By Dave Shedloski

Hutchinson, Kan. – The relatively benign conditions Thursday at Prairie Dunes Country Club, combined with the modest 6,646 yards on the par-70 configuration, enabled the 156-player field in the opening round of the 27^th U.S. Senior Open to assume more of an attacking style, if they dared.

The famed championship layout located in America's heartland but with the soul of a links course, was there to be had. Yet by the end of the day no one really had anything. The best players in senior golf felt like they were trying to lasso an apparition. Yeah, there was a ghost in the machine – the genius of Perry Maxwell – and it hovered over the contestants all day.

It whispered in the stealthy winds that snuck in from the southwest and laughed from the dunes and high grasses. Its greens retained their defiant countenance.

By sundown only 10 players bettered par 70, and another eight equaled the standard. Reigning Senior PGA champion, Jay Haas, and Dave Barr set the pace with 67s.

"This golf course, even without the wind, is a very difficult golf course," said Kansas native Tom

D.A. Weibring was one of 10 players to card under-par rounds Thursday. (John Mummert/USGA)

Watson, who negotiated a draw with Prairie Dunes, carding a 70. "You always have an issue or two issues to deal with. But it's a very fair golf course. It tells you what to do. But you've got to know it."

Prairie Dunes certainly bossed around the competition Thursday. The field averaged 74.917, an unimpressive collective effort. The term, "if-only," which is usually the players' favorite lament, was breathed so often that it violated EPA emission standards and covered more air space than the blimp.

"It's not just that this is a U.S. Open. This golf course can be evil," said Gary McCord, who was 3 under par after eight holes only to have to fight for a 1-over 71 by the final hole. "You think you're doing good and the next thing you know you're making bogeys all over the place and you can't figure out how you're doing it. That's what makes this such a sweet place."

Faces were not so much sour as awash in disbelief. Their explanations of frustration ran the gamut: wind, rough, sightlines, course firmness, hole locations, and green speeds and undulations.

The wind was but a zephyr, but it was different from the north-northeast breezes of the previous two days. "It was a different golf course today," said Bruce Lietzke, who lived in nearby Wichita as a kid, after his 69. "I was really having to work hard, changing clubs … you have to react to what the conditions are."

The tag team partner to the wind is the layout's many doglegs lined by thick primary rough and then flanking that is high native grasses. That made club selection tricky. Committing to a line off the tee left players in a quandary.

"You don't have to be that far off line with your tee shot to get yourself into trouble on a number of these holes," former Senior Open champion Graham Marsh said after coming in at 68. "On this golf course, it's clever the angles that he has placed with these fairways. If you pick the wrong line, you run out of room very quickly or you don't get to the position that you wanted."

"You've got to try to pick the line that suits your game or that suits the club you want to hit, and that's not easy," said England's Mark James, who despite struggling with back and hand injuries shot 68 and posted the only bogey-free round.

Getting past all that and reaching the greens doesn't mean the work is done. In fact, the true devil is in the detailed Maxwell greens, which have the kind of unsteadying contours befitting a links-style design.

There were 11 flagsticks 3-5 paces from edges of greens.

"The greens play very small," Watson said. "The pin positions are such where you put the pin on a part of the green, and if you don't hit it within that 5-foot area there, the ball's going to rebound and go 30 feet from the hole or come back off the green or go 20 feet by. Each green is complicated. With all the contours, it's a great test of golf."

Haas was one player who espoused attacking the course from the fairway, but hole locations and the rolling surfaces meant having to be selectively aggressive. "With pins on the edges, that's what makes it difficult. … Length is not a defense of the course. The greens are tough to read, a lot of little subtleties in them, a lot of humps and bumps you have to go over."

"I was 3 under but I could have been 7 or 8 under the way I played," said Vicente Fernandez, who was just one of many in the "could have" stable. "I wasted so many birdie chances. The greens are not easy to read, but I was maybe 50-50. (It was) 50 (percent) my reading, and 50 the greens are tricky."

Some players liked to think they might get a better crack at Prairie Dunes Friday with a round under their belt. New tee locations, hole locations and the independent mind of the wind, won't allow anyone to get too comfortable, however. "I was kind of surprised there weren't lower scores (earlier)," Fred Funk, making his senior tour debut, said after a 72. "But after having gone through it, you realize there's not much margin for error."

"This is a golf course where, if you're a little bit off your game, it going to absolutely devour you," Marsh added. "There's a fine line between madness and genius, a fine line between something that is good or very bad. You play a golf course like this, you just take what you can get."

If you can get anything at all.