Paul:
I was there as a 17-year-old kid with my Dad and I can say that Winged Foot / West was clearly a reaction to what Johnny Miller did the preceding year at Oakmont.
The USGA love affair with par golf got taken to extremes and you can see it in the overall scoring. If memory serves -- 13-over-par made the cut and the weather was not severe at all. In fact, the final round on Sunday was cloudy and far from the hot and humid conditions that sometimes plague Opens.
The course only yielded -- again -- if memory serves -- no more than 6-7 rounds that were below 70. I believe 67 was the low round for the week and the rough was simply over-the-top -- far beyond the 1/2 shot formula the USGA tries to implement with the Championship now.
Paul -- remember this -- the West at Winged Foot is a very fair course -- it was the set-up that bastardized Winged Foot to be the equivalent of what you saw at the '04 event at Shinnecock Hills, the 18th at Olympic in '98, the 18th at Southern Hills in '01, the inane back tee lengths at #10 & #12 on Friday's second round at Bethpage Black in '02, etc, etc. Frankly, the West doesn't need the help of man to defend itself against the onslaught of today's players. The quality is there with the design and monkeying around, as was done in '74, need not be the main emphasis for this year's event.