2010 U.S. Open Third Round This And That

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I haven't been as enthralled watching golf in a long time as I was today seeing Ryo Ishikawa shape a low, cutting driver onto the fourth green, followed a few minutes later by Dustin Johnson driving the green with an iron, prompting the USGA's Mike Davis, who moved the tees up, to quip, "3-iron's not what I had in mind."

And one other observation before we get to a smattering of accounts from Saturday's play at Pebble Beach: Johnson and Graeme McDowell play the game as it should be: fast without hurrying. Or at least they did today. Let's see what happens tomorrow under pressure.

Doug Ferguson's AP lede:

Dustin Johnson plays his best at Pebble Beach no matter what month, no matter what stage.

Larry Dorman for the NY Times:

With echoes of the cheers from Tiger Woods’s back-nine charge still rolling over Pebble Beach Golf Links, Dustin Johnson grabbed the lead, kept his composure and birdied the final two holes at dusk to take a three-stroke lead over the overnight leader Graeme McDowell and a five-stroke lead over Woods into the final round of the 110th United States Open.

About that scene at No. 4, Randell Mell writes:

Johnson makes folks gape in wonder.

 Ask all those spectators along the fourth hole Saturday at the U.S. Open.

That’s where Johnson reached the short par 4 with his tee shot.

He drove the green with an iron.

An iron.

Johnson crushed a 3-iron 290 yards to 5 feet to set up his eagle there.

Gene Wojciechowski does some California dreaming about Sunday's possibilities.

Bob Harig on the Dustin Johnson/Tiger dynamic.

Woods is still a player to be feared, and as he gets more rounds under his belt, more competition, he will become more of a threat again.

But the days of wilting in his presence, if they're not over, should be. Woods has proved to be fallible too many times, scandal or not.

"He's human, too," Johnson said. "I'm going to do my best not to let it affect me."

Ron Sirak on Saturday's setup:

Oddly, and totally consistent with his playful manner, Davis actually shortened Pebble Beach for the third round. The tee on No. 3 was moved up 34 paces and on No. 4 it was moved forward 40 paces, making both par-4s drivable. No. 7 played at 99 yards -- the shortest hole in modern U.S. Open history. All this did was mess with the heads of the players by giving them more decisions to make.

Cameron Morfit also chimed in:

Different is good, the marketers and politicians say, but when did the staid old USGA become Russell Brand? The organization used to be become Judge Smails. That hasn't been the case under wild-and-crazy guy Mike Davis, the 45-year-old former Pennsylvania junior state golf champion who is in his fifth year as senior director of rules and competitions.

Jim Achenbach is ready to blow up the 14th green:

The way it is, the hole often punishes golfers for no good reason. Balls bounce and roll crazily on the green, and players are left with no viable escape options from just off the putting surface.
For a major championship, that’s crazy.

Dave Kindred on Ryo Ishikawa's bright future despite Saturday's tough round.

Ishikawa came to the first tee Saturday -- pardon the movie stereotype here -- looking like one of those little, lean, lithe terrors who can spring into the air, do a backflip, land behind you, and kick you upside the head before you know he has moved. He wore all black, except for silver sunglasses. Suggestions of acne on his handsome face were the only hints he was still a kid  though no one much past adolescence, save for the occasional aging rock star, cares to match Ishikawa's glorious mess of black hair rising in curls above his visor and falling to his collar.

And in the good karma department, you may recall Russell Henley's sweet gesture back on Monday (seems like a month ago). Well the amateur is not only vying for low am honors, but as Jonathan Heeter of the Macon paper tells us, Henley has a shot at getting an exemption next year.

“It’s surreal,” Henley said. “I don’t know how they know me or why they cheer for me. But it feels really good when people are pulling for you. I just wish I could let every one of them know how much this has meant to me.”

The energy Henley received from the crowds helped propel the 21-year-old amateur to his best round at the U.S. Open.

Henley shot a 1-over-par 72 on Saturday, and he is 6 over for the tournament. The top 15 finishers receive an exemption into next year’s U.S. Open, and he is in contention for that distinction.

And a few more images from the day...soak 'em up, because you won't see anything like this at Congressional next year. Just a lot of fogged up lens shots. Click on the images to enlarge.

Ernie Els on No. 4 Saturday.

Dustin Johnson on No. 8 tee. 

As if it's not hard enough: Charl Schwartzel on No. 14

Fairway bunkers freshly raked on No. 2 after play.

And the men who make it all happen.

Open Observations From Saugerties

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Former USGA Executive Director Frank Hannigan shares a few observations after two rounds of the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

  • The amount of attention paid to the preparation of the Open course is  astonishing   It’s as if the USGA’s Mike Davis, a most capable young man, can control the very essence of the game. He can’t. Setting up a golf course is not onerous work.  Essentially, all the USGA can do is attempt to put a premium on accuracy as opposed to power.  The only way to do that is to penalize the inaccurate by growing heavy rough and establishing very firm greens - which do not accept shots played from rough.
  • So the Open favors a Curtis Strange, who won twice, and three-time winner Hale Irwin. It was brutal for Seve Ballesteros,  a bad driver.  You could make an argument that since Seve was a flat out genius the Open courses should have been prepared to accommodate him.
  • Tiger Woods overcomes the USGA set-ups. I conclude that he has been so good at every other aspect of the game he can overcome wild driving. Most of all, like Nicklaus, he thinks he is supposed to win.
  • I am sick of hearing  analyses of hole locations on the Golf Channel.  There is no data to tell us how hole locations affect outcomes.  Obviously, they influence overall scoring. But just suppose all holes were cut in the centers of greens. Scores would be lower. But would this mean the identities of the winners would vary dramatically. I think not. Jack Nicklaus was going to win four US Opens no matter where the holes were located.  And he was destined to win six Masters in an era where the principles of course set up were opposite to those of the US Open - when Augusta had no rough at all and anybody could put the ball in vast fairways.
  • Perhaps I carry on like this as a means of praising my late colleague, PJ Boatwright, who set up most Open courses of my time. He didn’t get a lot of attention, but he knew what he was doing.
  • The best Open I ever saw? Easy. 1971 at precious Merion. The two best players in the world, Nicklaus and Trevino, tied for first at level par with Trevino winning the play-off.
  • The spreading notion that today’s Opens are more brilliantly conceived and therefore of greater validity is nonsense.
  • The Tiger Woods harsh comments about the greens at Pebble Beach were petulant and without  meaning. His disparagement  is  cruel on the workers at Pebble Beach who have gone though hoops in a futile attempt to draw an understanding, if not kind, word from Woods & company. Excuse me, but Tiger Woods has never done a hard day’s work.

2010 U.S. Open Third Round Thread

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Phil, Ernie, Ryo, Graeme, Dustin, Paul, Ian, Alex...we have a tournament!

"We apologize. We messed up and we're up here trying to make amends."

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The Monterey Herald's Jim Johnson follows up on the shuttle bus debacle and what's most interesting is who is charged with responding to the matter. Hint, it's not the USGA but instead, the Pebble Beach Company's R.J. Harper.

Harper said officials were monitoring the flow of the buses Friday, which are used to transport U.S. Open fans and volunteers between Pebble Beach and CSU Monterey Bay, and the system was working well. But he acknowledged that officials vastly underestimated the numbers of fans a day earlier.

"We definitely addressed the situation for (Friday)," Harper said. "The crowds out here (Thursday) exceeded everybody's expectations. We were hit very, very hard in the early evening and we had a depleted supply of buses, which is unacceptable. We took action immediately to make sure the situation didn't happen again. We worked through the evening to resolve the situation.

"We apologize. We messed up and we're up here trying to make amends," he said.

Harper said this is the first time Pebble Beach and the USGA had used Transportation Management Services, the company contracted to provide the shuttle service. But he said he was "not looking to blame anybody" and added that he was pleased with the company's response to the situation.

2010 U.S. Open Second Round, This And That

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A far more interesting day Friday and some fun reporting worth checking out before the telecast Saturday.

Larry Dorman on second round leader Graeme McDowell and his early wake-up call Friday.

Cameron Morfit reports on Phil Mickelson's 66.

Mickelson consulted with his putting coach, Dave Stockton, and found he was setting up "a little contorted," in Mickelson's words. He changed his address, and the small fix paid big dividends as Mickelson took only 25 putts Friday, a day after taking 32.

He one-putted the first six holes.

Bob Harig on the impressive play of Ryo Ishikawa.

This kind of success, of course, produces unprecedented media attention at home. Among those following him Friday was Isao Aoki, a former Japanese star who battled Jack Nicklaus at the 1980 U.S. Open and now does television work. Dozens, if not hundreds, of photographers and journalists follow every move.

"I don't see how he does it," Watson said. "It's a constant din."

"It's worse for him at home," said McIlroy. "I've played with him in Japan and he handles himself very, very well. That's one of the most impressive things about him, how he handles everything, apart from his golf."

Steve Elling on the two-chip incident involving Shaun Micheel and the tournament leader who called him on it.

Michael Bamberger says Tiger's Thursday rant about the greens was self-serving excuse making and he features a strong rebuttal from the USGA's David Fay.

He's wrong," David Fay, the USGA executive director, told me yesterday. "They're smoother than they were in 2000." That would be the year the U.S. Open was last at Pebble, when Tiger won by 15. "It was a harsh thing for him to say. I don't want to turn this into a whole turf-surface advisory thing, but the fact is the people who grow this grass are highly skilled, highly educated, and they have so many tools at their disposal. Conditions have been good for growing grass and we're very pleased with the greens. We can take criticism when it's warranted. We have pretty thick skin. Criticism is useful. But this is not useful criticism." No, it was a one-word rant from a deeply frustrated man.

Ron Sirak has this to say about Tiger's second round:

If body language came with captions, television would have had one long expletive deleted when showing Tiger Woods' second round at the U.S. Open. Or, at the very least, the broadcast would have had to carry a warning stating: "Caution, What You Are About to See May Bum You Out." There are never a lot of yuks at a U.S. Open, but Woods walked the course Friday as if he were on his way to root canal.

Randall Mell points this out about Tiger:

If Woods were seven shots behind with two rounds to go in a major championship and said he felt good about his position, you wondered when players would start getting out of his way.

You knew such confidence would sound delusional coming out of most any other player’s mouth except his.

That’s the invincible nature that surrounded Woods when he came from seven shots back with seven holes to go to win the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am a decade ago. It’s the overpowering aura he possessed a few months later when he won the U.S. Open here by 15 shots.

And John Hawkins is more blunt:

He said he would change, and change he has – for the worse. The clumsy evasiveness with the media is nothing new, nor was the unexplained parting with his swing coach, for that matter, but the neck injury out of nowhere? How about Thursday’s Poa-annua pout? Since when did Tiger Woods start blaming his sloppy play on course conditions?

Sean Martin tells us about Pebble master Dustin Johnson and the improvement he's seen from working with Butch Harmon.

Alex Miceli reports on Erik Compton's next move after missing the cut.

Craig Bestrom on Y.E. Yang's epic back nine unraveling that led to a 49.

Jeff Babineau reviews some of the 14th hole boondoggles.

And finally, Sam Weinman's birdie/bogey column includes this:

BIRDIE: Tom Watson -- The 60-year-old snuck into the weekend on the number, and then had them lined up at least 100 deep for autographs at the Lexus tent. Watson still has some magic, and people want a piece of it.

2010 U.S. Open Second Round Thread

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Let's hope round 2 is more exciting than round 1.

"Other than that, the day was magnificent."

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When I left the course at halftime of the Lakers-Celtics about an hour after the Woods-Els-Westwood group had finished at 7:30, I noticed the first long line of the week for the spectator shuttle buses. From there, reader Cardinal shares this horror story:

I just got home from the opening round.    I got into line for the shuttle bus at 7:19 tonight (players were still on the course) and got into my car at 10:07.  The line to even get on the bus was more than two hours.   Although the crowd was remarkably well-behaved under such circumstances, people did start booing and yelling.  Extra cops were brought in for crowd management.  There would be gaps of 10-15 minutes between buses (yep, that's right, generally only one bus was available for spectators;  when the buses did arrive infrequently, they were used for the volunteers -- understandable priority, but deplorable disorganization). The USGA finally just put out boxes of candy and bottled water, which the crowd passed around.   Extra emergency lighting was set up, as we were still in line after dark.  I assume the USGA expected most people to be in their cars before dark, as the overflow parking lot was completely dark (no lights were turned on).  As no one had cell phones, we could not contact anyone about being delayed/late.  All in all, it was the worst showing by the USGA in my experience (4 US Opens).

 Other than that, the day was magnificent.

Explanation For Oceanside Hazard Marking: Blame The Lefties

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Mike Davis explained the spacious hazard markings along the ocean holes, telling me "it has everything to do with the ten to twelve left-handers in the field."

Davis says the hazard lines are marked several feet off the cliffs to give plenty of room for penalty drops. If the line of entry to the hazard was directly on top of the cliff fall-off, you are allowed just two club lengths relief and with the shaved down area meaning it's more likely a drop could roll toward the hazard, that means there might not be enough space to allow the lefties to have room for a stance (except on 18, where it's an issue for the right-handers).