Every year the same question rises to the forefront of golf’s collective consciousness: Is the U.S. Open too difficult?

With one week to go before the year’s second major, Adam Scott kicked-off the discussion with some rather frank opinions on the tournament’s setup, via Golfweek:

“Maybe it’s time to do away with the even-par target, just thinking about the bigger picture of the game of golf,” Scott said after finishing up at Memorial on Sunday, where he shot 74 to finish at 1-under 287. “If their major pinnacle event for them requires courses to be the way they are, it doesn’t set a good example for every other bit of golf that they try to promote. Maybe we should get the numbers out of our heads and try a new strategy.”

The “even-par target” Scott is referring to is the unwritten standard that U.S. Open tournaments should boast a winning score around even-par, and he’s mostly right about that. Since 2012, just 17 players have finished under par for the year’s event, and two players have won with scores of +1.

Instead, it’s not the picture Scott paints that’s the problem, it’s conclusion he draws at the end of it.

Golf at the U.S. Open is a different game from what we see on the PGA Tour week after week. The rough. The greens. The course setup. The layout. The conditions; they’re all intentionally designed to trip-up players at every opportunity.

But that’s where a disconnect arises between players and fans.

In some ways it’s understandable that professionals like Adam Scott, used to playing events where fairways are like carpet and the course’s rough is little more than window dressing, wants the U.S. Open to change. Of course Scott wants the USGA to stop shooting for an even-par target. It’s not fun making bogeys, especially when you’re so used to making birdies. But playing in the U.S. Open is not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be endured.

And that’s what makes it, in my opinion, the best major on the planet.

Once a year, the red carpet isn’t rolled out for the best golfers on the planet. Instead, they’re presented with an obstacle course of brutal proportions. It tests players’ mental fortitude, and toughness, and ability to mitigate damage — skills that lay dormant for so much of the year.

The U.S. Open isn’t concerned with what’s “fair.” It doesn’t want to crown golf’s most talented. It wants to find the toughest. The player who won’t succumb, no matter how much the course begs him to.

Many of golf’s problems extend from golf’s lack of diversity, which manifests in all different forms. A slate of pristine, uniform, indistinguishable events isn’t what golf needs. The U.S. Open is different; a punctuation mark on golf’s schedule that stands out among sports fans everywhere.

Adam Scott may not like the current U.S. Open standard, but that’s ok. In fact, that’s kind of the point.