God bless America. We scrap and claw and scheme and dream and are always looking for a better mousetrap.

At Pinehurst they could have a gadget Hall of Fame to salute the tinkertoys that have brought the U.S. Open to the loveliest village on the Carolina plain.

Start with the air conditioner. The national media have made quite a hue and cry over the fact that the U.S. Open has finally come to the 92-year-old No. 2 course at Pinehurst. But for 75 years of Pinehurst’s existence, the resort and village closed down in the summer. The Tuftses went to Roaring Gap and back to Massachusetts, and Donald Ross went all over New England and the Midwest working on new golf courses.

So until manufactured chilliness became part and parcel of the American landscape and Pinehurst opened year-round in the early 1970s, the U.S. Open with its June dates was a moot point. The USGA even had to stage the U.S. Amateur later than normal, in late September, to allow it be held at Pinehurst in 1962.

Look at the evolution of the golf course itself. It’s come from sand-and-clay greens 70 years ago to space-age bentgrass with a muscle-bound vacuum cleaner underneath the greens to suck out excess water.

"It’s a great part of Americana," says Brad Kocher, Pinehurst’s director of course maintenance. "Whatever the current benchmark is, someone is trying to exceed it. We constantly do it in our business — whether it’s mower technology, products to control disease, new grasses. Whatever today’s benchmark is, you can bet it will change."

Adds Tim Moraghan, the USGA’s chief agronomist: "It’s amazing what’s going on now in science. Today we can blow air into a green or suck water out. There’s a man now working on an air conditioning unit for greens. We’ll be able to cool them in the summer or heat them in the winter."

No. 2’s pock-marked affair with professional golf in the 1970s and early ’80s was lowlighted by obscene runs of birdies and eagles made by the Tom Watsons and Johnny Millers, the Hale Irwins and Gibby Gilberts of the world. They shot scores in the low 60s, playing to greens far softer than the ones this week’s field will see.

The old World Open/Hall of Fame Classic was played for most of its run in late August or early September, the scorching months in the Sandhills and the time of year when greens crews had to saturate the bentgrass greens with water to keep the grass healthy. The strains of bent available at the time weren’t made to withstand hot Southern weather.

"The course is playing the easiest ever," Watson said in 1978. "The fairways are perfect and the greens are like dartboards."

Added Irwin: "Anything you throw on the greens will hold."

Had those conditions remained the status quo, the Open this week would be at Pebble Beach or Winged Foot or somewhere else. But new agronomic mousetraps came along — specifically a new brand of grass, Penn G-2, created to prosper in hot weather, and a system called Subair that allows course officials to suck excess water from the greens should rain fall before or during the Open.

"In 12 to 24 hours with no further rain we can have the greens as firm as they were before the rain," No. 2 superintendent Paul Jett says.

Tiger Woods might have hit an eight-iron into the green on his second shot of the 480-yard 16th hole the other day — the same hole where Byron Nelson was on in two with a three-wood 75 years ago. But the greens will roll at 10 to 11 feet on the Stimpmeter this week, whereas half a century ago, they were probably a 6 on grainy bermuda greens.

Golf gives and it takes away. Thankfully the game and Donald Ross have blessed Pinehurst with a museum of golf architecture, an Oscar Awards celebration of great performances. And if the USGA can just reign in the golf ball a little, we might see the Open here again in 2099.

"It’s an outstanding golf course, I don’t care if it’s 1940, 1990 or 2030," says Moraghan. "I think it’s going to hold up. Ross was no dummy. He knew what he was doing. It’s a great challenge to any player of any era."

Adds Jett: "I believe this golf course would stand for many, many years, no matter how good the players got, because you’re never going to hit every iron shot precisely where it needs to be hit. Then your chipping game has to be exceptional."

Of course, in 20 years someone will have invented a golf ball with a hexagonal Velcro cover and someone else will have putting greens made of glazed asphalt. But those are benchmarks for the future.

Lee Pace, who lives in Chapel Hill, is a free-lance writer and author of the book "Pinehurst Stories."