Golf's US Open

[melman]

Any guesses on the winning final score?? This Oak-Monster course may find a winner with 6 or more over par. One of the hardest things to do in sports is hit par on a US Open course. Take a gander at hole number 8 a 288 year Par 3. With the rough I think we will find a lot of players leaving the driver in the bag. Full coverage on the net and NBC has live coverage at 3:00 to 5:00 on Thursday and Friday and from 1:00 to 7:00 on Saturday and Sunday. With Phi's wrist injury I hope he does not go into the rough to many times. :)

[Tee]

I'll take a stab at a winning score Mel.

Based upon the winning score being +5 last year @ Winged Foot. Now that could have been at least a couple lower had Phil played a bit better final round & finish.

I'll say no worse than +8 - no better than +4.

But then again these guys are good. :)

[ldiatone]

hello
was there today. the greens are tough. guys were just missing their birdies. VJ singh's drive was a crusher on 9, and after his 2nd shot he still 2 putted. those greens at oakmont are something. by the way the fairways are almost, i mean almost like the greens.
ldiatone

[Greyfox]

I heard that they had cut down trees, but wow I didn't recognize the place.

[ldiatone]

yes 10,000(est) trees cut down and leveled. the place is so different from a few years ago. the reason for the cuts-- it takes one back to the old days
of the links. but its beautiful
ldiatone

[Greyfox]

yes 10,000(est) trees cut down and leveled. ldiatone

Gads. 10,000 trees. Gone.

At any rate I'm going to say that the Open final score will be + 6.
(If the wind blows, who knows.)

My pick, other than the big 3 types, will be Justin Rose of England.
His swing looks very pure.

[Ivan]

Winner will be between +2 and +4

The OAKMONT course makes these guys look mediocre

It's fun to watch these guys struggle...This Tourney is very similar to Augusta this year as far as scores but of course 2 very different courses

:cool:

[Ivan]

And of course...As soon as I submit the post Cabrera Bogeys...E is lowest score


:bang:

[melman]

Hey guys they have not even gotten to the tough pin placements yet. :jump: With or without the trees the "deal" with Oakmont is always the greens, they are unlike any other. What a great course.

[skate]

great job, Angel.

[Greyfox]

Awesome.

I felt bad for Jim Furyk in particular.
If he had laid up on 17 and settled for a 4 there,
he would have stayed in a tie for the lead.
Instead, he yanked out the driver and ended
up in the cabbage. That's all she wrote.
There would have been a playoff today.
Tiger, had his chance on one of the earlier par 3 's
on the back nine. He missed a 5 foot putt for
birdie, or he would have been in that playoff today too.
At their level, the game has a huge mental component.
Incidentall, Cabrero's caddie was on one of the
Golf Channel's Big Break series late last year.

[DanG]

I know I’m in the minority here, but they are going too far with these courses IMHO.

When the type of talent that our open draws struggle to play +10, they are playing a different sport. At some point the game becomes random when the holes are that long / fairways that narrow and the topper…drive it straight and there are all kinds of crowns that kick you in the brutal; rough anyway.

I’m not even going to mention the greens that were close to having a windmill on them like miniature golf.

Typical Johnny Miller style media coverage on Woods. He made several incredibly clutch par putts and gets zero credit…as usual.

I know many people love that degree of difficulty. My brother was over and he loved it. I’ve never understood penalizing a horse for superior ability by making him carry scrap iron and I don’t understand planting land mines on a golf course. I don’t remember Jim Brown / Lawrence Taylor or Ted Williams playing their sports in leg irons. :confused:

[JPinMaryland]

What difference does it make? so long as players are moving up and down on the scoreboard then the course is fine. Isnt that what we had there? We had a five way tie early on, then most of those guys fell backwards, but you also had guys ahead of the leaders who were moving up the board: Cabrera, Fasth, and I think one or two others...

WHen you really have a problem is when the course simply plays the same way to all players and you either have everyone moving down or everyone moving upward. Like Pinehurst. Wow is this course overrated, every hole is the same: a German helmet for a green that nobody can hold. So every golfer misses the green and has to get down in two which they dont...Unless incredibly lucky. So the whole field is slowly moving up: +1 +2 +3 until someone lucks out and sticks an iron on the green and he wins...

That's when it's bad. This course didnt seem to play like that, there seemed to be quite enough reward for risk and penalty for bad shots.

***

I actually thought Johnny Miller was praising Tiger, I'll have to watch the tape again. I didnt watch all four days or even much of the tour so I dont know how Johnny Miller rates for the general public, but from what I heard, he seems right on top of things. He points out a lot of stuff that no one else does.

***

ANd oh isnt Berman the worst sports announcer in history? HE's on the wrap up show w/ Andy North and he says "Cabrera walking up the fairway, he just had that look of confidence. Like he's saying to himself: I can do this."

Well "no shit." Doesnt every golfer winning a major look like that? Hell it's like he's never even seen a guy win a golf tournament.

Followed up on the very next exchange with this one: "I know his name is pronounced: An-hell, but if we called him Angel wouldnt it be fitting he conquered the church pews?"

Ah-ha, ha, ha. That's so fuckin funny. Someone pull the plug on this jackass's act. Please.

[bigmack]

I know I’m in the minority here, but they are going too far with these courses IMHO.
I question how much in the minority you are Dan. From my conversations with other golfers you could very well be moving into the majority. And that's certainly my position. Particularly with the Open, albeit it's becoming systemic throughout the tour, they're adjusting these courses to make them ridiculously arduous and far from a snapshot view of what these courses play like sans the tour rolling through. They referred to the members of Oakmont loving the fact that even the pros stuggle with the course. It's more likely that the course is a whole lot more friendly two months before or three weeks after the Open.

[DanG]

I actually thought Johnny Miller was praising Tiger, I'll have to watch the tape again. I didnt watch all four days or even much of the tour so I dont know how Johnny Miller rates for the general public, but from what I heard, he seems right on top of things. He points out a lot of stuff that no one else does.
If you can sit through 4 days of Johnny Miller on tape, you’re a better man than me. It is obviously all subjective though…heck, I get a kick out of Todd Schrupp so there’s no accounting for taste I guess. :)

[skate]

ah well wait a minute.

ill watch the final two days (at most), but not all four days.

i think they had a good coarse, give the players a challenge, rather than 20/30 under par.

greens, i agree, too much complication.

announcers, not good, but i thought the TV coverage was good.

[JPinMaryland]

If you can sit through 4 days of Johnny Miller on tape, you’re a better man than me. It is obviously all subjective though…heck, I get a kick out of Todd Schrupp so there’s no accounting for taste I guess. :)

Yeah, that's why I conditioned my statement. I really dont watch the tour every week, nor more than one or two days of a major so I dont hear him all the time. Lots of people dont care for him, no doubt.

[DanG]

I’ve yet to meet the perfect person (myself is certainly included.) and judging Johnny Miller is really not the issue, but through life I find “bitterness” to be a very unattractive trait. :ThmbDown: To my ear Miller has it in spades. He was a truly great player who was robbed of many prime years with a bad back and he has chosen to lash out at the professional tour in a vindictive fashion.

Horseracing certainly has their share of this character and I honestly try to avoid them at all costs.

I love other sports…golf included and on weekends I’m involved in racing, so the Open is on another TV. Without the sound I can’t really follow it, so I wind up writing much too much about my favorite announcers! :D

[Greyfox]

Miller calls it as he sees it.
The other day the other announcers were saying:
"Baddlerly's settled down now. His swing is back in the groove. He's gotten over his nervousness of playing with Tiger...." or that sort of stuff.

Miller said: "I don't see it that way at all. He's wound up.. he's tense..."

Now of course I haven't reviewed the video to hear the exact words. But the bottom line is Miller was the contrarian amongst the bunch and called it as he saw it. What I enjoy about Miller is the independent call it as he sees it approach that he takes to the game. Not that he's right. But that's the way he sees it. :ThmbUp:

[bigmack]

The game is filled with neurosis from people that have little right to have any level of expected play commensurate with the amount of work they put into the game. I always get a kick out of guys who come out and play maybe 10-12 times/yr and get REALLY frustrated when they make a bad shot. What did they expect, to hit it pure everytime?

That level of neurosis can affect all levels of play and as legend has it, JMiller came to a point in his game that he had so many thoughts swirling around in his head that he couldn't make a sound swing.

I don't like the neurosis of the game that comes from people taking it far more serious than its actual worth. Miller, to me, is the Captain of that club.

[Bubbles]

To me, Johnny Miller seems to put his foot in his mouth at least once or twice a round trying to praise his own accomplishments. For example, during the third round of the Open, he said how he wouldn't be surprised if a player at 7 or 8 over par came out all guns blazing, shooting 65 or 66 to contend. Another commentator, not missing a beat, then said, "What, not 63?" :lol:

He was at a loss for words for about 15, 20 seconds after that.

[JPinMaryland]

Right so he says a couple of stupid things every day. Have you any idea of how many good insights he is providing? In comparison to the rest of the cast of he's providing way more insights than the other guys who are afraid to say anything. So it's simply a matter of taking bad with the good.

I guesss it's the same thign w/ Tim McCarver and Joe Theissman. McCarver I like but other people pt. out all the dumb stuff he says. Theissman I dont like at all, but I can appreciate that he's thinking about the game every second. AFter every play he's got several things to say, it's hard to keep coming up with stuff like that.

[DanG]

Right so he says a couple of stupid things every day. Have you any idea of how many good insights he is providing? In comparison to the rest of the cast of he's providing way more insights than the other guys who are afraid to say anything. So it's simply a matter of taking bad with the good.

I guesss it's the same thign w/ Tim McCarver and Joe Theissman. McCarver I like but other people pt. out all the dumb stuff he says. Theissman I dont like at all, but I can appreciate that he's thinking about the game every second. AFter every play he's got several things to say, it's hard to keep coming up with stuff like that.
It’s interesting JPM that you mentioned all three that for my money should be announcing in Siberia. But, as we all say…One man’s vinegar is another mans Champagne.

Signed;

President of the Johnny Miller fan club ;)