CADDIE'S ROLE:JIM FURYK was asked a very pertinent question by the well-prepared Tim Barter of Sky Sports after his round on Friday in the 112th US Open in the Olympic Club of San Francisco. "What do you need to do to win the US Open?"

He was, of course, the very man to pose such a question to, given he had won the same national open outside Chicago in 2003 and finished second twice.

With his calculating way of playing the game, his hawkish face is a fair portrayal of a man who knows how to use his prowess and guile to hunt down a title. He has, of course, been in position to chase multiple majors in his long and successful career.

Jim’s face tilted slightly, accentuating his hooked nose, as he considered his answer and he certainly justified my first viewing of this year’s US Open. I knew it would not be a trite response, firstly because Furyk is a thinker but, more importantly, he had just finished a very good round of golf, one under par, on a seemingly unrelenting golf course (the best time to ask a golfer any question).

Firstly, Furyk opened his winning explanation, you have to know where your golf ball is going and you need to be able to control the flight and shape of it, especially with the sloping nature of so many of the fairways at the Olympic Club.

With the greens as firm as they were you needed to land the ball at least 15 yards short of where you wanted it to finish on the green.

Secondly, he said the old favourite and boring ingredient of patience was necessary, and in abundance.

I know it sounds basic and obvious but the way he delivered his advice brought it home to me. He didn’t mention holing putts, because his strategic mind overruled this necessity by suggesting you had to have control of your golf ball.

In other words, leave it in a place from where you could actually hole it, and yes, of course, you had to hole putts.

So I continued my second round US Open viewing, watching the master strategist Tiger Woods plot his way around the treacherous front third of the course, with Furyk’s advice throbbing in my temples. Even though Tiger was not in total control of his golf ball, his strategy was enabling him to approach the course from all the right positions despite not always being on the fairway.

As a professional, playing different courses from week to week, you get to form plenty of opinions about the type of challenge that faces you.

There are always courses that will naturally fit a player’s eye. This naturally makes it easier to perform well. On the weeks where the course doesn’t sit quite so well with a player, the better ones will use their mental fortitude to somehow make the course fit their eye, just for the week of the tournament.

I got the feeling there was a lot of compromise going on with the mentally stronger players as they made their preparations around the Olympic Club early last week.

Not many top players enjoy the somewhat capricious challenge of trying to hit steeply sloping and often blind fairways going the opposite way to the dog-leg.

The strategy was going to have to be hit whatever club you thought you could hold the fairway with off the tee. It was almost a game of deception for a week in San Francisco.

No matter how good your strategy is in the US Open you always need a lucky break. Lee Westwood got a round-wrecking break on the fifth hole when a not very errant tee shot stayed up a tree and was deemed lost.

On the same hole, Furyk holed a six-foot putt for par having had the huge advantage of seeing his playing partner Graeme McDowell miss from virtually the same spot.

It was a subtle but telling advantage in a game that can often seem cruelly unfortunate.

Following Tiger’s regression throughout the weekend the breaks he is getting in 2012 are not as fortuitous as those he got in his “invincible era”.

Furyk’s vital winning ingredient of ultimate control of the golf ball was not present either. So the enthralling denouement to the toughest US Open since Shinnecock Hills in 2004 made Furyk’s sage advice about how to win the renamed Jack Nicklaus winners gold medal all the more appropriate.

There was understandable uncertainty by the television directors about who to follow, from Furyk and Harrington to McDowell, Simpson or Peterson over the closing holes.

However a run of six single putts in a row from Webb Simpson through the middle of his round set the barometer pointing very much in his direction.

It was Simpson who was embracing Furyk’s advice about ball control, patience and exceptional putting.

As I drifted in and out of my 3am TV stupor I recalled Retief Goosen’s outstanding putting during his last round of his second victorious US Open in Shinnecock Hills, when he took only 23 putts.

Simpson was in control of his ball, his mind and his putting stroke. Despite the more experienced big game predator Furyk understanding exactly the components required for the ultimate in US Open glory, he just could not deliver on his own fundamental advice of controlling his golf ball.

He hit too many bad shots at the wrong times. Simpson hit too many good shots and holed every putt he needed to to capture his first major. When the youthful Simpson is next asked what you need to do to win a big one, he simply needs to recall what he did in San Francisco last Sunday.