And the winner is…Pebble Beach
Well, I guess the USGA proved this weekend that even the best players in the world can be beaten. I don’t know how the rest of you feel, but it didn’t seem like anyone wanted to win on Sunday. Do you think that Tiger and Phil are kicking themselves a little this morning? All they needed was to find an under par round and they would have won the US Open. They didn’t need to be 5 under, even par would have done it for Tiger. There were only five rounds under par all day – now that is playing tough. I guess Pebble Beach proved to be too much for the pros. Pretty amazing when you consider that the course is barely 7000 yards long.
I wanted to personally thank the USGA for making the course so difficult that the tournament became boring. I was talking with a co-worker this morning and she mentioned that at around 7 PM she checked out the “what are people watching” feature on Fios and the US Open was 12th on the list. I wonder is the USGA realizes that most of the viewing public, at least the non-diehard golf fans, don’t want to watch the pros making triple bogeys. I think we weekend warriors like to occasionally see that the pros are human, but making a golf course that hard, only removed the drama from the tournament. I know the tournament is supposed to be the toughest challenge, but I am not sure that a player should have to be perfect in order to win. Golf is Not a Game of Perfect, as Dr. Bob Rotella would say, and it shouldn’t have to be played that way.
I would like to congratulate Graeme McDowell for outlasting the field. I thought he played a smart, consistent final round and deserved to win. Catch a portion of his press conference after the jump.
I will fight the urge to say anything about Dustin Johnson’s round. I am sure that he is still wondering what the hell happened. I didn’t expect him to win, but shooting an 82 on Sunday has got to stay with you for a while. I was sitting there stunned watching him play the second hole. I am pretty sure he hoseled the chip shot that went about a foot. I have had rounds where it felt like the wheels fell off the bus, and all I could think was how do I stop the bleeding. Of course that never happened to me on national TV and worse yet, I didn’t have reporters asking me about it for weeks afterward, which I am sure he will. He is young and very talented and hopefully he can shake Sunday off and find a way to win in the future.
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