I got a certain level of satisfaction watching the U.S. Open last weekend.

A bit of a warm, fuzzy feeling came over me while watching Paul Casey chip out of the bunker on No. 6 Sunday back

toward the tee.There was something strangely comforting in watching the best players in the world spend more time in the sand thanPamela Anderson and so much time in the high rough, it looked like they were on an African safari.I found this enjoyable because, suddenly, these inhuman golfers capable of making shots usually reserved for the PlayStation became very mortal.Sort of like me.I have hit a golf ball in the wrong direction — both on purpose and, sadly, by accident.I have been stuck in rough so tall and thick I thought I would have to send up a rescue flare to get out of it.Bad, bad rounds have haunted me all my life. For every good round, I'd have nine horrible ones. I've had rounds that made Dorf look like a scratch golfer.So, after watching guys like Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk find themselves in predicaments usually reserved for players like myself, I was pretty pleased.They weren't, of course.Mickelson whined more than the engine on a 1978 Pinto. Furyk lamented that 99 percent of the Oakmont members couldn't even play the course because it was so difficult.I find it hard to feel sorry for them.The U.S. Open is supposed to be challenging. A major tournament is supposed to test the mettle of the world's best.It's not supposed to be a cake walk. It's not supposed to be a glorified pitch-and-putt — or "executive course" as those pitch-and-putts like to be known.Players aren't supposed to birdie every hole.That's what makes it entertaining. And, quite frankly, it allows us common folk with a handicap roughly the same as the average temperature in Nome, Alaska, feel better about ourselves.Now, when I go out and dig more holes in the turf than a groundhog, I can take solace in the fact that Mickelson did the same thing in the U.S. Open.Oakmont can take a certain pride, too, in knocking these pro golfers down a few notches.The course was a house of horrors for these guys, and that's a good thing. It made them work for every par and birdie.It even made them put some pretty crooked numbers on their scorecards, like the triple bogey by Aaron Baddeley on the very first hole Sunday.Nothing like a big, fat seven to start off a bad round. I should know.Plus, these guys should have nothing to complain about.Even George McNeil, who shot a 26-over par 306 in the tournament, walked out of Oakmont with a cool $16,363.If I had 16 grand for every time I was 26-over par, I'd be as rich as Tiger Woods right now.