"It's very open. You can see all the holes from the clubhouse."

Gerry Dulac filed a few more anecdotes and quotes from Tiger's Oakmont round. He managed to focus on--perish the thought--the golf, instead of plugging the "surprise" clinic for some rich AmEx customers.

The greens were running at 10.5 on the Stimpmeter the past two days, not nearly as fast as they will be for the Open. And they were not as smooth as usual because they had recently been aerified.

"They said they're extremely smooth," Woods said. "Granted, they do have a lot of movement to them, a lot of pitch to them, but people seem to hole a lot of putts here. After playing it, it was hard for me to see that because I was seeing balls bouncing all over the place."

Woods did not play in the 1994 U.S. Open at Oakmont because he failed to qualify as amateur. And he had never even been to the course until Sunday -- a strange fact given Woods' love for the game and the way he embraces the history and tradition of the sport. Nonetheless, Woods said he really enjoyed his first visit to Oakmont, though he admitted it was different than what he envisioned.

"I just remember seeing all these trees everywhere and you get down here and all of sudden there's nothing there," he said. "It's very open. You can see all the holes from the clubhouse. It's very different than what I envisioned."

I guess he hasn't been reading the tree removal stories!