey, and no birdies. “[The rough] is five inches long. Why brush it back at us? It makes no sense. People want to see birdies, and they have not seen me make any. I can’t see anything wrong with being 9- or 10-under-par for the week.”

But what about the British Open? What about the intial spirit of the Royal and Ancient where gentlemen would put on their Sunday best after a hot toddy and a fortifiant to brave the howling winds lashing off the North Sea armed only with a handful of hand hewn mallets? What about the gorse bushes and spinifex in the middle of the fairways? Or the bunkers so deep any normal person would readily accept a double bogey in exchange for having the embrassement of perhaps never making out of the damn hole in the ground. What about all that? That seemed hard to me.

The other problem is Padraig Harrington shot two final rounds of 66 to win at 3 under the card. Okay there was the guy from Argentina who shot a 65 on Saturday in proabably his most perfect round ever but like a thousand others before him couldn’t follow it up on Sunday but it was the British Open winner who followed up by winning the PGA. It wasn’t won by someone by default staying at even as everyone lost their balls in the rough. It was won by a solid major winner with a succession of solid rounds, keeping his head and gritting his teeth.

So who’s right? Probably no one and everyone. It seems to me golf will always be about fighting internal monsters and not external ones even if they are called Oakland Hills and even if they have the nickname.