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If you've been thinking about buying tickets to next year's U.S. Open, to be played at Pebble Beach in June, now might be the time to act. If you make a purchase by Dec. 14, the USGA will throw in a commemorative ball marker and divot-repair tool. You can learn more about the offer and buy tickets at usga.org.
"Now that Wie is getting all the attention again, I am wondering why Paula Creamer gets such short shrift? She is young, gorgeous, a winner, and from all accounts a fun and well-liked person. But Wie wins one tournament and she is viewed as the savior of the game? Is it just because she hits it further? I really do like the LPGA, and hope to see the two of them go head-to-head often. That to me is what will bring in attention, not if Wie repeats of Annika's dominance. Your thoughts?"
I like Paula Creamer as much as the next guy, but I think a couple of things are keeping her from a larger crossover stardom. She hasn't won a tournament in 14 months, so there's that. Not only has she failed to win a major in her otherwise excellent career, but she's also shown a distressing habit of coming apart mentally when she's had a chance. She let the Lorena Ochoa Invitational get away and it was irritating to watch Paula pout about it between the ropes. I think she still needs to grow up a little bit. Wie may be younger but she's been through so much drama I think she's tougher. You definitely diagnosed one factor in the more widespread interest surrounding Wie: Creamer is a short hitter who plays a pretty boring percentage game. Nancy Lopez once told me that for an LPGA player to become a superstar she has to look like a woman but hit the ball like a man. That's Wie, not Creamer. But each of these talented, telegenic players can push the other to greater heights. There hasn't been a really great LPGA rivalry since Annika-Karrie around the turn of the century. Wie-Creamer potentially has a lot more to offer.
"Alan - any comment on the Tiger club-throwing incident? He threw it into a crowd and could have injured someone. If this goes away quietly, it will prove it's still a society for the privileged."
My colleague Michael Walker has a hilarious take on this episode that I wish I had written. Obviously Tiger screwed up, but he didn't mean to tomahawk his club into the gallery, it just slipped out of his hand during a more conventional bit of pique. I think most of us would like to see Woods stop dropping f-bombs and slamming clubs – it's unbecoming and a little tacky. But you can't have it both ways. What makes Tiger the greatest winner in all of sports is how hot he burns on the inside, and it his ferocious competitiveness that produces such riveting theater. He's got his flaws, but Woods is a class act and we're all lucky to have him in our sport. (Imagine if Allen Iverson was the world's top golfer.) So I can live with Tiger's occasional lapses, even at the risk of being mocked by Michael Walker.
At 2:00 p.m. EST, Golf.com's deputy editor David Dusek will be live on twitter to answer any lingering U.S. Open questions you may have. Now that we've all had a day to think over Lucas Glover's win, Dusek will discuss if he'll win again and look forward to the rest of the season.
Send in a question early by replying @GOLFcom_Dusek on Twitter.
Michael Walker Jr., Golf Magazine senior editor, live-blogged the final round of the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black.
Follow Walker's commentary in 140 characters or less on Twitter
Continue reading " Live 2009 U.S. Open Coverage: Extended Monday Edition" »
One of the most popular and engaging players at Bethpage Black this week was Drew Weaver, the Virginia Tech product with the compelling back story: He was only 100 yards away from entering Norris Hall on April 16, 2007, when a gunman opened fire inside. When one of the worst tragedies in American history was over, 33 people, including the gunman, were dead.
Weaver must've heard "Go Hokies!" a thousand times during his three rounds through Sunday and always waved his hand and smiled in acknowledgement. (After a sterling first-round 69, Weaver followed with rounds of 72 and 74, and was two strokes behind Nick Taylor in the battle for low amateur going into Monday's final round.)
Daniel Murdoch, the young volunteer whose family was profiled in my series from the Battle Row Campground, didn't know anything about Weaver's history. But he walked away from Bethpage with a new favorite golfer. Daniel had been Weaver's standard-bearer for his practice round last Wednesday, which meant the 16-year-old wasn't allowed to get Weaver's autograph. The following day, Daniel's father, Bill, also an Open volunteer, mentioned it to Weaver.
"Sure, your son was Daniel," he said. "He's from Pennsylvania, right? We had a great time out there." Then he signed a cap.
"That young man must've met a hundred people that day, and he remembered my son's name and where he was from," said Bill. "That just impressed the heck out of me."
The Murdochs plan to extend the ultimate familial honor to Weaver. They name their cats after golfers -- Phil, Bubba, Rocco, Tiger and Arnie are already around their home in Everett, Pa. -- and two barn cats still need a moniker. "We were going to name them after this year's Open winner and runner-up," says Bill, "but now we have a Drew."
GOLF Magazine's senior writer Cameron Morfit will be live blogging the late Sunday action at Bethpage Black. Alan Bastable and Connell Barrett blogged the earlier action. Join the conversation by leaving a comment below.
Continue reading " Live 2009 U.S. Open Coverage: Sunday Rain-Delayed Edition" »
Editors' Note: Jack McCallum will be spending the week in an RV,
experiencing The People's Open with the people, and periodically sharing his adventures with us in Press Tent. See photos from McCallum's week in the RV.
OLD BETHPAGE, N.Y.—The wife of the People's Golf Writer showed up at Battle Row Campground this morning. She had hinted that she might drop in, as long as he didn't refer to it as a conjugal visit. So he's not going to do that.
But since it's Father's Day, and since one son is far away in North Carolina and the other is way, way, way too far away doing doctoral research in South Africa, she decided to make the two-and-a-half-hour drive from our Pennsylvania home. She even arrived bearing gifts—a dish of homemade meatballs and tomato sauce. Much better than a tie or a putter cover, neither of which I have much use for. Meatballs are another matter.
The People's Wife, if I may call Donna that, also brought along Rags, my son's overly friendly black mutt, for whom we are dog-sitting until said son gets home from Johannesburg. (That's them in the picture.) My guess is, the People's Wife will spend most of the day picking up dog hair, concerned about the next renters of the 32-foot RV in which I've been living.
Rags is a semi-celebrity, having appeared in Rachel Ray magazine as the March 2009 "Pup of the Month." How you get to be pup of the month, see, is to have a master who knows somebody at the magazine. During a walk this morning, I told Rags to drop his magazine-celebrity status to passing dogs, but they all seemed unimpressed.
Continue reading "The People's Golf Writer: Breaking camp, and thinking of fathers and sons" »
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- Rain delays have pushed the conclusion of the final round of the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage into Monday, but for veterans of the PGA Tour like Jim Furyk, it's just another week at the office.
"It's a rain delay. We deal with this 12, maybe 15 times a year," he said in the clubhouse. "Coming to the U.S. Open, we've got more media that doesn't cover golf here, so we get a lot of, 'Oh no! It's a rain delay. How do you deal with it?' The same way I have the other 11 times in the last 12 months."
Furyk says that he waits out rain delays by finding a group of guys who are relaxing somewhere in the clubhouse, swapping stories and telling jokes. He likes to slide out of his golf shoes and get off his feet, but his eyes are always looking out the windows and checking the skies.
"The whole key is to relax, but make sure you are prepared to go back out," he said. "Sometimes they'll tell you, 'We want you back on the course in 45 minutes. Go!' That's the hardest part — mentally flipping the switch back into competition mode."
The winner of the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields, Furyk shot 72-69 in the first two rounds in rainy, wet conditions at Bethpage. Yet he was far from frustrated or flustered. On the contrary, he seemed to be quietly relishing this event because it was morphing into a mental meat grinder.
"You know, when you are playing well, you don't mind playing in stuff like this," he said. "When you're playing bad, it makes it tougher. You can lose the rhythm of your round if you start and stop and start again. If you are playing well and they pull you off the course and say, 'Geez, I really had it going.' And when you are playing bad, its like, 'I'd love to get off the damn golf course the way I'm playing.' "
Even the prospect of the tournament being extended past Sunday doesn't faze this veteran of 14 previous U.S. Opens. "Going into Monday and Tuesday is more of a logistical nightmare than anything else for the players," he said. "You have to deal with making arrangements for your house or hotel, cars, things like that."
He may be treating it like just another week at the office, but Furyk and the rest of the field here at Bethpage had better be ready for overtime.
(Photo: John Biever/SI)
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — The U.S. Open is not going to finish on Sunday. After rain stopped Saturday evening's play and more rain fell overnight, the USGA pushed Sunday's restart time from 7:30 a.m. to noon.
Mike Davis, the USGA's senior director of rules and competitions, said the USGA decided to delay Sunday's restart because of the possibility of another heavy shower this morning in the Farmingdale area.
"Why bring the players in when there is a very good chance that we'd have to pull them off again?" Davis said.
If the weather cooperates, the third round will be completed around 4:30 local time. Players will then be re-paired for the fourth round, which is expected to begin at 5:30, with groups starting from the first and 10th tees. Davis said the final group would tee off around 7:20.
The reason for the hour delay between rounds is logistical. "There is a 25-minute shuttle ride involved in getting the players to No. 10 tee," Davis said. "So we think it would be blatantly unfair to the player, immediately coming out of the scoring tent, to be told, 'Go run and get on the shuttle to make your next tee time.' "
If the skies remain overcast, which is expected, then the USGA hopes play can continue until about 7:55 or 8 p.m. If the sun comes out, play could continue until 8:15 or 8:20, according to Davis.
The fourth round will resume on Monday morning, but specific times have yet to be determined.
"If we start at 5:30 [Sunday], there's about six hours of golf per wave, you're realistically only going to get about two to two-and-a-half hours of golf in," Davis said. "That's going to leave you about three and a half hours to go to finish up round four [on Monday]. So we'll finish before noon tomorrow, assuming that we don't get thrown something from Mother Nature that we're not expecting."
If there is a tie after the fourth round and a playoff is needed, it would start Monday afternoon if USGA officials were confident it could be finished before dark. If rain causes more delays tomorrow, a playoff could be pushed to Tuesday.
"If we are somehow delayed again tomorrow, we've already made the decision that if it got later than 3:45 or 4:00, we wouldn't start a playoff," Davis said. "The last thing we want is a playoff where they have to come back to play just one or two holes. That's just not the competitive situation that we want."
Based on the forecasts, however, Davis feels confident a playoff could be started and completed Monday afternoon.
Davis noted that Bethpage Black is draining well, and that light rain is not the problem. "Believe it or not, this course can keep handling this, as long as we don't get the downpours. The water is seeping down because it is a sandy, loam soil. So that's the great part. Believe me, if we were at some U.S. Open venues right now and this were happening, I can't even begin to think about what we'd be doing."
Thanks to the USGA's new ticketing policy, plans are already in place for a Sunday rainout. If less than 90 minutes of golf are played Sunday, fans with Sunday tickets can come back Monday. Here's the USGA's release from Sunday morning:
For play on Monday (conclusion of Round 4 and Playoff, if necessary), spectators holding Thursday or Monday tickets will be admitted to the course through the admission gates.
If less than 90 minutes of golf are played today, Sunday tickets will also be honored on Monday.
On Monday, Thursday ticket holders who have lost or misplaced their Thursday ticket should report to one of the Will Call facilities located at Bethpage State Park.
For individuals who purchased their tickets by mail or online well in advance of the championship, Will Call will verify their purchase with available records.
Individuals who purchased tickets at the pre-championship on-site sale (June 11-14) will need to show their receipt at Will Call.
