Add Brian Rowell to the number of competitors who’s expecting high scores this week at the U.S. Open Championships.

When the 156-player field tees it up today over the Olympic Club’s Lakes Course, the Lafayette resident’s expecting sub-par scores to be somewhere between infrequent and rare — if not non-existent.

"I really think five-over might win the tournament," Rowell said Tuesday after completing his next-to-last practice round over the 7,170-yard par-70 layout. "Those first six holes, if you play them in two-over, you’re going to pick up shots on the field."

Rowell, who earned one of the coveted spots in the field for the national championship by finishing second in sectional qualifying in Houston two weeks ago, has been sharpening his game on an Olympic course that figures to be much more of a scoring challenge than the 2011 Open at Congressional. Rory McIlroy had a winning 16-under-par score last year.

That almost certainly won’t happen this year, according to Lafayette’s Herb Schilling — a member at the San Francisco-based Olympic Club.

"I really enjoy that course," Schilling said this week. "I’m looking forward to seeing how the players will attack it. I played it three weeks ago, and it is definitely ready. They won’t do what they did last year."

Schilling predicted a two-under score will claim top honors when Sunday’s final round wraps up. Rowell isn’t sure it’ll be that low, and he has one of golf’s hottest players backing him up.

"I was talking to Bubba (Masters champion Bubba Watson) and Ted (Ted Scott, Watson’s caddie, an Acadiana resident and a member at Le Triomphe)," Rowell said. "Bubba told me he’d take 10-over and go home right now."

Much of those gloomy scoring predictions are because of Olympic’s first six holes, which have already been called the toughest-ever for an Open.

The first hole is a 520-yard par-4 that plays as a par-5 when Schilling and the other members play in a non-Open setting.. "And the fairway’s about 20 yards wide," Rowell said. (the USGA officially puts it at 29 yards in width).

The second hole is a shorter par-4 but is even tighter with a green that runs sharply back to front. Olympic staffers call it the hardest second shot on the course. From there, there’s the 247-yard par-3 third where club selection is a crap-shoot.

"I played part of a practice round with K. J. Choi," Rowell said. "He hit three balls there and the best one was 20 yards from the green."

The fourth and fifth holes are both dogleg par-4s, but the fairway slopes away from the dogleg on both. They were the second and third-toughest holes on the course the last time the Open was held at Olympic, with the only tougher one being a 17th hole which was a par-4 at the time and will play as a par-5 this year.

Then, the par-4 sixth hole is 52 yards longer than the last Open at Olympic, making a hole that was already one of the toughest tee shots on the course even more interesting.

"They’re the toughest six holes I’ve ever played anywhere in my life," said Rowell, who will have a chance to see how the early wave of players handles the course. He’s in today’s final group off the No. 1 tee, going off at 2:57 p.m. local time (4:57 p.m. Lafayette time) and goes out at 9:12 a.m. locally (11:12 a.m. Lafayette time) in Friday’s second round.