The best seat in the house is the view from the couch

Live (sort of) From the US Open... (Practice Round)!! It's Thursday Afternoon!

First things first - I had planned to Live Blog this from the course, but cell phones & PDAs were not allowed. Plus, I wouldn't have had such great photos to illustrate my points. And before you call me a hypocrite because I'm about to spend much of a post devoted to golf not even one week after I wrote that I could never do that... well, there's only so many times in life to say that you went to a US Open. Even if it was just a practice round.


This past Tuesday I spent about five hours walking the grounds at Oakmont Country Club, site of the 2007 U.S. Open. As a golfer, and a fan of the sport, it was a hell of an experience.


Before you ask - no, I did not see Tiger Woods. Or Phil Mickelson. Or Adam Scott, Aaron Baddeley, Sergio Garcia, Jim Furyk, or probably most of the other names most casual golf fans would know. I wasn't able to get out of a morning meeting (especially since it was my boss that gave me the tickets), so I didn't get to the course until almost 2pm - long after Tiger and the rest had practiced, held a press conference, hit the driving range and gone to the houses they're renting for $50k each (or more) this week.


What I did do is take a walk around most of the front nine of the course (let's face it people - I'm lazy. I wasn't making it around all 18), taking photos of the players as they teed off or putted. A few observations and links:



There are some players who just give me hope that I can still make it on the PGA Tour. Like Todd Rossetti, whose beer gut is bigger than mine by a solid 3/2 margin. Or perhaps Kirk Triplett - one of the few PGA Pros that I think I could consistently outdrive given the proper equipment (and by "proper equipment", I mean a steel chair that I could take to his back during his swing... just kidding. No malice for the only man to crack a joke as he was hitting his tee shot). Or maybe even Trip Kuehne - even I don't often chunk my 3-iron off the tee this badly.



Johnny Miller - A.K.A. the owner of "The Round Heard 'Round The World" - is not a fan of the Internet. As I was shooting photos at the 3rd tee box, this golf cart pulls up behind me and out steps Miller. He walks up to the box (no one was teeing off at the time, so the crowd was basically me and five other guys waiting for the next group), pulls out a set of binoculars to look down the fairway and says "Yup. I remember this one. Narrow as all hell." As people started realizing who he was, they rushed over for photos and autographs. Miller, who has aparantely heard of the havoc Deadspin and like-minded sites are known to wreak on unsuspecting celebrities during major events... ahem... "The Balls" at Super Bowl XLI comes to mind... was posing for a photo with another guy, arms around each other's shoulders, when he broke out this gem: "I've got a 10-second rule for poses like this with men. I know what they can do with them Internets and pictures. I'll end up on the new cover of Brokeback or something." Brought the house down.



For all he's achieved as a professional golfer on the PGA and European tours, Padraig Harrington's legacy, at least with my generation, might be that he's related to Professional Poker Player Dan Harrington. I followed Padraig for about two holes, since he was the biggest name I'd seen at the time, and heard no less than 10 people - all about my age - thinking the same thing. "Gee, I wonder how Dan is doing in the World Series this year?" "Did you see the ESPN piece from 2003 about how Dan Harrington & Padraig Harrington are related?" And then, of course, there was the guy who followed Padraig and shouted "Erin Go Bragh!" everytime he hit a shot. Yeah, that got annoying fast. By the way - the photo of Harrington's tee shot at the beginning of this paragraph... uh, you cannot imagine just how far that ball traveled.



Standing at the 3rd tee, I noticed this guy standing directly to my left in jeans, a polo shirt and a ballcap, smoking a butt. I was about 70% convinced that it was Ernie Els in disguise, trying to watch some of the other players teeing off... until I heard him speak in maybe the thickest Wisconsin accent you've ever heard. Kind of killed my whole theory.



Poor Stephen Ames. A couple years ago, he called out Tiger Woods before the Match Play finals. Tiger then proceeded to systematically dismantle him, winning their match 9 & 8. For those of you that don't understand the match play system, let's just say that Tiger only needed 1/2 a round to destroy Ames. Anyway, on Tuesday Ames was taking bunker shots for nearly ten minutes on one hole, and couldn't manage to get one ball within twelve feet of his target. Now, I know the greens at Oakmont are a complete joke this week, but this was just hard to watch. And that's coming from someone who is ecstatic when he can get out of a bunker in less than three shots.



Outside of the normal "Big Names" this week, don't be surprised to see Davis Love III near the top of the leaderboard when it's all said and done. He was hitting pretty well for the time I followed him around, and seemed pretty loose and calm. Then again, it was a practice round on a Tuesday - If you can't seem loose and calm then, you might as well just pack it in before you blow an aneurysm standing over a seven-foot par putt on 18 for the Open Title...



By far, my favorite picture of the whole day. This is now the background on my PC at home.



I forgot to upload the photo, but there was a great ESPN Cameraman in the same area I was at, doing his best to "stay classy". He repeatedly asked me (or someone else around me) "Now, who's this guy again?", and wanted to make sure we all knew that he usually covered Sunday Night Football and was pissed that they had him getting footage of "all the no-name losers out here..." Nice guy.



Actually, that's a good point to end with. By far, the question of the day walking around with the masses was something along the lines of "Is there anybody in this group?" I will admit, I'm not a die-hard golf fan. I love to play, and I try to catch as much of it on TV as I can (Golf in HD is spectacular, by the way). But even I didn't know half the players I was watching. Which is the entire point - even if the best in the world bring their "A" game to a course like Oakmont, they aren't guaranteed a victory here. The field is so wide open, so full of people who are looking to make a name for themselves, that anybody - repeat anybody - has a chance to win. Especially on this course.



My prediction: (-2) will probably be enough to win this thing by the time Sunday rolls around. EDIT: (Right now - 1pm, on a live leaderboard, 74 players are tied at various stages of the course, all at even par. The current leader is at (-2). 74 Freakin' players!) /EDIT The players with the best short game have the biggest advantage, and the long-bombers with a little bit of movement off their tee shots have no chance - the fairways are too narrow, and the punishment is too steep for missing them. Tiger can never be counted out, but I don't think it's his to win. Phil's wrist will probably keep him from showing his usual control around the greens (unless he's exaggerating the injury to drive up the odds on himself, then cash in on a big bet in Vegas. I wouldn't put that past him...) There's a lot of talk that Furyk or Vijay have the right game for this course, but I'm not totally sold on Vijay. Furyk, maybe. But don't be surprised if, late Father's Day this Sunday, we're looking at the leaderboard and asking "Is there anybody in this group?"



Lata.

Labels: Golf, I Really Suck at Golf, Photos, The Toughest Golf Course I've Ever Seen, US Open

posted by Big D @ 8:35 AM