Tiger's First Round U.S. Open 69 Round-Up: "Beautiful . . . Awesome . . . Impressive."

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Alan Shipnuck declares the tournament over after Tiger Woods' opening 69.

There may be 54 holes left to play, but Tiger Woods has already won this U.S. Open. Forget the fire hydrant, the swing change, the dropped-kicked 9-iron -- that's all ancient history now. Woods displayed some vintage dominance during a first round 69 at our 112th national championship. He's three shots out of the lead and no one can catch him.

The Olympic Club has a history of slaying great champions, but it's a perfect venue for Woods.

Randall Mell files a rave review, too.

How good was Woods’ start? If you saw the mighty struggle Watson and Mickelson endured trying to survive Olympic playing with Woods, you left with an even deeper appreciation of Woods’ shot-making.

Woods whipped up on Watson, the reigning Masters champ, by nine shots. He finished seven shots better than Mickelson.

Beautiful . . . Awesome . . . Impressive.

There’s only one reasonable response the rest of the field can have to those assessments by Woods’ playing partners.

Yikes!

Steve Elling went the entire 18 with Tiger and shares details from inside the ropes, including this about the driving show by Woods:

It was pretty pretty, actually. Woods was credited with hitting 10 of 14 fairways, which is accurate, but it requires an asterisk and an explanation.

On three of those holes, the ball came to rest in the first cut, which means he missed by perhaps two or three feet. On the other miss, he raked a 3-wood tee shot on the drivable seventh hole, playing about 260 yards uphill, into a greenside bunker.

Robert Lusetich was struck by Tiger's post round demeanor and I would agree that there was an old-Tiger, ho-humness to the day.

But it didn't require comparative statistics to know that, four years removed from his last major, Woods is once again a force with which to be reckoned. His demeanor told far more than any statistics could.

Despite having failed in the past 12 majors — the longest drought of his career — Woods wasn’t high-fiving anyone. In fact, he barely smiled.

"I’m hungry," he shrugged.

Ron Sirak wasn't so wild about the logistics of today's all-star pairing featuring Woods, Mickelson and Watson.

When all is said and done here, the USGA might want to reconsider such high-profile pairings and instead spread around the talent wealth. About the only folks who really benefitted from Woods, Mickelson and Watson playing together was ESPN, which has the early-round TV rights. Almost everyone other stakeholder got the short end of the stake.

The crush of gallery and media about the group made it difficult to see for those folks who paid good money to be on property. It also left other groups with embarrassingly small crowds. And clearly, the carnival atmosphere didn't help either Mickelson or Watson.

John Strege's media notes include some nice moaning about Chris Berman's announcing from Twitter and an Andy North analogy between Tiger's play today and his play at Hoylake.

2012 U.S. Open Round One This, That And Comments

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I'm about to head out on the course to watch the marquee group of Woods, Mickelson and Watson.

With no phones on the course, there will be no Tweeting, but you can see it all right here on the USGA site, anyway.

Keep an eye on holes 13 and 17 this morning. I previewed the course setup along with tweaks made to the preparation of those two holes for Golf World Daily.

Follow scoring here.

Groupings and times here.

And courtesy of reader Mike, a local weather and wind page of interest.

ESPN, ESPN3 and WatchESPN will air eight hours of live play each day on Thursday and Friday from noon – 3 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. ET. NBC is on from 3 p.m. ET to 5 p.m. ET.

Enjoy!

Player To Root For Files: Brooks Koepka

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Nick Masuda files a super piece on qualifier Brooks Koepka, who's been playing some amazing golf while dealing with the shock and burden of his mother's rare form of cancer. Mom Denise is doing well (cancer free) and took in his first two practice rounds. She will be on hand when he tees off at 2:42 Thursday (and he's on Twitter).

"Everyone has family challenges I think, but (Brooks') mental toughness, drive and determination was in some way challenged to get through all of this," Jakows said. "I have so much to be thankful for, to see him ratchet down on his mental toughness and succeed.

"I am on cloud nine."

Meanwhile, Chase will head to the Sunnehanna Amateur in Johnstown, Pa., one of the nation's big summer events. But at least a little bit of his attention – outside the ropes – will be on the happenings in San Francisco.

"These are great moments for both of us," Chase said. "I am playing in the biggest tournament of my career, and Brooks is also playing in the biggest of his. He'll get a chance to see how he measures up against the guys he wants to play with, and I'll get a chance to see where I am before I go to USF.

Videos: Explaining The Many Dangers Of Olympic's 13th

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The 199-yard 13th has the players flummoxed and with good reason. There's one shot to hit and anything else is likely to find some sort of trouble. This has always been an unusual par-3 but never were things like this said about it...

Q.  Compared to other U.S. Open courses how does Olympic‑‑ what kind of special shots does it favor or require?

BUBBA WATSON:  Not that I know this in my head, but 13, what is that, the par‑3, 13, the par‑3 they shaved all the grass on the left side of the hole.  So if you hit it‑‑ you could actually hit the ball on the green and end up in the hazard.  I don't understand why they did that.  But they did it.

And from Phil Mickelson's transcript:

PHIL MICKELSON:  I think that 13 provides the most challenging shot, because it's a long, narrow green with wind blowing right‑to‑left.  It's pushing the ball left.

If you miss it right, you've got a chip that's downhill, downwind, you're not going to get it up and down.  And if you miss it left, it's off to Hartford.  You may as well pack your bags, and we'll see you next week at Hartford (laughter) because that ball is going to go down the creek, in the rough, under the trees, and you may still be there on Monday.

I think that provides the most difficult, penalizing challenge to where a lot of people are going to get knocked right out of the tournament the first two days because of that one hole.

In the first video, I start by looking at the tee shot issues:

A view of the issues facing players who hit their tee shot in the right bunker.

And finally, that tightly mown back area that has been introduced this year and which is creating much of the consternation. How much this comes into play will depend mostly on firmness and wind. Today it was manageable because of the morning fog and tight mow having gone uncut for two days.

Preparing For Two Days Of Chris Berman And Other U.S. Open Viewing Tips

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The 112th U.S. Open airs on ESPN Thursday and Friday with weekend coverage on NBC.

Here is the ESPN viewer advisory alert schedule on Chris Berman duties and all other "platform" coverage times, which appears to have been shifted to "hosting" (that means you can fast forward through the opening) along with his traditional afternoon shift sharing the booth with Roger Maltbie.

Golf Channel provides a clean, easy to understand explanation of their coverage over the next four days, including NBC telecast times along with pre- and post-round coverage.

Storyline Pairings, The Underlying Dynamics Of The Tiger-Phil Pairing And Thursday's Online Telecast Times

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Jeff Rude raises the question that's on the mind of many at Olympic Club: just how good are these storyline-pairings-with-a-fun-twist good for the U.S. Open?

There’s the glamor trio of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson. World 1-2-3 Luke Donald, Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood. The alphabet-soup gathering of K.J. (Choi), K.T. (Kim) and Y.E. (Yang). The sound-alikes of Charl (Schwartzel), Carl (Pettersson) and Charles (Howell III). Heart-warming qualifying protagonists Casey Martin and Dennis Miller. Bombers Alvaro Quiros and Gary Woodland. Flashy heartthrob youngsters Rickie Fowler and Ryo Ishikawa.

Whether Woods-Mickelson-Watson is a good idea apparently is up for debate. Both sides have been presented. On one sensible hand, it’s a great splash for golf, the marquee at its best. On the other, some somehow suggest it might be better to spread the wealth on the pairings sheet, not to mention the sound notion that it will be difficult to spectate unless you are, say, 8 feet tall.

Ron Sirak analyzes the history of Tiger and Phil pairings, along with the dynamics of their past pairings and how that might impact this week's U.S. Open and like many, still feels this will be better for Mickelson.

Earlier this year, at both the Humana Challenge and the Farmers Insurance Open, Mickelson seemed to have little passion for golf. After more than two decades on tour and with recent health challenges for his wife, his mother and himself, Lefty seemed to be at low energy.

Then, on the Sunday of the AT&T National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach, Mickelson was paired with Woods. The result was the best round Lefty had played in years a 64 that dusted Woods by 11 strokes and won the tournament. It seems that at this stage of his career, there are two things that motivate Mickelson -- winning majors and beating Woods, with beating Woods perhaps leading.

"The feeling and the excitement I got when I found out I was paired with Tiger the final round at Pebble got me excited and focused," Mickelson said. "And I felt a similar feeling when I found out we were paired together here. And I'm looking forward to the pairing."

Meanwhile the USGA is touting exclusive Thursday morning coverage of the Woods-Mickelson-Watson pairing on USOpen.com. Servers willing...

STAR-STUDDED U.S. OPEN GROUP OF WOODS, WATSON AND MICKELSON TO TEE OFF EXCLUSIVELY ON USOPEN.COM AND U.S. OPEN MOBILE APP

USGA to Deliver Virtual Front Row Seats to Live First-Round Marquee Coverage

San Francisco, Calif. (June 12, 2012) – When the marquee group of Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson and Tiger Woods tees off at 7:33 a.m. (PDT) for the first round of the 2012 U.S. Open Championship at The Olympic Club on Thursday, the USGA’s digital platforms will be the exclusive outlet for watching the start of all the action.

Visitors to usopen.com and users of the U.S. Open mobile application, “U.S. Open Golf Championship,” will have exclusive access to the first 90 minutes of continuous play on Thursday morning through live-streaming high-definition (HD) video, followed by ESPN’s live coverage at 9 a.m. (PDT).

A complete U.S. Open television schedule for ESPN and NBC is available at http://www.usopen.com/en_US/champ_experience/viewing_schedule.html

Coverage of the marquee group will continue throughout the morning, and the afternoon group will feature Luke Donald, Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood. Exclusive coverage will also be available on Friday, with select holes featured on Saturday and Sunday.

“This is the one of most exciting times of the year for golf fans and we’ve created a marquee destination for them to follow a marquee pairing at the U.S. Open,” said USGA Executive Director Mike Davis. “We’re thrilled to be using our digital platforms in this way so fans have a virtual front row seat to watch three of the world’s most accomplished players compete in our national championship.”