SAN DIEGO --- Somebody call the ACLU. This has to be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The USGA is forcing a 45-year-old man with a history of chronic back problems and a one-legged man hopped up on pain relievers to go out and play 18 more holes in the morning to decide who gets a trophy.

This cannot be what the handicapping system is all about.

Seriously, the anachronism of the 18-hole playoff lost its luster sometime before the invention of the cathode ray. Every other major golf championship dumped the cumbersome and inconvenient playoff format that leaves fans stranded in the grandstands and television viewers hanging for a more immediate outcome.

For all of the progressive thinking that went into the USGA's wildly successful set-up plan at Torrey Pines, the officials are stuck in a 108-year-old rut on how to pick a winner in overtime.

Even the USGA recognizes, in part, just how outdated and stupid it is to bring everybody out another day.

They'll be doing what could have been done when more than two hours of daylight that remained on the West Coast on Sunday night.

After Annika Sorenstam and Pat Hurst trudged through an 18-hole playoff at Newport Country Club in the U.S. Women's Open in 2006, the USGA promptly rescinded the rule and adopted an aggregate three-hole format for all future playoffs.

But the men get to keep going all the way. Let's add sexist to the list of charges.

Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate will report to the first tee at 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, where Woods will almost certainly yank his drive way left of the fairway and start in a two-stroke hole with his fourth double bogey of the week on No. 1. And then they will go on from there, interrupting the NBC soap operas when they could have finished with NBC's highest golf ratings ever in prime time on Sunday night.

"I think the 18-hole playoff for the National Open is the way to go," said Mediate.

"Maybe some day we'll go to a four-hole, but that's just for TV. I don't know what the deal would be. But you play for your national title for four days, and if you go bogey the first hole, I don't know, I think it's more important than that."

Yeah, and you can play for your national championship for four days and bogey the last hole and lose as well. And guess what? You can play for your national open for five days and they'll send you back out for sudden death playoff after that. They draw the line after 90 holes.

The point is, it's golf. One shot here or there or anywhere and you lose. Nobody believes that the Masters Tournament is tainted because the green jacket might be handed out after a sudden-death playoff. Or that the British Open claret jug is tarnished by the four-hole aggregate format. Or that the PGA should be invalid because they only go three extra holes instead of the full 18.

And who says that playing 18 holes is a better way to determine the most worthy champion. That doesn't mean the best golfer always wins. Jack Fleck was here earlier this week in the media center, and nobody mistook him for Ben Hogan.

The point is the 18-hole playoff is unnecessary and grossly unfair to the fans. People paid a lot of money to come see a U.S. Open crown, and many will be traveling home or going into the office while Woods and Mediate go head-to-head for four hours this morning. Those fans deserved to have an outcome decided while they were all in place and worked into full lather.

Did I mention that there were nearly 3 hours of daylight left on the coastal cliffs Sunday night to have gotten this thing finished?

Let's say Tiger Woods had managed to birdie the final hole at Oakmont last year instead of this year and forced an 18-hole Monday playoff with Angel Cabrera. Would Woods have skipped the birth of his first child to win a piece of hardware?

Or how about 1999 at Pinehurst. If Payne Stewart had missed the 18-footer on 18 that won it for him, would the USGA have handed him the trophy the next day when Phil Mickelson called from Arizona with his regrets as his first child was born?

Since those close calls were obviously not enough for the USGA to change its stupid policy, maybe one of these guys having a Barbaro-like breakdown on the back nine today will be enough.

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.