There were some brave golfers prepared to speak out and shine a light on the deplorable conditions they were forced to endure at Chambers Bay, with some of the biggest names in the game leading a chorus of complaints about the greens - they're uneven, they vary in speed across the course, they change too much from morning to afternoon, they taste like broccoli (or something along those lines).
"To me, this is like playing the NBA Finals on a court with holes, slopes and no backboard," Sergio Garcia said.
Henrik Stenson said that putting on the greens at Chambers Bay was like "putting on broccoli". Rory McIlroy corrected Stenson later by saying, "I think they're more like cauliflower".
To me, they looked more like kale chips, but hey, I'm no expert. I will bow to Rory's superior veggie knowledge on this one.
Billy Horschel used interpretative dance to express his displeasure at the condition of the greens, per-forming some sort of snake-like action to mimic the trajectory of the ball after he missed a close-range putt. "I lost respect for the USGA and this championship this week," he later said.
The fact that every player faced the same challenge didn't appear to mean much to these outspoken players. That's why all the criticism of the US Open venue, or any golf course for that matter, seems so nonsensical.
It's not that some of the players' gripes weren't legitimate. Sure, the conditions the field faced in Tacoma weren't ideal, and no doubt the organisers would have preferred the greens were more consistent. The question is more the value of those complaints when the difficulties faced by one player were faced by them all.
And in the end, the best players were weeded out from the rest of the field by virtue of hitting greens and holing putts - same as in any tournament.
As eventual winner Jordan Spieth said before the tournament started, whinging about the conditions is futile.
"If you are going to talk negative about a place, you're almost throwing yourself out to begin with, because golf is a mental game."
