US Open Recap

People say better late than never and that applies to this post. Sorry for it being late but combining the facts that the US Open ran late anyways, I was bitter about it all day Tuesday (more on this in a minute), Transformers 2 came out Wednesday (Good movie not as good as the first though, it could have been better), and then add in laziness and the weekend it brings us to today which is a week and two days after the US Open has finished.

The US open was, well let’s just say there seemed to be water hazards everywhere. When Saturday came around, which ended up being round 2 of the tournament, the course was so saturated that when it drizzled lakes appeared on the course and mainly the greens. The course did not play like a US Open course except for Monday. Which bring me to why I am bitter.

Normally the greens are fast enough where players have trouble sticking their wedges close. However since the green were soft from the rains all weekend, players were able to hit drivers from the fairway and have them stick on the green which doesn’t sound like a US Open course. Due to the rain the average scores between the two groups of the first two rounds were not close. Any golfer who had the early tee time Thursday and the later tee time Friday played in rain and the opposite group of golfer played in nice weather. Mike Weir was asked by a reporter if he considered himself to be lucky for playing in the nicer weather throughout the first two days and Weir considered himself very lucky. If anyone watched the tournament at all over the weekend they would have noticed that the only players atop of the leader board were players that had the later Thursday early Friday tee times.

This factor leads to Ricky Barnes and Lucas Glover being in the final group of the final round. When players began playing Monday they noticed and so did I that Bethpage Black finally was playing like a US Open golf course should. Barnes and Glover struggled as some of golf’s top players played well. Mickelson was playing well and looked to take over until he started playing like Phil again missing key putts on the last few holes. Tiger played well enough that he could have made a run at it but his inability to hit a putt ruined any comeback bid. Barnes played terrible on the final day and finished 2-under respectively, but can’t help but wonder if he would be up on the leader board if the weather was good all weekend.

The same thing goes for this year’s winner Lucas Glover. Before the US Open Glover had won a total of one PGA event, even though the US Open is a USGA event, the fact that Glover hadn’t won much before this makes me think that he wouldn’t have been in contention on the final day. Glover didn’t particularly play well on the final day when the course play like the course should have been playing all weekend as he and along with Barnes came back to the field.

I congratulate Glover on winning this year and not trying to downgrade his major victory but you have to wonder what the US Open would have been like if the course was in a normal state. With that said you still have to go out there and shoot well regardless what the conditions are. Another reason I am bitter just a bit is because I was really pulling for David Duval. He had a great tournament run and is showing flashes of how he use to play (for those who don’t know Duval was ranked number 2 in the world behind Tiger before he started having back problems, they had a great match in the British Open at St. Andrews a few years ago). Also anyone notice how big Duval got? He used to be skinny and look like he was in shape. Overall it was a solid US Open and still fun to watch I look forward to next year’s tournament. Again sorry for this being late and see you next time for the British Open.