Whistling Straits doesn't look nearly as dire for a field of contenders

SHEBOYGAN, WIS.

Mass confusion reigned at the PGA Championship - and so did the masses. For two days fog and wind had ruled at Whistling Straits; Thursday's first round wasn't finished until after lunchtime Friday, and Friday's second round wasn't done until brunch on Saturday. But then the wind died, and the sun shone, and it was anyone's guess what would happen on Sunday, because the course was suddenly offering up free prizes.

Without mist to cloak it and breezes to protect it, the secret weaknesses of Whistling Straits were revealed. The 7,507-yard, par-72 course is a fearsome-looking thing, styled to resemble a wind-whipped Irish links course, but it's also got a gentle underside. "You wouldn't find a links course in Ireland that plays that soft," Rory McIlroy said earlier this week. Was there a predatory suggestion in the remark? Probably so, judging by the way the 21-year-old Irishman has attacked the course for 17 birdies to stand in second place. Those petrifying mounds and jagged-edged bunkers? They turned out to be mostly tricks, toothless optical illusions. In the still afternoon heat, the players treated it like a picnic spot by the lakeside.

The scoring flurries were too numerous to keep track of. There was Nick Watney, the 29-year-old northern Californian with a sweet swing and goofy smile, running off five birdies in the first seven holes on the way to a 66, and fending off pursuers from various nations, including Germany and China. No disrespect to Wenchong Liang, 32, the only Chinese player in the top 100 in the world, but when a guy who had missed the cut in three of his four previous majors sets the course record with a 64 and moves into a tie for fourth place, you know that the layout has thrown its doors open.

Four years ago when Whistling Straits hosted the PGA Championship, it was gusty and punishing, roughing up eventual champion Vijay Singh for a 76 in the final round. But on Saturday Whistling Straits rewarded every kind of player and every kind of shot, from the short and smart veteran 40-year-old Jim Furyk to the stupid-long bombers and gougers, 26-year-old Dustin Johnson.

One reason Furyk was able to hang around was because he is the one of the few men on the leader board to have ever won a major. Also, he is expert in playing courses designed by Pete Dye, the man responsible for Whistling Strait's artful layout. Furyk lives in Ponte Vedra, Fla. near the Dye-designed Players Championship course at Sawgrass. Furyk, and by now he is familiar with Dye's penchant for creating intimidating optical techniques. He knows what to tune out from his peripheral vision. "When you play one of his courses for the first time your eyes start going out this way and you're looking at all the trouble rather than where you're supposed to put it and sometimes it's hard to figure out," he said.

If there was a discernible trend or pattern on the leader board by the time the scrum-like third round was over, it was a youth movement.

The board was crammed with the names of ambitious young guns, twentysomethings who may feel it's their turn to win a major, from McIlroy to Martin Kaymer, the lanky 25-year-old German. The top two players in the world, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, are each spraying the ball and dealing with off-the-course distractions, Mickelson arthritis and his wife's cancer, Woods the dissolution of his marriage in a cheating scandal. The success of the other recent first-time major winners, from defending champion Y.E. Yang last season to Graeme McDowell at the U.S. Open and Louis Oosthuizen at the British Open this season is certainly inviting.

"The major championships have got a lot more wide open, it seems, in the last couple of years, the likes of Yang winning last year at the PGA, and Graeme and Louis; you know there's been a lot of first time major winners at this event as well," McIlroy said earlier this week. "So it would be nice to keep that trend going."

Watney has been knocking at the door all season, tying for seventh at both the Masters and the British Open. McIlroy has played in just six previous majors, but he's finished in the top 10 of three of them, and twice been third now. So far, however, when given a chance to hoist a trophy, the members of the younger set have tended to blow up instead of breaking through. Before the British Open Tom Watson picked McIlroy as the favorite.

"I'd put my money on McIlroy, the kid's ready for a major," he told the UK golf publication Golfmagic.com. But McIlroy followed up a course record at St. Andrews with an 80, before finishing third. Has he learned enough patience yet? Then there is Johnson, who led the U.S. Open by three strokes only to shoot a final round 82. Similarly, everyone will be waiting for Watney to stumble.

But if the weather stays mild the young power hitters will have Whistling Strait's forgivingness in their favor.

"There's going to be a lot of guys thinking that it's the right time for them to break through and I'm definitely one of those guys," McIlroy said.