Wednesday Shorts

Not much time to post. Got to get to my Golf World U.S. Open PREVIEW issue that arrived in the mail Tuesday. Hey, at least it beat the U.S. Open wrap-up issue.

Tim Dahlberg of AP offers another stellar commentary , this time on how Annika’s quest is going unnoticed. Frank Hannigan's thoughts on the U.S. Open are now posted at Golfobserver. As much as I love the guy, I just can't buy into the U.S. Open being great because it's the anti-PGA Tour setup. I understand difficulty and the Open setup concept, but the talk of humiliating the players gives the impression that the USGA approach is born out of envy, not respect. It can be tough, grueling even, without being goofy. 22 yards of sloping fairway is goofy.

On that note, the kind of tough many of us would like to see more of…the tempting, grueling decision, has clearly changed as Tiger’s post round comments reveal .

“(The Open) is more of a thinking man’s game. It brings out all the different types of shots you have to play and you have to know how to play.”

But did it really bring out that many different shots last week from Tiger, besides long drives and wedges from the rough?

Seth Davis on SI.com writes a similar story about setup and appears to have spent way too much time buying into some revisionist history from the USGA spokesman Marty Parkes , especially when it came to characterizing last year’s Shinnecock fiasco as a weather-induced debacle, and a positive one at that. (“I don't deny the USGA went overboard in setting up Shinnecock Hills last year, but at least they went overboard in the right direction.”) Funny, something tells me that if play had been suspended in perfect weather and Davis had to come back Monday to report on the finish, it might not have been such a good overboard.

Speaking of Parkes, did you know the USGA doesn't hope to have par as a winning score? Here's Parkes at Cherry Hills on the even winning score outcome at Pinehurst.

"We got our wish there last week and now we are hoping to get it here this week," Parkes, the USGA's senior director of communications, "told reporters on his arrival here in Denver."

Brett Friedlander writes about Michael Campbell's ugly shirts . No explanation whether Campbell picked up those final round slacks at an Al Capone estate sale. Lawrence Donegan paints a nice picture of Campbell , who understandably withdrew from this week's French Open . And Golf Digest unearthed a 1996 Tom Callahan profile of Campbell .

Finally, an interesting statistical comparison on Pinehurst in 1999 v. 2005 by Peter McKnight is up on Golfclubatlas.com .