The After-Action Report

I caught some of the golf yesterday, just enough to be comfortable offering insights and observations, but fortunately not enough to take responsibility for any of the above.

What a truly impressive performance by Martin Kaymer, one that holds up under comparisons to the most

His only reverse "C" of the week.

dominating performances in the history of our game.  Shackelford had this from the USGA's Media Department:

- Martin Kaymer’s eight-stroke victory is tied for the fourth-largest margin of victory in U.S. Open history. Tiger Woods (2000, 15 strokes), Willie Smith (1899, 11 strokes) and James Barnes (1921, nine strokes) are the only players with larger winning margins. Kaymer’s total ties Rory McIlroy’s eight-stroke victory in 2011.

I didn't catch much of that 1899 Open, but seems I didn't miss much.  

The problem with such a dominant performance is that it robs our weekend of any drama, as the tourney was over by about 1:00 on Friday.  Of course we didn't know it for sure at the time, but Kaymer seems about the last guy on the planet to lapse into an impression of Dr. Gil Morgan...

Sticking with the rearview mirror for a second, the sequence on Nos. 4 and 5 on Saturday would seem to be the moment when Kaymer dispelled any chance that he'd come back to the field.  And a pretty tough track on which to be shooting at pins, you'll agree...

The best round of the tournament was no doubt Fowler's 67 on Saturday, the day of the toughest set-up.  But the best worst round was Kaymer's 72 that day, when he maintained the lion's share of the lead.  Last Saturday Johnny Miller speculated that, having survived that difficult day, Sunday would prove easier for him, which seemed spot on to me.

So, let's do a little call and response with the chattering classes, shall we?

First up, Gary Van Sickle anoints Kaymer the greatest player of all time, sort of:

We didn't fully appreciate Kaymer the first time around. He won the PGA Championship in a playoff that was overshadowed by Dustin Johnson’s aversion to reading rules sheets. When he subsequently tried to make himself into a better player - the pressure of competitive golf, especially in the Tiger Woods Era - he lost his way. Out of sight, out of mind. The next thing we knew, Kaymer came in from the bullpen to sink a winning putt at the Ryder Cup and last month, he broke from the gate fast and rode a first-round 63 to victory at The Players. 

This U.S. Open gives him two major titles. He’s halfway to the career Grand Slam, as is Rory McIlroy. He’s got two significant titles this year. Even bigger, perhaps, was the way he dominated at Pinehurst. He didn't look like the best player in the game, he pretty much looked like the best player of all time. 

At least, compared to everyone else.

We didn't fully appreciate the man because he was No. 1 for about an hour-and-a-half.  This was a stunning achievement, but it's profoundly silly to even type things like "best player of all time."  I'll concede that if we were choosing up sides for a match, Martin would be my first pick....this week.  But next week it might be Lydia Ko.

The weirdest story of the week had to be this altercation involving Roger Maltbie's cart driver:

The man who drove NBC Sports analyst Roger Maltbie's golf cart during the third round of the

U.S. Open is facing four charges after an incident with a state trooper on the course, a North Carolina State Police spokeswoman said Sunday. 

According to a police report, Tommy Lineberry was charged with felony assault on a law enforcement officer, felony hit and run, driving while impaired, and resisting, obstructing and delaying a law enforcement officer.

If driving a golf cart under the influence is a felony, we're gonna have to cancel all those Member-Guests.   Read the full description at the link, which as typical in these cases omits the name of the oh-so-sensitive Trooper, but see if you don't think this is a bit of an over-reaction, considering it's a golf tournament:

The trooper ran after and then collared Lineberry, quickly placing him in handcuffs.

Sheesh!

Justin Rose made a birdie putt on the 18th green and gave us an homage to Payne.  What I loved most about the moment though, was the volunteer in the blue shirt behind the green who instinctively joined in.  Good stuff...

I'll give Nick Masuda an Unplayable Lies shout-out for most ridiculous comparison in discussing Matthew

A Pinehurst pose as famous as Payne's.

Fitzpatrick:

1. But maybe the most impressive name he is now associated with is perhaps the greatest amateur golfer to ever live: Bobby Jones. 
2. Fitzpatrick became the first amateur golfer since Jones in 1930 to simultaneously hold the low-amateur honors at both the U.S. Open and Open Championship.

OK, Bobby no doubt had the low score in those events because he won them....The world has turned a few times since then, and low Am doesn't have quite the resonance that it used to.  In fact, often times no amateur makes the cut, so it's now more akin to Miss Congeniality, but let's see how the young man's professional career plays out.

So, what did we think of the golf course?  For reasons that elude me, Coleman McDowell fills us in on one television viewer's opinion:

Donald Trump is not a fan of the Coore/Crenshaw redesign of Pinehurst No. 2 that has taken the Donald Ross course back to its original design. 

Trump tweeted several thoughts about the new layout including how horrible it looked on television and how Trump Bedminster and the Blue Monster were superior tracks. The addition of native areas throughout the course has taken the venue away from thick rough and green as far as the eye could see to sandy wiregrass plants and brown. The changes were widely regarded as positive, but Trump isn't afraid to be a contrarian with his opinions.

OK, so The Donald isn't a fan of the wild, unkempt look...I get it. But then, how do we explain this?

If you're interested in a more thoughtful take on the venue, then you can't do much better than Brad Klein (though whoever wrote the headline obviously didn't read the short piece):

Now, 37 years later, I've just finished watching and covering the 2014 U.S. Open. In those intervening years I’ve been here many times, including 100 or so days researching the biography I wrote, “Discovering Donald Ross.” Every time I come here, I marvel at the place and how it’s evolved. And now, after Martin Kaymer’s runaway win in this championship, I’m amazed once again at how raw and bony and scruffy and baked out the place looks and plays. 

And I hope that folks watching don’t dismiss it as some fad. I hope that they embrace the revolution of this firm, fast, linksland in the pines.

The purist in me doesn't love his use of the term linklsland, as the grasses are so different that it's still very much an air game.  But you have to love his comments about Johnny:

Johnny Miller apparently opined that Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who did the restoration of the Pinehurst No. 2 course four years ago, should next take on the task of rebuilding these greens, as they've become too severe. Miller is one of the most interesting voices in golf these days. I've never heard anyone who comes close to being alternatively brilliant and completely idiotic within a matter of minutes. So I've come to expect stuff like that from him. 

Sure, these greens are severe. Too severe. That’s their point. They are a little more pronounced than Ross designed them in 1935 when he converted these putting surfaces from sand to turfgrass.

This sad reality we've created is that in order to contain the best players in the world, the course set-up has to be extreme.  That can be accomplished through narrow fairways, deep rough, firm and fast greens, severely-contoured greens and wind, and you probably need two or three of the above to keep the winning score in single digits under par.  

I'll try to control the golf existentialism for now, but my thought process as I watch is whether it's reasonably fair (to Tom Doak, fair is the "F" word) in the aggregate and does it allow the guys to play interesting golf.  For me, there's nothing more dreadfully soporific than watching player after player gouge out of deep rough, which is a big part of why I loved the new Pinehurst No. 2.  I know some folks were put off by the ease of recovery from the waste areas, somewhat the result of the dry conditions prior to the Open, but that's a far better fit with these admittedly severe greens than the alternative.

Plus, it's just a great look for a golf course, and has the added benefit of dramatically reducing water usage and no doubt labor inputs as well.  

Having the ladies around for the Sunday festivities was an unexpected, at least to me, benefit of the back-to-back Opens.  We saw them together on the range and putting green, and Sandra Gal was one of the first to congratulate Kaymer after he finished.  And it gives this fanboy an excuse to run yet another item about the lovely Lydia Ko:

Lydia taking video of Phil.  Last names not needed.

Lydia Ko was at the U.S. Open on Saturday, but she had trouble seeing much of the action amidst the huge galleries at Pinehurst No. 2. 

"I'm shorter than most people," the 5-foot-5 Ko said with a laugh.

That won't be a problem Sunday. 

Ko, the third-ranked female golfer in the world, is one of the many LPGA players who will be roaming the grounds with an inside-the-ropes badge for the final round. Her first order of business? Shadow Phil Mickelson.

That's great that they let them inside the ropes.  

Looking forward, Phil remains ever the optimist:

The sunny-side up Mickelson pointed to the next five U.S. Opens, where he feels he will have "three or four really good chances" to win the elusive title – even if his recent track record says otherwise.

Those sites would be Chambers Bay, Oakmont, Erin Hills, Shinnecock Hills and Pebble Beach, none of which would seem to suit Phil's game anywhere as well as Pinehurst.  Long ago I predicted that if he didn't win on No. 2, that he'd never get his U.S. Open.  No reason for me to reconsider that, especially with the current state of Phil's game.

And next year brings us an even more radical departure from past U.S. Open venues, a genuine links.  James Achenbach  quotes Ryan Moore, who lives ten minutes from Chambers Bay and will have a home game:

"It's a beautiful, amazing piece of property," Moore said. "It is pretty close to a traditional links

course, although it has an elevation change – 70 or 80 feet – that's different from what we play over in the UK.

"I think a lot of people are going to love it, and a lot of people are going to hate it. They absolutely can make it tough enough for the U.S. Open. They can make it unplayable if they want.

"It is a very demanding golf course. There are a lot of fescue areas. They will stretch it to 7,800 yards at sea level. The temperature could potentially be 55-65 degrees. There shouldn't be a ton of wind, but I'm guessing there will be a breeze of 10-15 mph."

Linksland does tend towards the flatter, though similar elevation changes aren't unheard of.  But let's hope he's understating the wind...