US Open 2009 – No One’s Ark

We should have learned our lesson by now. It has happened, time and time again, yet we still fail to see the error of our ways. The lesson to be learned from Day 1 of the US Open is that when you put enormous pressure and hype on a single event, it will never be fulfilled.

Rewind back to last year. Tiger and Rocco are going head to head. The former is the game’s greatest competitor of our generation. The other is
a cordial and polite dark horse, someone who would just enjoy being near the winner’s circle, if not actually in it. And these two were able to bring us two riveting days of golf that will be remembered and replayed for many years to come.

Catch up to today. It’s the US Open again, and the media couldn’t be happier with the number of storylines they can play off of. A few to start us off with:

• It’s America’s major coming back to Bethpage State Park, the only public course ever to host the major.
• Tiger Woods is coming off a monstrous performance at The Memorial to win, despite trailing by 4 strokes heading into Sunday.
• Rocco Mediate will be there again, and will he or someone else be able to challenge Tiger for a run at the US Open?
• Phil Mickelson plays his second tournament since taking a leave of absence to be with this wife, and will likely have to miss the British Open. Given everything with his wife’s health, and how boisterous and loving the New York crowd was for Phil back in 2002, can you imagine what it’ll be like this time around?
• The first round grouping for Tiger also had Padraig Harrington and Angel Cabrera. When Tiger was out last year, it was Harrington who won the final two majors of the season, and Cabrera himself just won The Masters back in April.
• Oh, and there was the whole rest of the field trying to conquer the longest US Open course in history.

So there was plenty for the camera’s to capture. And just to make sure there were enough camera’s, the Open was being covered on The Golf Channel, ESPN, ESPN 360, NBC, and UsOpen.com. Even Sportscenter, which was on the air live at 9AM while Tiger was on the course, showed every shot Tiger took, the very moment that he took them.

Unfortunately the ending to our story was… to be continued. Despite hoping to resume play later in the day, play was suspended around 10:30 and never started back up again. Weather permitting, the plan is for players to get back on the course Friday morning, and then play another round Friday afternoon. But the same way toast always land buttered-side down, it seems the only time Mother Nature lets up is when we don’t care, and right now we care a whole lot.

Today’s Interesting Fact

When course officials realized there might be a significant amount of standing water on the greens and fairways, about 90 squeegees and “water hogs” were brought out to soak up the water. Curiously, players were allowed to request that their putting line be squeegeed. Putting on a wet green makes the green much slower than any player would be used to, so this rule makes sense.

But if a player’s line is squeegeed up to the hole and not beyond it, the player has a huge advantage. By keeping the green behind the hole wet, you essentially create a wall behind the cup, meaning players can attack putts aggressively without fear of rolling the ball too far past the hole.

The stars get calls in the NBA all the time. Good pitchers get more strikes called for them than rookie pitchers.I would love to see how course officials behave and act when these squeegee-jobs are requested by certain players. With one of Tiger’s “I’ll break your camera if you snap a pic on my backswing”-glares, I’m not sure that anyone from Bethpage would have to cojones to dry out the backside of Tiger’s putt. Hopefully we’ll find out on Friday.

Prediction for the US Open: