Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Tuesday Trifles

In which we reheat some U.S. Open leftovers, then pivot back to a few other bits.

The Open - Further Reflections - We'll lead with a couple of prototypical Day 2 stories, not least of which is Daniel Rappaport's ambitious portfolio of eighteen (Gee, why that number?) parting thoughts, leading with this bit on Rahm's discipline:

1: We start, as always, with the winner. As mentioned above, Rahm’s victory resembles a Hollywood script for a number of reasons. But we’re going to focus on something far less romantic: the distinctly unemotional decision he made in the most crucial moment.

Rahm was tied for the lead as he sent his second shot into the green on the par-5 18th hole. His ball kicked pretty hard right before resting on a downslope of the bunker, with the green sloping away from him and toward a water hazard. The temptation there is to try to nip a spinner right at the flag and leave yourself a kick-in birdie. As one of the better bunker players on Earth, Rahm is absolutely capable of that shot. But it’s also a hugely risky undertaking, for the consequences of a not-perfect shot could be dire.

It’s so difficult to think of the negative in that moment. Rahm had just gutted a winding birdie putt on 17 and screamed at the top of his lungs when it dropped. His veins were overflowing with adrenaline. He’d waited his whole life for this moment, an up-and-down birdie to likely win the U.S. Open … and he had the discipline to pull himself out of dreamland and acknowledge that he might not hit that bunker shot perfect—and if he doesn’t, he brings disaster into play.

So he made the mature if unsexy decision, played safely right of the flag, eliminated the water from the equation and gave himself an 18-footer for birdie. He’s not likely to hole that putt—the PGA Tour make percentage from that distance is roughly 17 percent—but he made sure he had a birdie look, which is what made it the smart choice from a probability standpoint. He wasn’t taking a knee or accepting par; he made the decision that gave him the best chance to make the lowest score considering all possible outcomes from the bunker shot. Of course, it looked genius when the putt fell in dead-center, but it was the right call either way. Little moments like those often serve as the differentiator in a 72-hole event, and Rahm handled a high-leverage situation perfectly.

I think that's right, if a bit overly generous in its praise of the Spaniard because it ignores the fact that every contender, save King Louis, had coughed up shots by the bushelful.  Everyone was backing up so quickly that there was a moment when Harris English posting -3 looked...well, interesting.  Rahm wanted that birdie, but it wasn't clear that he would need it.

Most interesting is to compare it with this guy:

2: That’s now six runner-up finishes at majors for Louis Oosthuizen, and along with his playoff loss to Bubba Watson at the 2012 Masters, this one might sting most. The shot he hit on the 17th tee—a pull into the hazard when there were acres and acres of turf right of the fairway—will not soon fade from his memory.

In turn, his reputation for near-misses only grows, which is equal parts amazing and unfortunate. One does not simply rack up seven top-two finishes in majors; that’s the same number Brooks Koepka has, and more than Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy. Oosthuizen is an incredible player who shows up time and again in the sport’s biggest events, but we’re running out of justifications for his down-the-stretch tumbles. That he still hasn’t won a PGA Tour event since the 2010 Open Championship remains one of the crazier realities in golf.

Is it crazy?   Remember yesterday's discussion of that 17th hole tee shot, in which Oosty felt he had to aggressively flirt with the hazard line (and which, after the fact, he said he'd do again), and compare to Rahm's decision on No. 18 discussed above.  As experienced as he is, Oosty clearly misread his situation and pressed at a juncture when he had no need to do so, so I would posit that all those near misses might be explainable after all.

Some thoughts on where we go from here:

5: On Saturday night, I received the following text from a player at Torrey: “Bryson is going to win this. And it’s gonna be like this for years if they don’t change the setup a bit.” A tad fatalistic, perhaps, but it does speak to a growing trend at the U.S. Open.

Last year, Winged Foot played straight into the bombers’ hands. Those fairways were nearly impossible to hit, and when everyone is constantly in the rough, being closer is simply a massive advantage. Torrey’s fairways weren’t quite so hard to find—the kikuyu gives them that soft first bounce, and they’re not as canted—and while some non-bombers were able to hang this week, it felt like no coincidence that Rahm, Bryson, Brooks, Wolff, Rory and Co. bashed their way into contention. The identity of this championship, as Paul Azinger pointed out ad nauseum, has shifted from accuracy-first to power-first. It’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, but it’s a true thing, and it’ll be fascinating to see the setups at The Country Club next year and Los Angeles Country Club in 2023. Rough doesn’t feature quite so prominently at either of those courses, but in the post-Chambers Bay, post-Erin Hills years, the USGA has stuck with a narrow-fairway-brutal-rough-formula. We’ll see if it continues.

I never thought the Open could return to either Merion or The Country Club, so we can only hope that Brookline is more successful than Philly was...  But with the distance these guys are sending it, there aren't many set-up options left, and God forbid they get wet weather...

 But this is a surprisingly good promo for July:

6: Despite his back-nine implosion, DeChambeau has mastered the art—er, science?—of bomb-and-gouge. If that name offends you, we’ll go with bomb-and-reassess. Becoming a beefed-up
Bryson wasn’t just about adding speed and distance, but also vowing to fully commit to a new strategy. It’s not just that he’s hitting it farther, it’s that he hits driver wherever it’s even semi-feasible. The data supports this strategy. You wallop driver off the tee. If you find the fairway, you attack. If you don’t, you shift your focus to making par. And DeChambeau is able to do this better than basically anyone for two main reasons. One, his sheer strength allows him to muscle balls out of rough that other guys cannot. Two, his single-length irons mean his wedge and short irons are longer than most, allowing him to get some extra speed and steepness into the ball, which are crucial to rescuing balls from calf-high cabbage.

And while it may not be the most aesthetically pleasing method to make your way around a golf course, nor is it the type of game Bobby Jones or Ben Hogan played, it’s paying huge dividends at tough courses with penal rough. Places like Winged Foot and Torrey Pines, yes, but also Bay Hill, where DeChambeau won earlier this year. How it’ll work at Royal St. George’s, where the wind is always a factor, is anyone’s guess. We have yet to see Beefy Bryson bring his experiment to a links course, and the juxtaposition between the ancient courses and his distinctly modern game present a fascinating dynamic.

That will be interesting, as there are some interesting spots to search for golf balls at RSG... Just ask Tiger, and he at least had the full five minutes to look for his.

Rappaport has some interesting "Inside Golf" thoughts that he shares.  For instance, this does seem unfair, though I don't know what one does about it:

14: An interesting, inside-golf problem that could use addressing. A number of Korn Ferry players were in the field this week and did not receive any Korn Ferry Tour points for their performance. This may sound like the obvious outcome—the U.S. Open is not a Korn Ferry Tour event—but should guys really be punished for playing their way into a major?

Consider Taylor Montgomery, who got into the field through the Southern California qualifying site. He came into this week ranked No. 24 on the KFT points list, with the top 25 getting PGA Tour cards at the end of the regular season in August. Montgomery made the cut in the U.S. Open. And he dropped to No. 28 on the KFT list because he didn’t play in the tournament that was going on simultaneously in Wichita, Kan. The same is true for Dylan Wu, who came into the week at No. 28 on the KFT, finished T-31 at Torrey, and will be further from his PGA Tour card come Monday morning. This feels like a no brainer; create some points scale to award players who get into majors and play well in them.

Similarly, I'd guess that they don't get Corn Fairy points when they qualify for a PGA Tour event.  

And this age old dilemma:

15: Announcers can’t stop, won’t stop saying “this, from a minute ago.” It’s a reasonable thing to say if journalistic integrity is your No. 1 goal. But this is entertainment, and every time a broadcaster says that we know something is about to happen. If it’s a guy way out of contention putting from 60 feet, you know it’s going down. If it’s a shot from the fairway, you know it’s going to flirt with the flag. A huge part of what makes watching sports on TV so fun is not knowing what’s going to happen. So, stop telling us this was from a moment a go. Lie to us. We’re giving you permission to do so. For entertainment’s sake.

I've never had an objection to the plausibly live thing, though even without the disclaimer, we know that if they're showing Joe Rabbit's 60-footer, it's dropping.

Dylan Dethier uses his Monday Finish column to share ten scenes that weren't on the broadcast:

1. The pitch-black range session

This one’s from earlier in the week, but worth a note: Bryson DeChambeau hit balls on Thursday night until it was absolutely pitch-black. I don’t mean the ball was hard to see. I mean everything was hard to see. There were no lights. There was an illuminated leaderboard for a while, but then that flickered off, too. DeChambeau pounded balls into the darkness, searching for one tiny swing thought.

If you’re on Team Bryson, you’d argue that it’s the same indefatigable work ethic that propelled DeChambeau to victory at Winged Foot following a late-night range session after his Saturday round. If you’re anti-Bryson you’d call it a try-hard move that ultimately backfired and added unnecessary mental and physical strain to his week. I’m not here to tell you which side to take, but I will say the idea that DeChambeau does this as some sort of “look-at-me” gesture just doesn’t check out. He’s out there late every single time he plays a round, trying to fix whatever swing issue is weighing heavy on his mind. Solving riddles. That’s how he operates.

So, it's a floor cleaner and a dessert topping?

And this interesting take on the ongoing cage match:

5. The “Brooksy!” Cheers

There’s something interesting about the dynamic in the Brooks-Bryson rivalry. On the internet, Koepka seems to have a higher approval rating. That may be true in person, too. But at tournaments, DeChambeau goes out of his way to engage with the fans. He likes being a showman. He’ll crack jokes he hopes people can hear and enjoys pulling driver knowing people will cheer and generally, when he’s outside the tunnel-vision focus of his shots, seeks the crowd’s approval. Koepka has no such intention; he coasts along, occasionally acknowledging the crowd but rarely interacting.

As a result, the in-person polling goes something like this: DeChambeau is beloved but polarizing. Koepka is admired but standoffish.

There’s no question that DeChambeau catches more snide comments from the spectators, though. All week, he seemed to do his best to embrace the “Let’s go Brooksy!” cheers. But I couldn’t help but think as he played the 18th hole on Sunday, fresh off a quadruple-bogey 8 at No. 17, it must have been a little tougher to hear them coming home. That’s going to be the enduring challenge of this rivalry — dealing with it when things aren’t going well on the course.

But, to borrow from Don Draper, that’s what the money’s for.

OK, first and foremost, isn't it "Brooksie", as opposed to "Brooksy"?  Can I get a ruling?

 I've basically ignored this weird intrusion up until now, but it was certainly weird:

7. The fan on the field

I was up by the 13th green when a shirtless man appeared in the distance, jogging down the fairway. Even without the appearance of a pseudo-streaker the hole had been the nuttiest of the day, yielding birdies and doubles at seemingly equal rates down the stretch. After witnessing an impressive cart dismount and tackle from one nearby officer, I made it back to the scene of the crime, where one gentleman happily sent me the video he’d taken of the incident. Here it is:

And this from a different angle:

A pretty sweet swing, no?

Shack had this background in his Quadrilateral newsletter:

The Streaker(ish)

While Bryson DeChambeau was giving kikuyu a nice push a grown man ran out into play to promote an end to homophobia. While not nude, he was clad in a rainbow themed shawl and did a dance. Heck of backswing, too.

Melanie Dinjaski wrote that “golf fans online didn't take long to work out who the barefoot streaker wearing a rainbow flag, boob tube, board shorts and flat cap was - YouTube and Instagram celebrity, Connor Murphy.”

Murphy has a half million Instagram followers and 2.4 million subscribers on YouTube. Just the kind of inclusive influencer the USGA would pay to act excited about the campaigns if he wasn’t quite so influential. He might not be one to tout the E Pluribus stuff, either.

You could almost come to the conclusion that people are weird...

This gets my vote for strangest article of the day:

U.S. Open 2021: Louis Oosthuizen’s seconds are adding up, but his heart hasn't been broken like other near-miss major winners

It's often the case that the writers of such articles don't write their headers, which one assumes to be the case here.  I make said assumption because the article itself recounts the major heartbreaks of Doug Sanders, Mike Donald and Rocco mediate, with only this mention of King Louis in the final 'graph:

I thought about that briefly on Sunday when seeing the look on Louis Oosthuizen’s face after he had finished second in a major for the sixth time. A moment before he holed his final, but meaningless, birdie putt on Torrey Pines’ 18th hole, NBC’s Dan Hicks commented that only two active players had more second-place finishes in majors than Oosthuizen: Phil Mickelson with 11 (including six at the U.S. Open) and Tiger Woods with seven. Of course, Mickelson won six majors and Woods won 15, so that has to dull the pain of those runner-up finishes considerably (Mickelson’s Winged Foot meltdown in 2006 aside, perhaps). There’s also Jack Nicklaus who had 19 second-place finishes. The 18 major wins no doubt dulled that pain considerably.

So, the evidence for the fact that his heart wasn't broken?  

More importantly, might the fact that his heart wasn't broken be part of the problem?  The knock on guys like Louis and Paul Casey might be that they're all too comfortable as bridesmaids.... But that interesting subject is not dealt with here.

 The dyspeptic Shack (as per Alan Shipnuck) had some thoughts on the NBC telecast:

A great overall day for NBC in attempting to cover a leaderboard which, at 2 p.m., saw 10 players tied or within a stroke of the lead. Dan Hicks was in command of the proceedings and the analysts did solid work enhancing the drama while analyzing decisions. Because of the rapid fire proceedings, we heard very few player-caddie chats and seemingly less from the on-course reporters. Though there were key contributions from Bones Mackay (explaining the streaker situation) and Roger Maltbie (on the Hughes ball-in-tree mess). All in all should be a big rating given the mid-round excitement and audience coming for swimming.

Other random stuff:

  • Do they have 20 cameras on the 18th green? It was another incredible and historic replay sequence, this time of Rahm’s birdie putt. It reinforced how Tommy Roy and Tom Randolph’s team has mastered the big moments. Just like Tiger’s putt in 2008, the different views kept coming and I don’t think we even saw the pond-cam replay? An amazing moment in golf history made better by the production team’s skill. Hopefully Comcast goes easy on those second and third beers put on the expense tab.
  • As feared, the lack of a 24/7 on-screen leaderboard at all times made it impossible to follow the number of players in contention.

I don't know about that.  The on-screen leaderboard works best when there's a small number of names shown.  I don't know that it's helpful when you have ten or more guys bunched within a shot or two.

  • For the final twosome, first tee announcer Bob Ford handed the mic to retiring USGA CEO Davis. This came on top of an early show tribute produced by the USGA, then followed by a booth visit where Davis was asked about the Jungle Bird moment and handled it well. But after Davis announced Oosthuizen and Hughes, there was a noticeable lack of acknowledgement by NBC regarding of the first tee lameness. That spoke volumes about an unprofessional attention grab.
  • NBC’s camera team did yeoman’s work trailing the amped-up Rahm off the 18th green. The eventual winner practically ran around the clubhouse area looking for a place to watch the conclusion, before going in a USGA trailer, then turning around and heading to the range after described as in “non-stop motion” by Hicks.
  • Speaking of cameras, NBC’s all-day effort was incredible given the stubborn grey skies making ball-tracking a tougher task. There were only one or two loose shots and so many great moments captured from all the right angles.
  • The initial coverage on Golf Channel and early hours on NBC was technically fine but felt like a tour event obligated to show shots and fill a broadcast window. Almost no imagination was shown in how to better set the final round table, particularly since the greens were noticeably firmer. We did not need Justin Leonard’s thoughts on whether he liked to play with a marker or not. DFL talk at a major? Good grief. 😴

I'm old enough to remember when Clifford Roberts didn't want us to see the front nine at Augusta, but a ten hour broadcast window?   A tad excessive, no?

But Shack is truly and justifiably dyspeptic about this epic fail:

The Trophy Ceremony Flyover

When they had 43 meetings to discuss this masculine show of Merican might, you have to wonder if anyone asked…

A) Can the organization known for Jungle Bird and still mopping up after Diana Murphy-helmed ceremonies really pull this off?

B) Given the already tight schedule for our friends at NBC, can we be sure the jets will be on time?

C) What if the jets don’t show up and we stand around awkwardly before a massive prime time audience that tuned in for swimming trials?

D) All of the above

Following Davis’ grand setup for F-18’s to flyover the trophy ceremony in a show of American military might, he turned to see nothing in the vicinity. We waited, then waited and watched Jon Rahm standing awkwardly before finally, after 25 seconds someone figured out it the jets were stuck in traffic.

“They’ll make their presence felt shortly here at Torrey Pines,” Steve Sands predicted before handing things over to USGA President Stu Francis to keep the ceremony moving.

Finally, almost two minutes after Davis pointed to the sky and as Francis teed up the crowd to cheer Davis on his way out the door, Sands went all Hervé Villechaize on us and announced da planes were coming.

Who doesn't love a gratuitous shout-out to Diana "Open Bar" Murphy?  let's face it, trophy ceremonies just haven't been the same since her term ended.

Eamon Lynch posts on Mike Davis' swan song, leading with this historic framing device:

On his last day, I met Davis in his makeshift office overlooking the 18th fairway, where in a few
hours he will oversee the crowning of the U.S. Open champion. His final day at the USGA will be more thrilling than his first in 1989. That was spent in an equipment trailer sorting through the magnetic components of the leaderboard to be used for the following year’s Open at Medinah; first the As, Bs and Cs, then the 1s, 2s, and 3s. Back then, players competing in the Open still had to pay $25 a week to the host club professional for range balls.

“I remember Jack Nicklaus writing a check,” Davis recalled, almost in disbelief. “But hey, they got half-price food so that was a good deal.” When he assumed more responsibility for running the U.S. Open at Baltusrol in ’93, the charges for balls and food ceased. That’s probably the last move Davis made that was universally praised by players at the U.S. Open.

So, what might Davis legacy be?  It's a tough one, beginning with his famous set-up fiasco's:

There has been plenty of Open drama during his tenure, of course. Not all for the right reasons. The rules fiasco that marred Dustin Johnson’s march to victory at Oakmont in ’16—a lengthy period during which the USGA was spit-roasted on social media and its leadership was AWOL—still stings. So too Shinnecock Hills in ’04, which became shorthand for mismanaging course conditions at an Open, a recurring theme of the Davis era. Were those the worst days? I asked. He shook his head.

“The day at Hazeltine in ’91 when we had people struck by lightning and somebody died,” he replied. “That was easily the worst day. All the other stuff goes away.”

There has been a lot of “other stuff,” an almost unbroken stream of criticism, much of it warranted, some of it reflexive griping by self-appointed Cassandras prophesying doom for the game. Complaints from players ran off his back as surely as water bounced off that 7th green at Shinnecock. “It’s been there going back a hundred years,” he said.

To me, his legacy will ultimately be determined by the outcome of the distance debate, which I suspect he gets as well:

He once asked Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer why that was during a dinner at Arnie’s house in Latrobe. “Their view was players in U.S. Opens have always been on edge because it’s set up so hard and they don’t like it when they feel like they’re not going to be made to look good,” he said. “There’s something to that. I think you can add on the governance part. People in this world do not like to be governed.”

There’s actually a healthy constituency in golf that has issues with a lack of governance, specifically as it relates to equipment advances and the increased distances players are hitting the ball. “If I have a regret of what I didn’t do, I wish this distance initiative had been further along,” he admitted.

And whose fault would that be?  This is a longer subject best deferred to a later time, but I fear that his abdication on the equipment issues will tarnish that legacy.  And, to be fair, it probably should...

Olympic Fever - That's a wrap, as the Olympic Golf Teams have been set in stone....  Yeah, OK, it is only an individual contest so there's no team, and it's set in stone only until players start dropping out but still, you're excited, right?

The full qualified field can be found here, but I'll just post the bottom thirty:

31. Thomas Pieters
32. Kalle Samooja
33. Matthias Schwab
34. Rasmus Hojgaard
35. Sami Valimaki
36. Jazz Janewattananond
37. Jhonattan Vegas
38. Francesco Molinari
39. Henrik Norlander
40. Rafa Cabrera Bello
41. Mito Pereira
42. Joachim B Hansen
43. Rory Sabbatini
44. Sepp Straka
45. Joost Luiten
46. Ryan Fox
47. C.T. Pan
48. Adrian Meronk
49. Maximilian Kieffer
50. Juvic Pagunsan
51. Wil Besseling
52. Ondrej Lieser
53. Scott Vincent
54. Gunn Charoenkul
55. Hurly Long
56. Fabrizio Zanotti
57. Rafael Campos
58. Gavin Kyle Green
59. Carl Yuan
60. Kristian K Johannessen

If you weren't excited previously, I'm sure you are now... C'mon, Juvic Pagunsan!  Not to mention Hurly Long!  Does it get any better than this?

Of course the best story buried within is Rory Sabbatini, who qualifies as a citizen of Slovakia...  Yeah, it's great when we see them gaming the system.

The powers that be have bequeathed us a dreadfully boring format with a strength of field that compares favorably to the Hero World Challenge.  Place the event on the other side of the world in the middle of a jam-packed schedule of big dollar events, and watch the guys squirm.  Having created such a mess, how can you pile on and make it even worse?  I think we have an answer:

Q. Secondly, I'm assuming you're going to go to the Olympics since you're qualified. Is that true?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: That is a decision -- my goal was to try to win this. I haven't really reached. I knew I had to try and qualify for the team. It was getting really bunched up with everyone behind me. I haven't really made a decision yet. It's something I was going to decide tonight or tomorrow morning.

Q. What would keep you away if you decide not to go?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Logistics are tricky. There's no opening ceremony, no experience of Japan. You're kind of locked down in your hotel. You can't go and see other venues or events. In terms of an actual Olympics, obviously, you're playing for some hardware, some gold medals and what not, but the overall experience, which I hear is really cool, isn't going to be there in Japan this year.

I don't know why any of them would go, except perhaps to avoid the pushback.

Scenes From Augusta -  In the last week, images have appeared indicating a substantial amount of work being done on the 11th and 15th holes at Augusta National.  I'm not sure I fully understand what's being done, but let's start with this image of the 11th hole:

Here's Geoff's brief description:

Eureka Earth has posted another photo of the major work taking place to sand-cap and update Augusta National, with the latest view showing what appears to be the start of a new back tee at the 11th hole (very upper right corner of Eureka’s image).

Currently 505 yards, a more cynical mind might conclude the club is not expecting a distance rollback any time soon.

At least Mike Davis is disappointed that we're not further along on the distance issue....  But the reality on the ground is that we're adding distance to Par-4's that are already 500+ yards long.  There no longer seems to be any limiting factor...

In this image from Eureka Earth they seem to have removed some of the trees added by Hootie up the right side of the hole:

About which Geoff adds this:

Looks like two trees remain judging by the well around them and the sand-capping work happening on the rest of the hole. Certainly progress in terms of restoring the old hole width and likely to produce some daring recovery shots. Not as far as some would go but this is exciting!

Here I'm not really sure what we're seeing:

I gather it's a new back tee on No. 15:

But the big ticket item: what appears to be a new back tee on the 15th hole based on the long platform extending into the 11th. Plus lots of sandcapping work elsewhere in the vicinity, including possibly around the 14th green.

The 11th tee shot will be impacted by this new tee, but barring new plantings or old ones coming back—it’s Augusta National after all—it looks like there is a dwindling tree population down the right side compared to the 2019 view below. I can’t quite figure out the carry number to get past the clump of pines remaining, but it would appear drives of a certain distance will be met with a much wider landing area.

I’m trying to contain my excitement until we know more but this is…exciting, unless trees are sitting in boxes just out of view.

It seems that the Lords of Augusta are also disappointed that Mike Davis isn't further along with the distance issue, but they're not holding their breath.

 As a wise man once said:

“The Old Course at St Andrews, the home of golf, is different, because the course isn’t as long and the greens are pretty easy to putt and don’t have nearly as much slope,” Azinger said. “Augusta’s greens are frightfully fast, and they can stick the pins two paces from the edge.

“Augusta can always be defended. St Andrews is in trouble.”

The fruits of our lack of governance might be on full display in July 2022.  I could see why Mike Davis might not have wanted to stick around for that....

I'm not sure exactly when, but I will be back with more later in the week.

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Monday, June 21, 2021

Weekend Wrap - Rahmbolicious Edition

I saw very little of the Open from Thursday through Saturday, but curtailed our family celebration of Fathers Day in order to pick up the final round with the last group on the fourth green.  Veddy interesting...

Rahmbo Resurgent - Quite the ball-striking clinic, though I'm not at all sure I get the reference to Beyonce's girl group:

Jon Rahm: Destiny's Child at the 121st U.S. Open

SAN DIEGO – Jon Rahm is a big believer in karma.

Fifteen days after he was informed that he had tested positive and had to withdraw from the PGA Tour’s Memorial Tournament despite holding a commanding six-stroke lead, the 26-year-old Spaniard sensed that the 121st U.S. Open at Torrey Pines belonged to him.

“It felt like such a fairy tale story that I knew it was going to have a happy ending. I could just tell, just going down the fairway after that first tee shot, that second shot, and that birdie, I knew there was something special in the air. I could just feel it. I just knew it,” he said. “It was like, man, this is my day; everything’s going to go right. I felt like that helped me become. I just knew that I could do it and believed it.”

One underappreciated challenge in these circumstances is managing the interminable period before weekend tee times.  The leaders go late, and there's just way too much time to fill without those dark thoughts creeping in.  You'd be excused if you thought he might spend the time with his infant son, but the reality was quite different:

Rahm woke up to crows on a cool overcast Father’s Day morning, his first time celebrating the occasion as a father, and poured himself a cup of coffee and pulled up a Call of Duty tournament from the night before featuring a team he follows, OpTic Chicago, and settled in to watch the 90-minute competition. Wife Kelley had noticed that he had been nervous the day before – which for Rahm means being quiet – but today she sensed a new-found calm on what would be a chaotic final round at the U.S. Open.

“I told my dad this is going to be really good or really bad,” Kelley said.

 These kids today.... But a first person shooting video game as relaxation therapy, who knew?

The Tour Confidential gang has some thoughts on the winner:

1. Jon Rahm won his first major in electric fashion, dropping hard-breaking birdie putts on the 71st and 72nd holes of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines to beat Louis Oosthuizen by one. Which part of Rahm’s game most powered him to this come-from-behind win?

The easy answer would be all of it... 

Zephyr Melton: His patience. Prior to his back-to-back birdie finish, Rahm made seven pars in a row to open the back nine. With Louis Oosthuizen opening a two-shot lead, Rahm could’ve pressed and made some sloppy bogeys. Instead, he waited until the time was right and pulled out some clutch putts down the stretch.

I think that's right.  As well as he was playing and was in control of his game, for most of the day he seemed a shot or two off where he needed to be, but never seemed to feel the need to force the issue. 

Josh Sens,: Rahm was a five-tool player today. Drove the ball beautifully. Spot-on irons. Unforgettably clutch putts. And some really deft chipping when it mattered (that up-and-down on the par-3 3rd kept his momentum going early). The capper was the patience Zephyr mentioned, which was maybe most evident on his second-to-last shot. Opting not to play aggressively on that bunker shot on 18 and choosing to trust his flat stick — that took a cool-minded maturity he hasn’t always shown.

I have a feeling that he was lucky to have no realistic play at the flag from that bunker.  And, having seen the demolition derby that broke out among the show ponies, better to post -5 and see if it might be good enough to get into a playoff, only to make the putt. 

Sean Zak: His ball-striking. Did he miss a shot Sunday? From the first wedge into 1, to the tight little nipped spinner into 2, to all the approaches to 20 feet on the back nine. The guy hit every shot well. Even the one on 18 that landed in the greenside bunker.

I didn't see the early round shots that Sean and Josh reference, but he had his ball on a string with his driver. 

Alan Bastable: Supreme ball-strking and shot-making are almost a given with this guy. What
really impressed me Sunday was his relative calm. Staying collected in the heat of battle has long been Rahm’s bugaboo, and while he showed some frustration after burning the edge on 14, he didn’t let it unravel him. Not much dropped for him through the first 54 holes and deep into the fourth round, but he stayed patient, because, he said, he knew the putts would come — and come they did, in the most critical moments of all.

Dylan Dethier: His putter. Without those two bombs on 17 and 18, we’re talking about King Louis, U.S. Open champion. Putt for dough and all that.

Those putts reminded me of Justin Rose's putter heater in the late stages of his match against Phil at the 2012 Ryder Cup... 

James Colgan: His maturity. In what world is the Jon Rahm of the past few years resisting the urge to do something crazy as he toils away with pars while trailing down the back nine? He’s grown a lot, and his performance Sunday showed it.

 And specifically on that finish:

2. Put Rahm’s last two holes in perspective. Where do they rank among the clutch finishes in recent major history?

Melton: It’s the best since … December, when A Lim Kim made three straight birdies at Champions Golf Club to close out a similarly impressive U.S. Women’s Open win.

So, it's right up there with a Women's Open that know one will remember won by a player no one has heard of?  I got nothing here, though I'd love to ask his employer what exactly qualifies him for his current position? 

Sens: It was up there. On the cool-under-pressure front, it’s hard to forget Dustin Johnson, playing under the cloud of a potential penalty at Oakmont. And closing it out with some ridiculously macho ball-striking.

Zak: It’s extremely up there. It had been some time since the men’s game saw a clutch, major-winning putt of any length on 18. And somehow that followed a better putt on 17. Considering Louis’ finish, too … they’re connected.

Bastable: I’m not ready to put it up against Tiger’s Torrey Open finish in 2008 — partly because of Tiger’s physical condition and partly because Tiger knew he had to make that putt — but, gosh, it sure felt similar, from the length of the putt to Rahm’s dropped jaw and fist-pump. Also, the difficulty of Rahm’s putts should not be understated. Big left-to-right swingers for a righty are always a big ask. Add the unpredictability of poa and, well, color me impressed.

Dethier: It’s funny, Rahm’s putts were long enough that it almost feels beyond the realm of simple skill that they went in. There’s some luck involved there too, right? I’m not sure if that makes them more or less clutch, but they were damn impressive either way. I was especially impressed with Rahm’s decision to take his medicine at 18 — a decision that obviously paid off.

Yeah, hence my analogizing it to Rose at Medinah, where the putts dropping seemingly had to be the work of a higher authority. 

Colgan: They’re on the short list of putts I’ve stood up from my couch and yelled because of. That seems like it’s worth something to me.

Almost as interesting as his play was his activity after he finished, though perhaps another Call of Duty session might have helped.  In his notes on NBC's coverage, Shack had this:

NBC’s camera team did yeoman’s work trailing the amped-up Rahm off the 18th green. The eventual winner practically ran around the clubhouse area looking for a place to watch the conclusion, before going in a USGA trailer, then turning around and heading to the range after described as in “non-stop motion” by Hicks.

This was a nice moment as well:

After the putt clanged into the hole and Rahm did some gyrations on the green he repaired to the driving range to keep loose in the event of a playoff. But Oosthuizen gave up the ghost on 17, hooking his drive into the hazard and making a bogey that left yet another glittering trophy just beyond his reach. Rahm won the U.S. Open standing on the range and he fell into a teary embrace with his wife Kelley and their young son Kepa. Beaming nearby was Phil Mickelson himself, who had returned to the course to be there for his friend, just as Rahm had waited on the fringe of the 18th green to congratulate Lefty last month when he won the PGA Championship.

“We’ve played a lot of golf together,” Mickelson said, “and supported each other and it’s a unique dynamic where we want the best for each other as opposed to always trying to beat each other down.”

The NBC crew seemed to go out of their way to avoid the cruel irony, though this account touches upon it:

Yes, as Jon Rahm closed in on his first win at the U.S. Open, the pro in closest proximity to him was perhaps the greatest golfer ever not to win a U.S. Open.

As Rahm grinded away on the range, Phil sat comfortably next to Jon’s wife, Kelley, who held the couple’s months-old son, Kepa, in her arms. Mickelson seemed sanguine — wearing a light, Alo hoodie, joggers, and a relaxed smile.

Interestingly, also not noted by the Peacock gang, was that he did more than just lend moral support:

Geez, you make the old guys do the heavy lifting?

This win was certainly only a matter of time, but the events at Memorial, as well as Rahm's love of Torrey, made him the logical choice this week.  But I like this bit from a competitor:

Rahm came to the 17th hole one stroke off the lead and left himself with a 25-footer for birdie. “I stayed patient all day,” he says. “I hadn't made many long putts all week.” But the moment had arrived, and he drained the big breaking putt, unleashing a lusty fist-pump to celebrate. Rahm’s approach shot on 18 will not go down in U.S. Open lore alongside Hogan’s 1-iron but the ensuing bunker shot to a short-sided hole location was pure class. “That showed some magical hands,” said Paul Casey, who plays a lot of golf with Rahm at Whisper Rock in Scottsdale. “The British lads, we sometimes joke about Spanish hands. He’s got them. Seve had them, Olazabal had them, but Rahm does too, this touch and feel that just can’t be taught. But unlike the others, he combines that with so much brute force in his long game. It’s quite a combination, innit?”

Spanish hands?  As I understand the current regulatory environment, that has to be racist, no?

Shall we spend some time on the losers also-rans?   The obvious issue is how to make sense of the career of Louis Oosthuizen:

U.S. Open: Louis Oosthuizen 'frustrated' and 'disappointed' after yet another runner-up finish

Louis Oosthuizen was the bridesmaid yet again.

The South African, who began the final round as one of three co-leaders, shot even-par 71 at Torrey Pines’ South Course to finish at 5-under 279, one stroke behind winner Jon Rahm at the 121st U.S. Open. It was his sixth runner-up in a major since winning the 2010 British Open nearly 11 years ago, and second straight having finished two strokes behind Phil Mickelson last month at the PGA Championship.

“Look, it’s frustrating. It’s disappointing. I’m playing good golf, but it’s not – winning a major is not just going to happen. You need to go out and play good golf,” he said. “I played good today, but I didn’t play good enough.”

Fair enough, but that choice of photos seems a tad harsh...

It so happens that this topic was a subject of conversation at dinner Saturday night, when a friend suggest, "Don't you have to love Louis and Paul Casey?".  I certainly like them well enough, especially Casey just because he's an amusing sort, but love them?  I find that hard because their careers seem defined by the inability to win.  It's admittedly a harsh, Darwinian assessment, but the fact is that they have a long history of poor play on Sundays, which makes hard to get excited when they pop up on leaderboards on Saturdays.

Louis himself had this to say about that one fateful swing:

Louis Oosthuizen says he’d do it all again. He’d take that bold line on 17, shorten the par-4 and
give himself an easy wedge and chance at a birdie, a birdie he needed to catch Jon Rahm on Sunday. A birdie (or par) on 17 that he never got.

Oosthuizen was the 54-hole co-leader of the 2021 U.S. Open, but after Rahm’s birdie-birdie finish he was tasked with making a birdie of his own coming in. After pars on Nos. 12-16, Oosthuizen stepped to the 434-yard par-5 17th one shot back. Lots of room right. Hardly any left. He went left.

Oosthuizen was forced to take a drop from the hazard, and even though he recovered well and hit the green to give himself a chance at a 4, he couldn’t get the 11-footer to fall and made bogey.

“I took the tee shot on at 17, and I knew it was a crucial hole for me to take it on and give myself a birdie opportunity,” he told reporters afterwards. “I didn’t pull it off, but standing on that tee again, I’ll probably do the same thing, taking a driver and taking the shot on.”

Louis, you ignorant slut....

Joking aside, that just seems to me to be completely misguided.  This gets at part of it:

It was a critical error, especially since the par-5 18th had played as the easiest hole on the course all week, meaning a par-birdie finish would have been good enough for a playoff.

That certainly true, but also look at how others played that tee shot on No. 17, blowing their tee balls way right into an area of burned out grass.  The point is you could make birdie on No. 17 from a lot of places, just not from the hazard on the left ( Rahm himself made birdie from a fairway bunker) .  You can make the case that Rahm won this as much with his head (think of his bunker shot on the finishing hole) as with his putter.

 Given that he tossed the thing away on the prior hole, this seems a rather silly take:

3. Oosthuizen had the lead for much of the late stages of the final round until Rahm’s closing birdies and Oosty’s 17th-hole bogey dropped Oosthuizen two back and needing an eagle on the reachable par-5 18th to force a playoff. After Oosthuizen’s drive found the left rough, he decided to lay up from 227 yards and take his chances on holing a short wedge shot. What did you make of his decision to lay up?

Melton: I don’t hate the decision to lay up considering the lie he had, but I think he pushed it a little too close to the green. I would’ve much rather seen Oosthuizen leave himself a full wedge so he could put a little more zip on the ball and bring it in from through the backdoor.

Sens: I’d have to defer to Mark Broadie on the percentages, but given that lie, and all that trouble lurking, laying up sure seemed like his best chance of making eagle.

Zak: The only reason you actually go for the green is if you can clear the water and STAY on the green, giving yourself a putt. That wasn’t happening from that lie. He made a fine decision for his game.

Bastable: [whispers] I actually thought the lie looked … decent? But, yes, who are we to question King Louis? Clearly he felt had a better chance to hole-out a wedge than whatever bunker shot or rough-choked chip he likely would have faced had he gone for it. From the stress-free comfort of my couch, though, I would have loved to see him give it a go.

Dethier: I’d have probably hacked something down the right side instead, leaving some sort of tricky flop shot that probably wouldn’t have gone in but might have had a better chance. I also probably would have hit it in the water and made 8. No real second-guessing from me.

Colgan: Hard to question the move, but frustrating for Louis (and for all of us) that we couldn’t have seen him give it a run at his own 72nd-hole magic and another playoff at Torrey.

Your humble blogger actually loves this but for reasons that aren't especially admirable, to wit, the comparisons to J.B. Holmes' epic lay-up from the Farmers in 2018.   Of course, I'm also surprised to not see Chip Beck's name being thrown around in the aftermath...

I just don't love Louis' decision here, though it's the kind of decision that's a little unfair to second guess.  I think the guys are silly to argue about the water and the trouble around the green, as that should have been the last thing on his mind in that moment.  But if you need a miracle, why hit the shot that has a zero probability of a miraculous outcome?  

But what to make of the chase pack?  The seemingly simultaneous implosion of the biggest names in golf is something I don't remember seeing since the 2002 Masters:

At U.S. Open, chaos reigned as stars imploded down the stretch

There was a moment on Sunday afternoon where the U.S. Open leaderboard went platinum. Sixty-something holes at Torrey Pines had sifted out the pretenders and left San Diego’s eager spectators with the who’s who of the golf world atop the leaderboard. At one point, 10 players were within a shot of the lead — and a fantastic back-nine shootout was sure to determine the champion.

But then mayhem broke out instead. The tournament went mental. Bad breaks and bad shots and long rough and a long week and a looming $2.25 million check combined for a cocktail of consternation. After three-and-a-half rounds of relatively uneventful golf, the fellas packed in a week’s worth of weirdness into the final couple hours. If you watch golf only for the birdies, this wasn’t your afternoon. But if you’re into pain and chaos, well, you’d found the right channel.


Where to begin?  Yeah, this might as agood a place as any:

Let’s begin with Rory McIlroy, whose day was going swimmingly through 10 holes. He’d missed a couple short birdie tries but had stayed patient and sat four under through 10 holes, one shot out of the lead. He even succeeded in finding the middle of the 11th green, a lengthy par-3 into the wind, before things took a turn.

McIlroy’s first putt seemed to bobble off the face and came to a stop some four feet short. His next putt missed left. Bogey. No worries, though: McIlroy had birdied No. 12 each of the first three days.

But it would not be four in a row. McIlroy found a fairway bunker, then a gnarly lie in a greenside bunker, then a nasty lie in the rough, from which point he hacked out to eight feet and missed the putt. His hopes of ending a seven-year major drought vanished in just one commercial break.

 I'm always loathe to pile on, but add this to the litany of tweets that didn't age well:

As I've been saying for years, Rory has been playing his worst golf when he wants it the most.  here the stars aligned reasonably well and he even solved his Thursday problems, but all squandered in the blink of an eye.

This guy was never going to win, but it's a worthy addition to the litany of worst breaks ever:

Want more? We’ve got more. Mackenzie Hughes began the day tied for the lead and was still very much in the mix as he played No. 11, a lengthy par-3 into the wind. In the mix, that is, until
he pull-hooked a 5-iron that landed — and stayed — in a tree some 40 yards left of the hole. Fans chanted “climb that tree!” A swarm of rules officials descended. Hughes did not climb the tree. He took a drop. He made double bogey. That was that.

“I mean, it’s like one-in-a-million break,” Hughes said after his round. “I’ve played golf my entire life, I’ve never had a ball stuck in a tree,” he said.

A really God-awful shot, but off-the-cart path-into-the-tree is still pretty harsh...

But while Meltdown of the Day was a very competitive category, the title without doubt goes to Bryson DeChambeau:

One slip, one shirtless fan, one ball next to a Stella Artois box, one hosel rocket, two bogeys, a
double bogey and a quadruple bogey later, he tied for 26th. It was just golf. But a lot of it. DeChambeau played his last eight holes at eight over. Before the 11th, he hadn’t made a bogey since the 12th hole on Friday. Then he made four bogeys or worse.

Some of it was bad luck. Some of it was bad play. But, DeChambeau said, “I didn’t get off the rails at all.”

“People will say I did this or did that, and it’s just golf,” he said afterward. “I’ve had plenty of times where I hit it way worse than today and I won. It’s just one of those things where I didn’t have the right breaks happen at the right time. I could have easily gotten to seven, eight under today. I just wasn’t fully confident with the golf swing and just got a little unlucky in the rough and a couple other places.”

 Totally.  With an Open there for the taking, you posted a tidy 44 on the back nine, but it's just golf.  

That link above includes a detailed, hole-by-hole accounting of the implosion, of which the 13th hole is a classic of the genre:

Hole 13, 616-yard par-5:

 To put it mildly — you can’t.

On his tee shot, DeChambeau’s right foot slips backward, and his ball heads to the left rough. “Lucky to make contact with the ball,” analyst Gary Koch says on the NBC broadcast.

He hacks out of the rough on his second shot. Before his third, a shirtless fan ducks under the ropes, dances in the fairway and stunningly hits a shot before being tackled by officials — then DeChambeau hits into a bunker.

From there, he hits his fourth shot over the green, it lands next to an empty Stella Artois beer box, he takes a drop and eventually finishes with a double-bogey seven. He’s now one under and four shots back.

“I slipped twice on 13. I mean, that was really weird,” DeChambeau said. “I don’t know what happened. But that’s the game. I’ve got to be better at not slipping because I’ve done it before but never to that extent. Two times in a row on the same hole, it was kind of weird.

“Put myself in a bad place, and then I hit it up — we had a bad line, and hit it in the right rough, and you just can’t be there and you’re dead. Ultimately then there was a streaker that came around, and I had no idea what happened with that. I’m just glad an officer clotheslined him. That was fun. Then took him down and got him out like he should be.

“Unfortunately, had bad break after bad break happen. I played two little shots next to the green, both weird lies, both trying to get cute with them and messed up on 13.”

Definitely not off the rails at all...  Only a hater would suggest that.  Let's not forget that No. 13 was a birdie opportunity for the players.

The TC panel had this on the collective meltdown, offering an embarrassment of targets:

4. Many players had a chance on Sunday, from Bryson DeChambeau to Brooks Koepka to Rory McIlroy to the three players who started the day tied for the lead: Oosthuizen, Russell Henley and Mackenzie Hughes. No doubt they’ll all be thinking what could have been, but which non-winner’s Sunday most surprised you?

Melton: I was shocked by Brooks’ finish. He played so well all day and then crumbled down the stretch. For someone who prides himself on flexing his muscle at the biggest moments, seeing him falter late was a surprise.

I know Brooks is supposed to be the big-game hunter with those four majors, and here's another header that didn't age well:

Stop doubting Brooks Koepka at major championships. Stop it.

After his rinsed tee ball at Augusta in 2019 and his second hole blow-up at Kiawah, doubting Brooks at majors seems to be a reasonable default position. 

Sens: Bryson. When he seized the lead heading toward the turn, I figured he’d be off to the races. It was almost like he got body-snatched, and the bizarro-universe Bryson took control.

Zak: There was nothing more surprising than Bryson’s 44 on the back nine.

Yeah, there was a shocking suddenness to it all, as if his pack with the devil lapsed as he walked off the 8th green.

Bastable: Bryson might beg to differ. As he said on Sunday evening, that’s golf! Can’t help but think that Rory won’t toss and turn a bit tonight. He was cruising along, within one of the lead at one point, and then it all went south. Bogey on 11. Double on 12. Another golden major opportunity gone. When I look at the ’board, though, the biggest surprises might be Harris English and Guido Migliozzi grabbing top-5s. Didn’t see that coming on Saturday night.

Speaking of default positions, Rory seems like he's auditioning to be the PGA Tour's version of Lexi Thompson. 

Dethier: Bryson. Having played D3 college golf, I’ve seen plenty of players go 33-44 for a smooth 77, but it’s much more rare to see it from someone leading the U.S. Open.

Colgan: Ah Dyl, what I wouldn’t give for a “smooth 77.” … My biggest surprise was Xander. Entered the final round within striking distance of his first major, at his home course, and … whimpered his way to an even-par 71? Something doesn’t add up. The baffling armlock decision looms large.

Franco Molinari hasn't been the same player since the 12th tee at Augusta in 2019, so perhaps the source of the X-man's troubles can be found on the 16th tee there as well.  Though I've been reliably informed that he flushed that shot....

One more bit from the TC gang, then a few thoughts on the venue:

6. For storylines, it’s tough to beat Rahm winning his first major on his first Father’s Day and just days after coming back from a Covid quarantine. But what other story from the week will stick with you?

Melton: Richard Bland! He might’ve faded on the weekend, but what a fun storyline that was to follow over the first couple of days.

Sens: Damn. Zephyr took the words from the tip of my keyboard. Bland was a heart-warmer, for sure. But I’ll also remember that weird glitch in the matrix late in the day on Sunday, when many of the world’s best players all imploded within a small window of each other. Rory’s double on 12. Both Morikawa and Bryson making double on the par-5 13th, to name just a few of the stumbles. That was very strange and compelling stuff.

Loved his 48 hours in the sun, though the regression to the mean was too harsh to watch. 

Zak: Matthew Wolff’s return! It was great seeing him back hitting golf shots, smiling all over, playing Wolff Golf. It’s exciting stuff, and it’s clear to see he’s in a better place now than he had been. A victory in its own right.

Bastable: Yeah, Sean nailed it. Seeing Wolff back in form was great fun, and listening to him was riveting. All week he spoke openly about the demons he’s been battling, including “managing the fear” of playing on a global stage. His honesty was as striking as it was refreshing. You can’t help but root hard for the guy.

Dethier: Guido Migliozzi! My man finished T4 with a fist-pumping Sunday 68 to shoot way the heck up the leaderboard. He probably had no idea when he finished, but he punched his ticket to the Masters in the process. Good week for Guido.

Colgan: Devastated that DD mentioned Guido — the man is an absolute fireball. Dylan Wu risked his Tour status to play in the event after making it through sectional qualifying, and I think that’s pretty jazzy. I hope he’s able to nab a card.

Is it time to start pimping Guido for the Ryder Cup?

So, what did everyone think of Torrey?  Alan Shipnuck tweaked the purists earlier in the proceedings:

U.S. Open 2021: Golf course snobs won't admit this, but Torrey Pines works

 Hey, I resemble that remark....

I have a deep, dark secret: I actually like Torrey Pines as a U.S. Open venue. To even think such a thing brings a rush of self-loathing. Saying it out loud is blasphemy. To put it in print is madness, risking the wrath of Golf Twitter, architecture wonks, the woke mobs and, perhaps, anyone not in the employ or immediate family of Rees Jones. ​

The run-up to the 121st U.S. Open consisted mostly of the golf cognoscenti wilding-out on Torrey Pines. Geoff Shackelford, a dyspeptic who has nonetheless done much to elevate the discourse of course architecture among the masses, wrote in the golf-hipster magazine McKellar, “Go ahead, you can say it out loud. We’re all friends of golf here. Torrey Pines sucks.” Not to be outdone, Andy Johnson of The Fried Egg typed, “The design of the South Course, as updated by Rees Jones, isn’t just bad. It’s offensive.” On Thursday, when Sean Zak tweeted a photo of the narrow, dead-straight, 623-yard 9th hole, Chris Solomon of No Laying Up responded, "The hardest I’ve laughed all day has been to that first image. Like…holy shit! The national championship!”

But No. 9 at Torrey Pines is actually the perfect hole for the U.S. Open—a living, breathing embodiment of what this tournament is supposed to be. The Masters rewards artistry, the Open championship demands shotmaking, the PGA Championship is won with aggression (or, occasionally, canny course management, as we saw at the Ocean Course). But since we already have those tournaments, and the venues that define them, the U.S. Open needs to be a different kind of test. It should ask the most straightforward question in championship golf: can you execute the right shot, over and over and over again? The 9th hole at Torrey might appear utterly boring but the challenge is breathtaking in its simplicity. There is no fancy math-based decision-making to be made, no corners (or doglegs) to be cut. Can you produce two or three really good shots, four days in a row? Now do it on the other 17 holes, too.

There's a lot to unpack here, and we won't necessarily exhaust the arguments today.  I think Alan does at least air an important issue, that the requirements for a U.S. Open may have evolved to the pint where architectural merit can be nothing more than a minor consideration.

I think Alan mangles his perceptions of events, as it's the PGA Championship that struggles for an identity, though they seem to have settled on U.S. Open - Lite as their MO, including the fact that most of their venues are U.S. Open cast-offs.  But Alan seems to be pining for those old-timey Tom Meeks U.S. Open set-ups, and I don't think he remembers how dreary those tourneys were.

Though I did like this bit:

Would we want to watch this every week? No. Is the golf required to prosper at Torrey Pines lacking a certain charm? Yes. Good. This is the United States Muthahfuckin’ Open. It’s supposed to be a grind and a pain in the ass. If you want fancy green contours and breathless talk about some long dead architect who would barely recognize the course today, watch the Masters. If you really need to obsess about angles of play and precious ground-game options, cue up the Open Championship. At Torrey Pines, all that matters is execution and precision. May the best man win.

I would certainly prefer USMO as an advertising tag line to From Many, One....  Of course, that's an awfully low bar...

Though I think Alan misstates the nature of this Open.  For all the discussion of the kikuyu rough, the key was that that they didn't overdo it.  The lies in the rough were a crapshoot, and in many cases allowed for exciting recovery shots.  Of course, in attempting those great recovery shots, they brought all sorts of numbers into play, as per the blow-by-blow of Bryson on No. 13 above.

 The TC panel had some thoughts here as well:

5. The players by and large loved Torrey Pines — Phil Mickelson called it the best U.S. setup he’d ever played — but if social media is any indication, certain corners of golf fandom were less than enamored by the 2021 U.S. Open host site. What say you? Did Torrey’s South Course earn itself another Open this week?

Melton: I think it was a worthy test, if not the most exciting layout. I don’t know that it deserves a spot in the rumored “U.S. Open rota,” but I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing a championship held there once every 20 years or so.

Sens: It was an interesting week of architectural chatter, with design aficionados bashing Torrey for its lack of artistry and others calling those aficionados out-of-touch snobs. See any parallels to other conversations in our culture? But anyway. I think both sides were right in a sense. The architecture buffs were not wrong in many of their critiques of Torrey. And yet Torrey once again produced a riveting Sunday. So the design buffs were in the very small minority in being disappointed. Like it or not, the U.S. Open will be back at Torrey at some point in our lifetimes, assuming we all stick to high-fiber diets. And we’ll start the same debate all over again.

Zak: Torrey does not deserve another U.S. Open. The Tour visited this course five months ago. They’ll be back in another seven months. The setup, as many players noted, was not much different besides firmer greens. That kills the course intrigue that can carry excitement of its own throughout the week. The fact that good players played well at a Tour course does not mean it was major-championship worthy.

Bastable: Agree it feels way less special when a major visits a regular Tour stop. Part of the intrigue of majors is seeing a course you haven’t seen in years, if ever. That said, my sense is the vast majority of fans at home don’t care about venues. If 50-year-old Phil in the mix, or Brooks and Bryson duking it out, or Jon Rahm is winning his first major with two closing birdies, the fact that those moments are happening is way more meaningful to viewers than the course on which they’re happening.

Dethier: What a smart panel. These answers are all terrific. I love the fact that Torrey Pines is a muni hosting a major. I also don’t think it should, so long as the Farmers also stays at Torrey. Send this event to Chambers Bay instead!

Colgan: Does Torrey deserve another Open? Probably not. Do I still feel *incredibly* strongly that public-access courses should feature prominently among major championship hosts? Absolutely. Golf is elitist enough. Give the championships back to the people. (Bethpage, anyone?)

Torrey can be a sufficiently challenging test, but its greatest value to the USGA might be in the non-golfy boxes it checks off.  Having abandoned Bethpage to the PGA, the muni aspect is certainly a factor.  But so is the fact that its 36-holes affords the necessary space for the logistical needs, but also the West Coast location affording a prime-time finish.   

I suspect that the USGA is pleased with the two Opens it's held there.  I think Tiger-Rahm easily trumps Tiger-Lucas Glover in the mud, so it'll stay on their short list, though I also have a speculative thought.  Whether or not the USGA returns to Torrey might well be driven by that 2023 Open to be held at LA Country Club's restored North Course, a venue with far greater architectural merit but without the eye-candy Pacific Ocean views.  My guessing is that two California venues might be an effective cap, and we know Pebble's spot in the rota is secure.  Just an educated guess.

Tat's all for today, but we'll have more for you tomorrow, including news from Augusta National.


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