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Putting surfaces at Congressional Country Club, where the year's second major championship tees off Thursday morning, were rebuilt less than two years ago and are well despite brown spots on the edge of some greens and fringes.
"The greens are outstanding," said USGA executive director Mike Davis, the course set-up man. "Even though some of them look a little thin and you can see some brownness to them, the root structure is very, very good."
Hot weather last week halted mowing and kept green speeds from reaching the lightning-quick levels US Open officials prefer until Wednesday.
"We're almost there," USGA championship committee chairman Tom O'Toole said. "The reason we are slightly behind in this prep is because we did not want to compromise the health of the putting greens. We would not do that.
"In my 20 years of officiating at the US Open, the putting greens, their firmness, their smoothness and the green speeds are as good as we've had.
"We are delighted where this golf course is right now and we think it's well prepared to test the greatest players in the world."
World No 1 Luke Donald of England noticed the difference from last week over the 7 574-yard, par-71 layout.
"The greens are certainly firming up from a week ago when I played," he said. "They are significantly firmer. They were even watering them, so they're even concerned right now that they're getting too firm."
That evoked memories of the final round of the 2004 US Open at Shinnecock Hills, where organisers lost control of the course and the seventh green was so rock-hard that it was watered between groups to keep it playabale.
"At a US Open they always stress the greens a little bit," US star Dustin Johnson said. "They look pretty good to me, though. I don’t see any issue with them."
A major concern this week could be the softness of the sand in bunkers, which figure to come into play more often than when the US Open was last held at Congressional in 1994 because of fairways that feed into sand traps and mowing that allows for more roll-ins off errant shots.
A ker-plopping bunker landing could create a buried lie, or "fried egg."
"It's a pretty fine line," Davis said of the soft sand. "A ball that might not end up in a fried egg in the morning could end up in a fried egg later in the day as things dry out."
"I suspect we're going to get some fried eggs this week, but having said that, we don't want a plethora of them. We will be watching it very closely."
The idea for Davis is for players to have a punishment for finding the sand, not a good chance to make a spinning shot.
"We really want bunkers to be hazards and so these bunkers are softer than what these elite players see on a week-to-week basis," Davis said. "We're trying to do that. That's not something that has gotten away.
"When they are a little softer, (players) can't compress the ball against the sand and really spin it as much, so it comes out more knuckly.
"When a player hits it in a bunker, which by definition is a hazard, we want it to be a tough recovery."
Versatile tee areas allow for changing the look of certain holes to force players to make different choices on different days.
"There's a lot of those type of shots at Congressional this week where on a certain day maybe we'll be dangling the carrot a little bit and asking them to make a decision," Davis said.
A prime example is the sixth hole, where par was boosted from 4 to 5 to see if players might attempt to reach the green despite a lurking pond.
"I have a hunch you might see the tee moved up sometime during the championship to further entice the players to go for that green," O'Toole said.
