I mentioned this up a bit, but they really go out of their way to make the course as easy as possible for this event. It must be the PGA wanting more birdies and lower scores, I don't know for sure.
Obviously the greens are fast and it's not "easy", but the rough is almost non-existent. Aside from being out of position (sometimes a real issue of course), there is no penalty for wayward drives. The rough can grow much longer and thicker in the summer, so if they had the US open it could easily be 3 shots harder per round if they want. More if the wind is going.
Additionally, the 1st hole is basically a par 4. I think scoring average was 4.2 this year. So they could make it a par 70 (34 front/36 back) if they wanted to and that's 4 shots less under par right there.
Back in the day it was a par 72 and both 1 and 2 were par 5s for the members. The 2nd hole has been a par 4 for awhile. Going 4 - 4 and being 2 under felt great and was definitely doable often for single digit handicaps. The next 16 holes were unfortunately a quick return to reality for me (still have never shot under par there). My dad's best round was 69 and he was on cloud 9 for a month.
You should watch the last minute of the Rory interview. They couldn't grow out the rough this year due to weather conditions, which made scoring higher. He said 4 rounds under par at Riviera would make him feel like he would normally have a chance to win, but not this year.
Last year, Max Homa won at -12 (only 2 other guys in double digits)
The year before, Adam Scott was -11 (only guy in the field better than -9)
JB Holmes at -14 the year before that, had a ludicrous 63 in the 1st round:
Year before was Bubba at -12 (2 guys tied for 2nd at -10).
This is one of the hardest courses on the PGA Tour year in and year out, and given that it's only 7,300 or so yards, sure seems to me that the Tour is trying to make it harder than easier, the weather just didn't cooperate this year. The only way to make these courses much harder is to drop them all to par 70's, grow the rough to 8 inches and make everything 8,000 yards.
And you'll probably still have guys shoot under par.
