OAKMONT, Pa. (AP) - The area between the clubhouse and the golf shop at Oakmont Country Club was meant to be a place where players can meet family, drop off caddies, maybe swap a tale or two.

The people who run the U.S. Open tried their best to do everything to make players happy there, just like they do their best to make them squirm everywhere else. It’s a genteel place, underneath tall trees with an adjoining dining area for wives, girlfriends and personal psychologists.

Just a few steps away there’s a parking lot loaded with Lexus GS450s to ease the drive home.

Life is good for the privileged few who get rich playing golf. Volunteers part crowds for them, bring them food and water and pretty much cater to their every whim.

They can’t possibly have anything to complain about.

Yesterday, it was about all they did.

"It’s dangerous, it really is," Phil Mickelson said.

Mickelson wasn’t talking about the drive across the Allegheny River, or the flight home in his private jet.

The Oakmont rough was his big worry, though the slick greens also gave him fits on this day. He wasn’t happy about liquid fertilizer, either, or new machines that suck the grass up so the ball sits down in the rough.

Mickelson won’t have to worry anymore because he didn’t make the cut. But Lefty wasn’t alone.

As the first wave of casualties arrived off the 18th green, the patio area was filled with furtive glances, embarrassed expressions and players who looked like they wanted to rip the numbers off the scoreboards held aloft by the standard bearers.

Some gathered outside to commiserate, though they didn’t stay long. There were other places they would rather be, other things they would rather be doing.

"Ready to start drinking?" one said to another after signing his scorecard.

Uh, fellas. Maybe you hadn’t heard, but this is the U.S. Open.

You know, the tournament they hold every June with tricked-up rough, tiny ribbons of fairways and linoleum greens. The one everyone loves most to hate, and the one everyone would love most to win.

The one that caused such an outcry years ago that a U.S. Golf Association official was forced to defend it by saying the organization’s goal wasn’t to embarrass the best golfers in the world but to identify them.

Was there any reason you thought it wouldn’t be this way?

Apparently so, judging from the dazed expression on the faces of players who got a break Thursday only to find Oakmont playing at its snarling best in the second round. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing and greens were so excruciatingly fast that balls seldom had a chance to settle anywhere near the hole.

"Just walking through the parking lot is tough," Bubba Watson said.

The field averaged nearly 77 strokes on a par-70 course. The top four players in the world were a combined 28-over par.

No matter, players said. It wasn’t really their fault.

Blame the people in the blazers who run the USGA and believe it is their mission in life to make a course so hard that even the best players using the latest in grooved technology and golf balls that dance on command come off it mumbling expletives.

Amateurs running a professional tournament. Guys who can’t break 80 on a good day deciding how to set up a course for a game they’re unfamiliar with.

Maybe, but even par is leading the Open, and that’s just fine with the guys in blazers.

Besides, somebody did shoot a 66, right? So what that 35 others couldn’t break 80?

Leave it to an Englishman playing another country’s national championship to be among the rare few to agree.

"There’s no point bitching and moaning that it is a difficult golf course because it is a tough golf course," Ian Poulter said. "It is not supposed to be easy."

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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