ESPN Commentary

OAKMONT, Pa. -- Walked the Oakmont Country Club course Wednesday. Learned what a high-class penal colony looks like.

It looks like 7,230 yards of short grass -- including a 288-yard par-3 and a 667-yard par-5 -- surrounded by fields of wrist-spraining rough. (See: Mickelson, Phil.)

It looks like acres of sand -- 210 bunkers in all -- nestled into prime locations for devouring golf balls.

It looks like greens so fast they've replaced the Stimpmeter with a radar gun, trying to clock putts that skid like marbles across a cement floor.

First conclusion: I cannot relate to the masochistic members who actually pay to be humiliated by this course.

Second conclusion: Johnny Miller is not walking through that door. There will be no reprise of his excessively celebrated 63 this week.

Final conclusion: It will take one tough dude to win this U.S. Open. Playing this beast in suburban Pittsburgh will be like running off tackle for four hours against the Steel Curtain. Sans pads.

Who the dude will be, I don't know. Of course, when it comes to toughness, the first three names on the list are:

1. Eldrick

2. "Tiger"

3. Woods

But don't overlook native Pennsylvanian Jim Furyk. He's a fairways-and-greens grinder who should embrace this course the way a fire walker enjoys especially hot coals.

Who the dude won't be, I have some ideas. Knee-buckling pressure is as much a part of the majors as green jackets and big trophies -- and some guys are more susceptible to it than others.

With that in mind, this is my All-Tin Man Team: seven golfers who have major-championship talent but lack major-championship heart:

• 7. Adam Scott. Yeah, he's only 26, turning 27 this week. But Scott still has a long way to go to close the chasm between his current game and his prodigious potential.

The final swing thought the Australian brings with him to Oakmont is a grisly one: a back-nine collapse at the St. Jude Classic on Sunday. Scott entered the final round with a 3-shot lead and wound up in seventh place, shooting 6-over in the final six holes to drop-kick the tournament.

His U.S. Open track record includes three missed cuts, a tie for 28th and a tie for 21st. The two times he made the cut, he shot 76 and 74 in the final round, regressing down the leaderboard both times.

And it's hard to see a guy ranked 109th in driving accuracy making a run at a course like this.

• 6. Charles Howell III. Another young fella (27, almost 28) still struggling to fulfill the early hype. This is a guy who turned pro seven years ago and was hailed quickly as the Next Big Thing, but he has only two tour wins to show for it.

Howell has made five consecutive U.S. Open cuts, at least, but he has been a fourth-round train wreck, as well. Average Sunday score in those five events: 76.8. That includes an 83 in 2004 after entering the final round in 13th place.

Howell is another guy guilty of spraying the ball off the tee this year, ranking 179th in driving accuracy. And Charlie Three Sticks has been Charlie Three Jack on the greens, ranking 107th in putting.

He also is entering this event in reverse. Since finishing 30th in the Masters, Howell has had two missed cuts, finished in a tie for 52nd at the Wachovia Championship, finished 79th at The Players Championship and withdrawn from the Memorial after a third-round 80.

• 5. Stewart Cink. I suspect it's less a case of Cink lacking guts and more a case of a guy cursed with excessive niceness. It's hard to rip a guy's heart out when you're too busy patting him on the back.

Cink is 34 and hasn't won on tour in three years. His signature major moment remains an ugly one: a missed 18-inch putt on the 72nd hole of the 2001 U.S. Open, yacking away a chance to join Retief Goosen and Mark Brooks in a playoff.

After Cink blew the putt, he said, "I can handle this. This is golf. This is a game."

Admirable perspective. But who says perspective helps you win a major?

• 4. Chris DiMarco. You never hear DiMarco's name without the adjective "gritty" attached. The track record says it's time for a new adjective: underperforming.

Yeah, he has chased Tiger's tail in a couple of majors, the 2005 Masters and '06 British Open. But he hasn't won a PGA Tour event in five freakin' years.

And his U.S. Open record might as well be called "That 70s Show." He has played 24 rounds at the Open, and he scored in the 70s or 80s in 23 of them. Since an opening-round 69 in 2001, he's rolled 19 straight rounds of 70 or higher. Last time he made an Open cut was '04, and his closing 75 took him neatly out of contention.

• 3. Sergio Garcia. Still waiting -- and waiting, and waiting -- for him to live up to the promise of 1999, when he pushed Tiger to the brink in the PGA Championship. With the exception of some Ryder Cup brilliance, everything since then has been one big tease.

Until proven otherwise, Garcia will forever be the guy who showed up for a showdown round in the '06 British Open wearing canary yellow slacks -- then promptly wet them. Paired with Woods and trailing by only a shot, he carded a limp front-nine 39 to shrink from the fight.

Garcia has two U.S. Open top-10s, but he hasn't carded a weekend Open round in the 60s in five years. His weekend average in six Opens: 76. Not good enough to win.

• 2. Colin Montgomerie. Everyone remembers and relives Phil Mickelson's gag on the 72nd hole of last year's U.S. Open, and with good reason. But Monty's might have been worse: With a perfect shot into the final green, he turned into Scottish pudding. A choked approach led to a disastrous double-bogey, and yet another exercise in public self-flagellation.

That disaster continued Monty's long and florid history of crunch-time fold-ups. This is a guy who has flopped more in majors than two decades of Duke guards trying to draw charges.

• 1. Davis Love III. Unlike everyone else on this list, Love has won a major. It should be rescinded.

Love's 1997 PGA victory was the equivalent of a thoroughbred running loose on the lead. That lack of competitive pressure often results in a flukishly fast race, and Love's wire job at Winged Foot was the same thing. Despite a wealth of ball-striking talent, he's done nothing since then to back it up.

He has missed eight of the past 17 cuts in majors and has missed three of the past four in the U.S. Open. He isn't driving it straight this year (124th in accuracy), isn't rolling it well on the greens (174th in putting) and hasn't recorded a top-10 finish since early February.

And it's hard to see Love, at 42, suddenly developing the ticker to win at a penal colony like this.

Pat Forde is a national columnist for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.