In the old days the trick-your-eye greens of The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs were challenge enough for major championships.

Like the 1959 U.S. Amateur won by Jack Nicklaus, the 1982 U.S. Women’s Amateur taken by Juli Inkster, or the 1995 U.S. Women’s Open won by Annika Sorenstam.

But in today’s world of long-hitting technology and conditioned athletes, this summer’s 2008 U.S. Senior Open Championship has decided to add another wrinkle - fairways so narrow, about 28 yards on some par fours and fives, you might want to bring a pool cue.

It wasn’t so long ago, the 1953 NCAA Tournament for example, that a famous yarn about just that was spun. Thayer Tutt, President of The Broadmoor Golf Club, and Ted Payseur, head of the NCAA, were discussing course setup. Payseur suggested to Tutt that they needed to fortify the course by making the fairways narrow and by growing thicker rough. The suggestion was disregarded. It was felt the menacing greens were enough challenge. If you don’t record any three-putts here you are in the minority.But 2008 is a new dawning. Narrowing the fairways started in the summer of 2007, and I can attest to the fact when you stand on the tee box of the historic 18th hole of Broadmoor East, a 417-yard par-four during resort play, that 35 percent of the fairway is gone. The gnarly, sticky bluegrass rough encroaches out of what used to be a safe fairway landing. Next shot? It has to negotiate a pond that is stationed at a point where the fairway bends right to the green some 110 yards away with the clubhouse in the background.

When the senior professionals tee it up from July 31 to August 3, historic Broadmoor East, designed by the legendary Donald Ross, should be a grumpy, irascible gut check of professional golf skills, suitable to make the best age 50-plus players in the world have to play at a high level to take home the trophy.

Ron Forse, from Forse Design, was chosen to update the historic East Course, which opened in 1918. He reshaped existing bunkers, constructed new bunkers to replace original bunkers, lengthening back tees and adding lost mounding. The main goal of the project was to return the East Course bunkers and strategic playability of the golf course to the original classic design of Ross, who said at the time it was his best work -- part of a legendary portfolio that included Pinehurst.