Here's a sort-of related question about this tournament and par:

If the USGA wasn't so concerned with protecting that magic number of par, why would they change the course from a par-72 for the average Joe to a par-70 for the Open? Why not just let the par-5's be par-5's? Regardless of the fact that they would be short par-5's, them doing this makes it very obvious that par is their holy grail.