My point (again, purely personal opinion) is that this course, while visually stunning, is goofy and not a good choice for a U.S. Open. The setup favors neither the straight driver (fairways are very wide) nor the great putter (the greens are in poor condition). In my view, a U.S. Open should require both aspects of the player's game to be in tip top shape.
I don't view the course as goofy; it's different than most traditional US Opens (tight parkland course with thick rough), but I'm not sure it's goofy. Sure, the fairways are wide, but there are clearly spots in the fairway that are preferable to others, and I saw all kinds of players "penalized" for not hitting it in appropriate places off the tee. It's a somewhat different kind of test off the tee than a traditional US Open, but it is a test -- loose play off the tee has been penalized, as has been careless recovery shots.
I don't quite get the notion that "great putters" won't be rewarded due to the the conditions of the greens. If the greens are in poor shape (to me they look slower than usual for a US Open, and bumpier than, say, an Oakmont, but similar to what I've seen at Pebble Beach for Opens), wouldn't having to negotiate those favor the better putter? Won't the lesser putter struggle even more so on slower/bumpier/worse shape greens? (To belabor this, the very best putters have ((almost)) always been bold, aggressive putters willing to go at the hole because they are so confident of making the 3-to-5 foot comebacker if they miss. Everything I've read so far indicates these CBay greens require solid, firm ball-striking on putts -- isn't that what good putters do anyway?)
I think asking players to think about using sideboards, where to place balls off the tee to expansive fairways, dealing with enormous vertical changes from tee to green, and negotiating sections of multi-tiered, quite contoured greens is a solid test of golf -- not in keeping with what we've come to expect from a US Open, but it's a good test. I'm mainly struck -- one day is obviously a small sample size -- by the big disparity in scoring. Some really good golfers (Fowler, Oosthouizen, Charley Hoffman, Ryan Moore, McDowell) really struggled with the course. Yet it yielded two 65s, a 66, three 67s and more than two dozen under-par rounds. I'm sure aggregate scores will go up as this moves on, but the course seems to be rewarding thoughtful, good play and punishing loose, ill-considered play -- always the mark of a good test, it seems.