It's not just wind conditions, its the built in random deviations aka "Beast". Look, all the top players agree it's Lottery golf out here. You don't play 900+ rounds without seeing the patterns of random luck and chance involved in this game over and over. That's why there is unlmited play in the first place. It's basically an admission that there are patterns that occur in the game that allow for "perfect storm" conditions for scoring, while the other patterns are the exact opposite. You roll the dice and see what you get.
Case in point: Players A and B have exactly the same yardage left to the hole. Player A sets up and hits an"Excellent!" shot and the ball ends up 4 ft from the cup. Player B sets up the exact same way and hits an "Excellent!" shot and the ball ends up 24 feet from the cup and rolls off the side of the green, No one in their right mind can come to the conclusion that this is a fair test of any players skill when the results for the exact same shot can be so varied. This is the norm for what happens here, not the exception. Hence why we call it "Lottery Golf".
Yup, 11th in the UsOpen. Do you think I would have improved my position over 3 more rounds? You'd better believe it! Oh, and how many PGA tournaments do you know of that are 1 round only? What's that? None? Ok then, enough with this single play tournament justification.
One last point TaxAnalyst: How would you know what occured during the US Open qualifying here? Your account says you just joined 2 days ago. You have a wide range if opinions here for someone with a whopping 16 rounds of experience. What would you know about Lottery Golf? Oh, and your first round was a 65? Riiiiiight.
Obviously you've been here long before 2 days ago under a different name. Consider this discussion over.