Take the best golfers in the world and arguably the most difficult golf course in the world and what have you got? That's right, it's U.S. Open week.
To celebrate the greatest week in golf we're starting with a tale about the
brutality of Oakmont where members claim that all they do to prepare for the Open is to make the course easier. Gulp. Then we take a look at
Tiger's U.S. Open track record and his paltry two wins, followed by
Phil's chances in spite of his wrist injury and with last year's catastrophe still in the back of his mind. We'll touch on
Ernie's ten-year dry spell since winning his second Open in 1997, and the new kid on the block,
Master's champion Zack Johnson and how he needs this win more than most.
It's Open week and we couldn't be more excited.
Brutal Oakmont Ready For U.S. OpenVaughn Taylor is back at Oakmont, relieved that it's only the U.S. Open.
There has been widespread talk of gloom and doom in recent weeks, from defending champion Geoff Ogilvy reportedly losing seven balls in his round of 85 to Vijay Singh and a host of others saying they would not be surprised if the winner finished 10 shots over par.
Oakmont is reputed to be the toughest golf course in America, but there is another part of the mystique that players should keep in mind.
If you think it's tough now, come back in July.
"The members say we don't have to do anything except maybe make it slightly easier," said Mike Davis, the USGA's senior director of rules and competition who sets up the course for the toughest test in golf.
Taylor can attest to that.
He hasn't played in the U.S. Open since 1998, when he was spooked by the narrow fairways and high rough. But he has been to Oakmont twice in the last few years to play a corporate outing, and the greens were unlike any he has played.
"I had two four-putts and three three-putts, and I putted pretty good that day," said Taylor, one of the best on the PGA Tour. "The greens are slower now than they usually are."
Monday was the first day of practice for the U.S. Open, the first chance for many to see what the fuss is all about. Along with some of the fastest greens anywhere, the rough is as punishing as ever -- so punishing Phil Mickelson attributes his left wrist injury to chipping countless times out of the rough during his marathon practice rounds two weeks ago.
Mickelson had his wrist tightly wrapped Monday and did not play a practice round. He only hit half-shots from the grass on the range, placing his ball on a tee to hit a middle iron, graduating to a hybrid that made short-game coach Dave Pelz wince with nervousness, and he hit only one shot with his driver before going back to 30-yard chips.
He plans to play his first round since he withdrew after 11 holes at the Memorial.
Tiger Woods started on the back nine and played 18 holes and offered this prognosis: "I broke 100."
But there have been few complaints. They say it is tough but fair, but they have yet to put pencil to scorecard.
"It is stifling difficult, to the point of walking off and feeling like you've got 12 rounds with Ali," Paul Goydos said.
He tied for 44th in 1994, the last time the U.S. Open was held at Oakmont, and it is one of his favorite U.S. Open courses. Beyond the famous Church Pew bunkers and frightening fast greens, what intrigues Goydos is the membership, specifically why anyone would want to belong to a club that beats you to a pulp.
"They have an interesting mentality," he said. "I think they're all insane. These people must like losing balls and shooting 100."
But one way Goydos measures what is a great golf course is how many times it has held the U.S. Open, and he attributes Oakmont's spot in the rotation to a membership that loves seeing how the best players in the world can handle their course.
"The members here relish the opportunity," he said. "They can't wait to have you here. You can feel how excited they are in the clubhouse. They're like a bunch of peacocks showing off their feathers."
Kevin Sutherland was amazed at the rough, and not because it was a U.S. Open. The USGA again is using a graduated rough, which gets longer the farther a player is from the fairway. It was thick and nasty, and he expects that at a U.S. Open.
What got his attention was realizing the bunkers determined the rough line, meaning the fairways were just as narrow for the members during a summer fourball than it is for the U.S. Open.
"Unless the bunkers are supposed to be in the fairway," he said, shaking his head.
This is what led Padraig Harrington of Ireland to suggest that the USGA take the week off. He figures there's not much for its staff to do this week if it wants to protect par. Oakmont already does that.
"What this golf course does is give the USGA more control over scoring," he said. "You could turn up here when there's not a tournament and play a tournament. By its nature, it's already difficult. It's a struggle. They don't have to put the pin 2 feet over a tier. They could put the pin 2 yards over a tier. It's tough enough."
It certainly looked that way on a warm, breezy sunny afternoon. Craig Kanada opted to hit a hybrid off the 313-yard 17th hole, where the big hitters often opt for driver. His first shot was gobbled up by the rough on the left side. His second shot took one hop and disappeared into the high grass. He finally got it right on the third try.
Jeff Brehaut, playing in his first major championship, walked off the 18th green and handed golf balls to the two volunteers who walked around with him and U.S. Senior Open champion Allen Doyle.
When asked whether he had enough balls left to give away, Brehaut smiled. "I lost a few of them out there," he said.
Taylor grew up and still lives in Augusta, Ga., but he was asked whether Oakmont was a club he would like to join if he lived here.
"I don't know if I could play here every day," Taylor said. "This course just beats you up."
Tiger Woods Ready For US OpenIt's been five years since Tiger Woods last won the US Open, the major he has had least success at.
But his chances this year are way better than at the same time last year when he chose to return to competition at tough Winged Foot after a 10-week layoff during which his father Earl died.
Short on confidence and still emotional about the bereavement, Woods shot two straight 76s and missed the cut by three strokes, ending a run of 39 straight cuts made in majors. That streak had included all 37 he had played as a professional.
Twelve months on, the sadness in the world No.1's life has been replaced with the joy and anticipation over the pending summer birth of his first child with wife Elin.
His form has been mixed this year so far, but this time around he is relishing the challenge presented by Oakmont, which is being billed as even tougher than Winged Foot.
"Last year was a complete 180 (degrees) of where I am now in my life. I had not played a tournament since Augusta," he said after completing a practice round at the famed course in the hilly countryside outside of Pittsburgh.
"Last year my father passed away in that time frame and I wasn't quite ready to play until I got to the US Open. Probably not exactly the best tournament to come back in.
"So this year I'm going to be a father shortly, and I think that's a complete polar opposite of where I was last year at this time."
On the subject of having won just the two US Opens (2002 Bethpage and 2000 Pebble Beach) compared to four Masters, three British Opens and three USPGA's, Woods denied that he had a relatively poor record at the event.
But he admitted that the second of the year's four majors did have its particularities that made it difficult for all of the players.
"It's probably the most difficult championship that we face all year, because you're tested from tee-to-green and you're tested on the greens," he said.
"Generally if you're missing one facet of your game, more than likely you're not going to win the championship. You have to have everything going."
When he tees off this week in the company of defending champion Geoff Ogilvy of Australia and the US Amateur Champion Richie Ramsay from Scotland, Woods will be playing competitively at Oakmont for the first time.
But he is complimentary of the sweeping changes made to the course since the US Open was last played here in 1994, notably with the removal of over 5,000 trees to return the layout more to the way it looked in 1903 when it was opened as an inland course with a links feel to it.
"I think it's fantastic," he said. "It opens the golf course up. It gives a better atmosphere to the gallery. You can see more holes. It brings everyome together. Everyone can see across holes, hear things better and see what's going on.
"And also by opening the golf course up, when the wind blows like today, it's really going to blow."
But delighted though he may be with the way the course looks, Woods said he was fearful of the greens which he deemed "the most difficult I have ever played."
"I thought Winged Foot's pretty tough, Augusta's pretty tough, but both course have flat spots. Here I'm trying to figure out where the flat shelf is!"
Injured Phil Mickelson Tees It Up At U.S. OpenPhil Mickelson looked more like a bowler than a three-time major champion, adjusting the black brace on his left wrist as he stared down the first fairway, an alley lined not by gutters but the gnarly, ankle-deep rough of Oakmont Country Club.
It was a gentle swing and a favorable result, right down the middle.
He played only nine holes Tuesday, but it was the first time he had played golf since he withdrew May 31 after 11 holes of the Memorial with an inflamed left wrist. He had hoped to play without pain at the U.S. Open, but he will settle for playing.
"I should be able to have it be manageable as long as I don't aggravate it," Mickelson said. "Or hit it in the rough."
Talk about a miracle cure.
Mickelson's inability to keep the ball in the short grass is the reason he comes to this major with as much inflammation in his psyche as his left wrist. A year ago at Winged Foot, he was one par away from an elusive U.S. Open title until hitting a tee shot off a corporate tent, against a tree and into a bunker, making double bogey on the 18th hole to finish one shot behind Geoff Ogilvy.
Having already tied the U.S. Open record for most second-place finishes -- four -- Mickelson showed up at Oakmont two weeks ago for his marathon practice sessions, where he sticks tiny flags on the putting surface and slowly works his way around the green chipping out of the rough from every conceivable angle. He believes that's how he injured his wrist.
Now, his best hope this week might be staying out of the thick grass.
"I think it's important to drive the ball very well here, obviously, and that's going to be the biggest challenge for me," he said. "But this should not be a long-term problem if I don't aggravate the inflammation. And this, unfortunately, isn't the best week for that, given my driving history."
It's not a good week for anyone not at full strength.
Reputed to be the toughest golf course in the country, Oakmont offers a complete test. The course is not the longest, even if it has the longest par 5 (667 yards) and longest par 3 (288 yards) in major championship history. The greens are so fast that the U.S. Open staff slows them down to keep it fair.
"It's probably the most difficult championship that we face all year, because you're tested from tee-to-gree, and you're tested on the greens," two-time champion Tiger Woods said. "Generally, if you're missing one facet of your game, more than likely you're not going to win the championship. You have to have everything going."
That presumably means all body parts working at full capacity. And while the pain is in Mickelson's wrist, the key might be his head.
"He's a power player," said Ernie Els, another two-time U.S. Open champion who has played with a bad wrist, back and is just now recovering from surgery to repair knee ligaments. "You go at it aggressively, you have to just somehow try and put the pain in the back of your head if you can. I don't know how severe it is. When you're under the gun, you get competitive, you want to hit it the way you always do. You've just got try to and not think about it."
This might be the most rust Mickelson has brought to a major championship, certainly this one. He prefers to play the week before a major, but pulled out last week on the PGA Tour to give his wrist more time to heal. Rarer still is not playing a full 18 holes on any of the practice days leading up to the tournament.
"I could have played 18, but I don't want to push it," Mickelson said.
He tried to play last Tuesday and couldn't, so he called his doctors for a cortisone shot to help ease the inflammation. On his way to Pittsburgh, he took a detour to Las Vegas to work with swing coach Butch Harmon. He still couldn't play.
But with therapy, ice and rest, Mickelson believes it's getting better.
He hit balls for the first time Monday upon his arrival at Oakmont, but only took one swing with the driver and didn't take any full shots off the ground, using a tee to hit middle irons. He only pulled out the driver a couple of times over nine holes Tuesday.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment was seeing rough actually shorter than when he got hurt. Woods and Ogilvy noticed the same thing. Ogilvy was reported to have shot 85 last week while losing seven balls, but the Australian set the record straight.
"I think I shot 83 and lost two," Ogilvy said. "But it was hard. It was five shots harder last Monday than it is right now. I didn't think there would be one score in the 60s at all, and I thought there would be scores in the 90s the way we played it last Monday. But the last couple of days, it's been a lot more playable than that."
Some of that was a storm that moved in over the weekend, some of that was knocking the rust off the lawnmowers.
Woods is not convinced about the latter.
"I know they had the mowers out there," he said. "I don't know if they did anything."
He has played two full practice rounds this week, but plans to do nothing but chip and putt Wednesday. His practice partner has been big-hitting Bubba Watson, and even with Watson's swing speed, Woods was amazed to watch him try to hit 5-iron out of the rough right of the 15th fairway and watch the ball squirt only about 30 feet.
That's the reason Mickelson will try to keep his game on the straight and narrow, now more than ever.
He switched from bandages to the brace, and says his right wrist also is sore because of favoring it during light workouts. As for his expectation, this is one time Mickelson didn't want to get into any specifics.
"I want to ... continue to improve my ball-striking without aggravating my wrist anymore," he said.
The best medicine is staying out of the rough -- for Mickelson and everyone else.
Ernie Els Seeks 1994 InspirationErnie Els laughs when he looks at video footage of his first U.S. Open victory at Oakmont Country Club 13 years ago.
His putting, though, is a more serious matter and he would dearly love to replicate his 1994 form on the greens during this week's championship at the same venue.
"I made a lot of putts back then and that's why I won in '94," South African Els told reporters as he prepared for the opening round.
"I made a ton of putts from inside 10, 12 feet in one of the best putting weeks of my life. If I can make some putts at the start of this week, who knows?
"These are the toughest greens we'll ever play in U.S. Open history, or in any other golf tournament we play for that matter."
Els, a raw 24-year-old when he beat Britain's Colin Montgomerie and American Loren Roberts in a playoff for the 1994 title, believes he has become a much better player in every other department of the game.
"I've won over 60 events and won another two majors since then," he said. "I feel more experienced and I guess I am a better player. But I'd like to make more putts."
The world number five, who claimed his second U.S. Open crown at Congressional in 1997, has been amused watching television replays of his 1994 Oakmont success.
"I had a different hat in those days and a different hair style," he said with a smile.
"When I first came here, I didn't give myself too much of a chance so I just kind of enjoyed the experience.
"But I had a bit of game when I came in here, a bit of confidence, and I went with that. Before I could notice, I was leading the Open going into Sunday."
Winless on the PGA Tour for almost three years, Els believes he is close to his best.
"I've been hitting it pretty well the last couple of weeks and made a lot of birdies, but I've also made some incredible ugly numbers, too," he said.
"When it's good, it's really good. I've got a lot of support here and I'll just try and feed off that. We've got a tough course and I've just got to try and hang in there."
Zach Johnson Seeks Second Major TitleZach Johnson didn't do much to prepare for the U.S. Open.
The whirlwind that followed his Masters win finally caught up with him two weeks ago, forcing Johnson into bed with a case of strep throat. Instead of rushing back onto the course, he chilled out at his parents' house in Iowa, caught up on his sleep and practiced a little at the course where he feels the most comfortable.
"I was able to rest, hang out with the family a good bit," Johnson said Tuesday. "I was home for about a week and it was just very nice to just rest. I haven't really been able to do that."
No wonder.
Johnson surprised everybody but himself when he withstood a Tiger Woods charge to win the Masters in April. Though he'd won in Atlanta as a rookie, had several other solid finishes and was a member of last year's Ryder Cup team, he was never dubbed the next great up-and-comer. He's not flashy -- on the course or off -- and he was one of those guys who could show up at most tournaments without causing much of a stir.
But Johnson put himself in contention with solid rounds in a week that Augusta was wreaking havoc on nearly everyone's game. Then, just as Woods was closing in, Johnson put together three birdies in a four-hole stretch to win.
"Ignorance is bliss, because I didn't know where he was until 15, and I managed to birdie 16," said Johnson, who was two holes in front of Woods on Sunday at Augusta.
Since then, though, little in Johnson's life has been calm. Or anonymous.
After the Masters, he and his wife flew to New York, where he met with sponsors and hobnobbed with talk-show hosts, including David Letterman. (No. 4 on his Top 10 list of Things I Can Say Now That I Won the Masters: "I just wrote down `3' for every hole. Nobody checked.")
The very next weekend, he was back on the PGA Tour, playing the Verizon Heritage.
Most players would have skipped that tournament, and no one would have blamed them. But not only did Johnson show up, he gutted out a sixth-place finish. A month later, he won again, beating Ryuji Imada in a playoff at the AT&T Classic in Atlanta.
Only Woods, with three, has more victories on the PGA Tour this year. And only the Big Three -- Woods, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh -- are ahead of him on the FedEx Cup list.
"Atlanta, certainly for me, spoke volumes, and it just gave me the reassurance that Augusta was not a fluke," Johnson said. "Not that I ever thought it was. But you can get lucky at times. Maybe not a major, but Atlanta was huge in that respect."
Now everywhere he turns people want just a few minutes with the Masters champ. He's a draw at tournaments -- sometimes the biggest draw -- and what little free time he had before has dwindled even further.
"The only sense of normalcy I've had, for the most part, has been inside the ropes," he said. "I like it there."
By the time he showed up at The Memorial, though, his body had had it. His head was throbbing and his throat was burning from strep. He tried to play, but withdrew after hitting his drive on the 16th hole.
He went back to Cedar Rapids, where he slept and recuperated. He practiced some at Elmcrest Country Club, the course where he grew up playing, but only when his body allowed.
Best of all, he finally got to spend time with his family and friends.
"We had a party for close friends, relatives. And my wife, being the woman that she is, she surprised me and, for the most part, the entire Drake University golf team I was a part of and my coach were flown in," Johnson said. "That was pretty cool.
"It was just casual, laid back. Just very much local, very much Cedar Rapids and Elmcrest, where I'm from. It was fun."
Now it's back to work.
This is only Johnson's fourth time playing a U.S. Open, and he's missed the cut the last two years. But just as he did at Augusta, he's got a game plan for taming Oakmont Country Club. And it includes laying up on those long par 5s.
One of the most notable statistics from Johnson's win at Augusta was he didn't go for a single par 5 the entire week, no matter his distance. That won't be as much of an issue at Oakmont, where there are only two par 5s, but Johnson said he'll lay up on those, too.
"My preparation for this week, it's very much in line with Augusta," he said. "Driver is very important. Tee shots are very important, just like it is at Augusta and, for me, wedges. I'm going to miss fairways, so I have to wedge it out and wedge it to the green.
"I think a lot of this golf course is positioning," he added. "Giving yourself a chance at par and eliminating double."
