Open Wrap-Up

Not much on Michael Campbell in the way of interesting reads. This win definitely caught the media off guard. But Cameron Morfit filed a fun and original Golfonline column about two young standard-bearers and the grief they got from their walking rules official. Luke Decock in the Raleigh News Observer on the course setup lovefest, particularly from Jerry Kelly who is suddenly the USGA’s biggest fan. Is he trying to win the Bobby Jones Award, or was he simply humbled by drawing the @#$%& pairing?

Fascinating that no one other than Tiger (at least publicly) had an issue with hole locations where missed putts could roll off greens. And perhaps the players have become so used to 25-28 yards of width, but still odd no one had an issue where fairway contours designed to encourage precision, instead led to flogging.

Here's another Tiger "bites back at critics" article in the Washington Post. "I've come a long way," said Woods. "And for all the people that have slammed me for making the changes, now you understand why I did it."

Naturally, the ideal follow up questions would clarify what exactly was wrong with the old Tiger swing that has been improved by the new Tiger swing. I'm still not clear what has improved, unless his mission was to create a swing that takes advantage of technology and allows the "flogging" approach on major championship setups. If that was his goal, then he’s right. The approach has been vindicated.

Finally, a couple of fun U.S. Open facts from the PGA Tour:

The win by Michael Campbell gave him just his second top-10 finish in 29 major starts. His previous best was a T3 during the 1995 British Open Championship, his second start in a major. It was the 12th time in the 29 starts that he had made the cut.

Tiger Woods led the U.S. Open in Greens in Regulation (54 of 72/75%) for the third time in 11 starts at the tournament. This is the first time he did not win the tournament as he did in 2000 and 2002. In his career, Woods has won 12 out of 20 times when he has led a tournament in GIR. It’s the ninth time he has led a major in GIR and the third time he has not won (1999 Masters/T18, 2001 British/T25).

The par-4 469-yard second hole became the third most difficult on TOUR in 2005 with a scoring average of 4.458. The toughest to date was the par-3 192-yard 14th hole at Harbour Town Golf Links during the MCI Heritage. The par-4 492-yard 16th hole became the 7th toughest with an average of 4.426 and the par-4 472-yard fifth hole became the 10th most difficult (4.395).

For the week, just 27.1% of the players were able to hit the 16th green in regulation.