Rozner: Erin Hills has earned another Open chance
Brooks Koepka's winning score of 16-under at the U.S. Open was a travesty.
It's proof that the USGA should not try untested courses, though you wonder how a course would ever be tested if it's, well, never tested.
And it's more evidence that major championships should never be played in the Midwest.
You may have guessed that those are not opinions common to this space, but some of the many criticisms that came out of Erin Hills after a stirring national championship that obviously didn't please everyone.
Let's start with the low scores, which would not have been anywhere near that far under par without the frequent rains the week of the Open, which also didn't receive the expected winds which could have made the course nearly unplayable.
What would have been the narrative if that had occurred?
It was just the luck of the draw. Three days of rain and an inch on Friday alone.
The hardest thing to do in golf - and maybe the greatest art in the game - is hitting a driver far and straight, but the rain kept the ball in play and made the fairways even wider than they already were.
Without the moisture, the fairways would have been harder to hold and the greens wouldn't have been as receptive. Scores would have been 10 shots higher and four players would have broken par.
Last year at Oakmont, four players broke par.
The USGA is frequently guilty of mismanagement and overmanagement, but this Open went off mostly without incident - though putting bad times on Adam Hadwin on the 17th Friday and Hideki Matsuyama on the back nine Sunday was absurd.
Erin Hills proved to be a fabulous test of golf, and courses approaching 8,000 yards might become more common as the bombers get longer and the courses have less chance to challenge them.
Unlike most sports, golf can make its playing surface longer to accommodate bigger and better athletes.
It's not impossible for a Brian Harman type - a much shorter hitter than Koepka - to win a major, as Mike Weir, Jim Furyk and Zack Johnson have shown, but when your competitor is hitting 6-iron and you're hitting 3-wood, it's simply that much more difficult.
And if the course was so easy, how did Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and Jason Day miss the cut? Why didn't Jordan Spieth make a move over the weekend when he was the only name on the board that could possibly strike fear in those he was chasing?
Erin Hills did its job. Every hole offered a double or triple if players were out of position off the tee. A little better break with the weather and instead of complaints about low scores, the complaints would have been about high scores.
It was a modern course for a modern game.
As for playing in the Midwest, Medinah has hosted the Ryder Cup, U.S. Open and PGA Championship and can be set up for any of the above with the proper notice, so that argument is coastal golf snobbery.
Just in 2017, Chicago has already hosted the NCAA men's and women's championships at Rich Harvest Farms, which also had the Solheim Cup in 2009.
The Web.com Tour stopped in Ivanhoe for the Rust-Oleum a couple of weeks ago.
The Women's PGA Championship starts a week from Thursday at Olympia Fields.
And the BMW Championship returns to Conway Farms in September, the penultimate stop in the FedEx Cup playoffs.
While missing the Champions Tour, it's pretty much a grand slam for Chicago-area golf.
Minnesota's Hazeltine was a fantastic venue for last year's Ryder Cup, and Wisconsin gets the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in 2020.
Just like Medinah, great tracks and fanatical football crowds make the event bigger and better each time out.
As for Erin Hills, a little less rain and it might have been a bloodbath.
The course deserves another chance.
brozner@dailyherald.com
• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.