Olympia Fields 247-yard 17th with its deep bunkers and firmed up approach.
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The Open championship has its wind and unpredictable weather, the US Masters has its fast greens, the US PGA has its heat. So what is the key defence of the US Open? The rough, of course.
And this year some bunkers have been made four feet deeper.
The USGA's chief agronomist Tim Moraghan has revealed that Olympia Fields Country Club, the venue for this year's US Open starting tomorrow (Thursday) will be more penal than ever.
"The rough is outstanding," he says with a glint in his eye. "It's everything we want. It's going to be penal. We are going to keep it at a height where if the player gets a little bit of a lucky bounce, maybe he can get to advance the ball significantly.
"But it's a half-shot penalty. The whole key to the Open is accuracy off the tee. I know people say that's boring golf, but it's not boring when you hit it in the middle of the fairway and middle of the green. That's what you are supposed to do."
So what about the bunkers?
"When I first started with the USGA, they weren't as much of a hazard as they could be. Now as the players are getting better and better, and you have choices with different types of sands, tools and products to use to firm and soften them up, our philosophy has become to make them look consistent," says Moraghan.
"But if one is a little softer or harder than the other one, that's part of the game. They are supposed to be hazards and you are not supposed to be in there.
Asked if Olympia Fields had renovated its bunkers for the event, Moraghan answered, too right, they have!
"At the 1997 Senior Open played here the feeling was that it was a good golf course, but the bunkers were not as strong as they could be. To make them tougher for the US Open, the problem we ran into was that Olympia Fields is built on a flood plain so you could only go so deep before you ran into drainage issues.
"So we dug down two feet, then built the lips up two feet so you now have a 4-foot change in elevation. So I think the bunkers are something you want to avoid.
"Now if you hit it in there, you have to think about what you're doing off the tee and with your second shot, but you don't want to be in the bunkers."
Moraghan also revealed that conditioning plays an important role in setting up a US Open course.
"We want a course that provides the standard US Open style of firm and fast. You want the fairways tight and closely cropped so the ball sits up in the fairway. You don't want grass between the ball and the clubface. You want players to be rewarded by being able to put spin on the ball."
Approaches to the greens have also been handled differently this time, says Moraghan.
"We have extended the maintenance practice you see on the putting greens to the approaches. Players told us 'We know the greens are hard, so we're going to bump and run the ball to the green,' so we've tried to prevent the approaches getting too soft. That helps the player who wants to bump one in; he knows he is going to have a certain type of ball release and I think that's been a huge improvement."
He also said that speed of the greens were going to be at 11.5 to 12 which will combine with the contours to provide a tricky surface.
If you have a 4-footer to win the US Open you'd better be a good putter," he says.
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