-Does anybody want to win the US Open? Anybody at all? Save for the charge that Phil Mickelson is currently making....and unmaking (more on that tomorrow) there hasn't been an ounce of movement on the leaderboard since it got put up on Thursday. It's not that the US Open isn't exciting, it just isn't anything at all. Now I'm a huge propenent of hype, I'm a near professional hype-man, but even I thought that there was too much heading into this tournament:
-The Open was back at Bethpage Black, the first public course ever to host the Open would be hosting it for the second time. The fans there have a history of getting raucous (drunk) and the atmosphere is unlike any arena in golf. Its like a Rutgers Football Game let out directly into the Grandstands at 17.
-If the stands at Bethpage are filled with drunken jesters, and they are, then Phil Mickelson is their king. The last time the Open came to BPB (yeah, I'm doing that) 7 years ago, Phil came in with the title, "Best Player Never to Win A Major." The crowd tried to carry him to his first, but he couldn't quite make it. Shortly after that the fans at BPB legally adopted Phil as their child. Add in the the tragic diagnosis of Phil's wife Amy with Breast Cancer, and the support for Lefty is through the hypothetical roof (boy, don't they wish they had a real one).
-Tiger was back, healthy, and had won as recently as two weeks prior. When he played the Master's everybody was unsure of how he would hold up in his first major in 8 months, knee-wise and mind-wise. Here, he was again the favorite. It was back to Tiger-or-the-field status.
I'll be the first to admit that the rain was probably the main reason the tournament failed to live up to expectations; I have enough trouble walking to the mailbox when its drizzling, let alone 18 holes when its pouring. But on Sunday, Father's Day, there were almost no moves made on the leaderboard, by anyone, in any direction. The leaders both shot 70, and the challengers shot no better than 69, and no worse than 71. It was good golf on a hard course, but it served to accomplish nothing. As I sit and watch Monday's final round, more of a decomposition actually, I am happy that anything is happenening. While it may not be the great golf I was hoping for, it is something, and thats always better than the alternative.
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mr. ruby (not to be confused with doc rubes)
ReplyDeleteCould we please have a feel good zoot this week. It seems that there have been several weeks of negative zoots in a row. Just an idea.
Not disappointing for David Duval who returned from his exile. Go David.
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