The U.S. Open is no fun. That's the point of it. It's a stern test of a player's ability that weeds out the pretenders and frightens the weak.

The Black Course at Bethpage State Park is no fun. That's the point of it. It's a stern test of a player's ability that draws pretenders like a cash giveaway and causes the weak to camp out for the chance to suffer like the pros.

A.W. Tillinghast, designer of such enclaves of privilege as Winged Foot, Baltusrol, and San Francisco Golf Club, was asked to create a course of extreme difficulty for what was being called "The People's Country Club," and he was up to the task. With Torquemadian glee, he created winding challenges from hazard and hill, with substantial blows required just to reach the fairway. He sited the greens on elevated slopes or pushed them up and ringed them with sand, making sure the poor duffer would have no hope of watching his ball bounce its way onto the green.

Play it? It's tough enough just to walk it. (And walk it you must. No carts allowed.)

A generation ago, golfers avoided the Black. Players would arrive at the clubhouse - no reservations were accepted - and check the board that posted the waiting times for the five courses. The wait for Black was usually half as long as the other courses. The tees were often bare, the fairways a bit patchy, the bunkers unraked since the Truman Administration. The greens were flat and slow.

All that changed when the United States Golf Association awarded the 2002 U.S. Open to Bethpage Black. The course is now kept in outstanding condition. The reservation system fills all weekend time slots in a minute or two. It has become an obligatory entry on the golfer's life list, however humiliating the final score may be.

The greens, however, are still flat. To challenge the pros, it is essential to make the greens firm and fast - firm, so they'll repel the indifferent approach shot; fast, so their slight wrinkles will come into play and test the golfer's stroke.

Unfortunately, it's been an unusually wet spring in New York. The ball won't roll once it hits the dampened fairways, making an already-epic course play even longer. As compensation, the softer greens will hold an approach shot from far away; it won't take a high trajectory and loads of spin to keep the ball on the greens. It will be even more important than usual to keep the ball in the fairway; while long and straight is always a winning combination, if you have to choose, this could be a week when precision can battle power to a draw. The flat putting surfaces - which, if wet, won't be as fast as the USGA would want - put birdie in play whenever a green is hit in regulation.

Players, officials, and fans will be eying the skies anxiously, and rain is in the forecast. If the course gets wetter, it will be hard for the best players to separate themselves from the field. The test of a championship venue is the quality of its leaderboard. In 2002, Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia were the final pairing on Sunday, and Phil Mickelson put on a charge in the twosome ahead of them; Nick Faldo, Nick Price, and Padraig Harrington were also in the top ten. If rain is a factor this year, the winner might be more in the solid, dependable mold of Jim Furyk or Zach Johnson rather than the powerful swashbucklers who dominated last time around.

Whoever wins will feel more like a survivor on Sunday than a conqueror. That's the nature of golf at this venue and in this event. It may not be pretty or fun, but it's ours.