Udder Stuff

In which neither Rule 18-2/.or nor 34-2 will be discussed....  Just thought you'd want assurances on that subject.  I am a bit short on time, but have some further U.S. Open observations that will come later, likely tomorrow.

Rio Loco, A Continuing Series - Which shall I lead with, the good or the bad news?  

There is actually good news:

Despite players like Jason Day and Rory McIlroy showing concern for the Zika virus,

and others like Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen flat-out withdrawing, Bubba Watson is all in for the Olympics this summer. This, despite the fact Watson faces one of the busier schedules of all golfers during August, including his plan to try to defend his title at the Travelers Championship the week prior to the Summer Games.

"I can't wait," he said. "My wife played professional basketball and she missed out on the Olympics because of a knee injury the one time she had a chance to make the team. 

"So for me, it's an amazing sporting event that I get to be inside the ropes at. I get to see some of the athletes I've always wanted to see. I get to go to some of the events I've always wanted to watch and then I get to play in it."

That's certainly good news for the organizers, as actual enthusiasm has been hard to discern.  But I guess we're done with guys dropping out.... What?  Oh, never mind:

Rickie Fowler has become the latest high-profile golfer to cast doubt on his participation in the Olympic Games. Fowler, speaking immediately after a missed cut at the US Open, cited security and the Zika virus as ongoing concerns.

“I’m definitely excited about the opportunity,” Fowler said. “But I think we want to make sure that we do our homework and make sure that we feel safe about going down there both on the security reasons and the health reasons, and make sure that everything’s taken care of. That’s our main focus right now. 

“I’d love to have the opportunity to go down there but we don’t know for sure yet.”

No reason to panic, as he seems to genuinely want to play.  Of course if he misses a few more cuts, there's that pesky qualifying issue....

So as long as everything comes together I don't see a problem... What?  Really?

The state government of Rio de Janeiro has announced a “state of public calamity” over its financial crisis with less than 50 days until the capital city hosts the Olympics. 

A decree published late on Friday said that a fall in public revenue – mainly a result of the oil crash – could stop the government from “honouring its commitments” to host the Rio 2016 Games with just 49 days until the Opening Ceremony. 

It also warned the crisis could cause a “total collapse in public security, health, education, mobility and environmental management”.

Total collapse?   Nothing to see here folks, kindly move along....

Trump Ferry Point, Working For One Of The Parties - Now we know what he means by winning:

Donald Trump scored a hole-in-one in his first year operating a new public golf course in 

The Bronx, racking up a city-best $8 million in revenues there while taxpayers shelled out $1 million to pay the course’s water and sewage bills, The Post has learned. 

The $237 million Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point hosted 28,291 rounds between its April 2015 opening and the end of March, netting nearly $3.8 million in greens fees for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, city records show.

OK, but he's got big expenses, right?

Trump enjoys another big perk: The city under Bloomberg agreed to pick up his course’s water and sewage fees. 

The mogul was already reimbursed $1.05 million in water and sewage costs for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, city officials told The Post. And he will be reimbursed another $1.09 million for this fiscal year, which ends June 30, officials estimate.

But he has to build that clubhouse, right?

And although he’s still responsible for spending $10 million of his own money to build an on-site clubhouse, such an addition is projected to significantly drive up his revenues because it would host large catered events.

You really can't blame Trump, as the City spent that $237 million (and many believe that's a lowball number) and couldn't even finish the damn thing.  

I'm still skeptical that Mexico will pay for the border fence, but when you see a deal like this, it's not unreasonable to think that Mike Bloomberg might...

Acushnet, the IPO - The owner of the Titlrist and Foot-Joy brands has filed an S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, indicating its intention to go public:

Acushnet, parent company of golf industry leading brands Titleist and FootJoy, generated more than $1.5 billion in net sales in 2015. Soon, you can own a piece of it. 

But before you do, make sure you wade through the company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, registering for an initial public offering of common stock. 

That form, which runs for more than 300 pages, outlines Acushnet’s current financial performance and details the company’s position in the marketplace as “the global leader in the design, development, manufacture and distribution of performance-driven golf products, which are widely recognized for their quality and excellence.”

An S-1 has a wealth of detail to pore through, though one has to wade through way too much legalese to get there...  The good news is that gross margins are in the 50% range, but the bad news is more than $600 million of selling, general and administrative expenses.   here's some further analysis of that:

The form also shows how the company spent between $42 million and $46 million annually on research and development from 2013 to 2015, and slightly more than $200 million annually on advertising and promotional expenses, including “product endorsement arrangements with members of the various professional golf tours.”

I was also interested to learn that their golf ball business, surely the single most profitable product line in the industry, is more than a third of their business, though I didn't see a profit number for this business.  I actually thought their golf ball revenues would be higher...

Shack had a weird reaction in his post on the subject:

Long anticipated but still a big deal for fans of the brand. How will the company long opposed to any discussion of dealing with distance behave when it's beholden to the rules and desires of Wall Street?

Geoff, they're selling a minority interest and the business will remain controlled by Fila and the private equity firms, so nothing will change.  

Was Tom Cruise Unavailable? - Do you get that sinking feeling when informed that a cherished book is being made into a movie?  Is that feeling magnified when the book seems ill-suited to theatrical treatment?

Such is my sense of dread that Tommy's Honour, Kevin Cook's wonderful take on the Tommys Old and Young was being filmed:

There are a lot of whiskers and sideburns and plenty of thick tweed on display in Jason

Connery’s Tommy’s Honour, which opened the Edinburgh Film Festival on Wednesday night. This is a golfing movie but not one in the vein of Happy Gilmore or Tin Cup. It is a sturdy, handsomely made Scottish costume drama, set in St Andrews, Fife, in the late 1860s and early 1870s. The film tells the story of Tom Morris Sr and Tom (“Tommy”) Morris Jr, a father and son who transformed golf and won multiple British Opens. 

“Are you daft? You need a mashie,” one character is told in the middle of a game. That’s a reference to a club called the niblick, not to a way of cooking potatoes.

Connery evokes an era in which players strutted the Old Course at St Andrews in heavy jackets and caps, hats and bonnets, using wooden shafted clubs to hit hand-made golf balls off very rough looking fairways onto bumpy greens.

For anyone that has an interest in golf history and the evolution of the game, this (meaning the book) is quite a good start.  Here's the movie's trailer:

Wondering about the header?  Then you must not be a Jack Reacher fan....

Rule 18-2/.05 - Making Your Brain Hurt

"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." - Karl Marx

Lord knows, the USGA has been down this path before, and always seems ill-equipped to the task... Let's let Ewan Murray of The Guardian take a shot at the blazers:

To the watching world the scene was ludicrous. To recap, a rules official informed

Johnson that he would not be assessed for a penalty stroke after the ball moved when he addressed a putt on the 5th green. On the 12th tee, Johnson was told a decision would be made at the end of his round, forcing the player to complete the final six holes not knowing whether the assessment would take place or not. When the round was completed, Johnson was penalised a stroke and signed for a one-under-par 69, to win by three shots. 

A sport seeking to emerge from dark age prejudice had once again taken an AK-47 to its foot, proving itself petty and unfathomable. Johnson arrived at the final holes of the biggest round of his life not knowing what his score was. Nobody watching on, including fellow competitors, knew for sure either.

 The AK-47 imagery is pretty good, though that "dark age" reference seems a bit of a cheap shot....  That'll show those troglodyte Muirfield members, though it's relevance here is hard to grasp.

To his credit, Mike Davis has been out and about to discuss the USGA's application of the rules, so let's see what he thinks in hindsight:

"When you look back at the whole issue, you can break it down into two parts. It's a rules of golf issue, of trying to make sure that you apply the rules correctly the way they're written. And we do believe we did that," Davis said. "But there's another part of it in terms of the conduct of the championship itself, and that's where we'd really like a mulligan because clearly we made a big bogey."

Egads, Mike, did you just use the "M" word?  Mike is arguing for the strictest interpretation of Rule 18-2, but then wants a mulligan, a term that of course doesn't exist in the rules of golf.... just being folksy here.

Shall we let him continue to violate the first rule of holes?

"That really gets down to putting in essence the championship on the final day almost in limbo to where the players, and in this case Dustin, didn't know where he stood in terms of a score," he said. "That's where, if we could do it again, we should have just applied the penalty once we looked at the video."

Almost?  That's what the kids would call a #humble brag....

So, we've learned a few things to this point.  As we'd all suspected, by the time DJ was informed  on the 12th tee of the potential penalty, the penalty had, in fact, been decided upon.  It's common practice in such matters to speak with the player before rendering such a decision, but it's equally obvious that there was nothing that DJ could have said that would have changed the outcome.

But before you start throwing things at the monitor, I'll remind you of Tiger's famous drop at the Masters (which Murray also cites), in which the critical mistake of Fred Ridley was to not speak with Tiger before making a determination.  Yes, a drop is different because the player is making a decision as opposed to taking physical actions, but still....

And let's briefly note the delicious irony of the USGA invoking the penalty to protect the field, while said field was flooding Twitter with statements to the effect of "Not in our name".  Again, these crazy kids....

So, where does this leave us?  In a pretty fine mess, I believe.... Rule 18-2 (actually, we're in fact dealing with Rule 18-2/.05) is a recent change to in theory allow that the player some flexibility to determine whether he caused the movement of the ball.  In the good old days it was binary decision, if the player had addressed the ball, i.e., had grounded his putter behind the ball, he was guilty.  

But with the change in the rule, ambiguity rules.  Shack tried to explicate for us here:

From Rule 18-2/0.5, titled “Weight of Evidence Standard for Determining Whether Player Caused His Ball To Move.”

If the weight of the evidence indicates that it is more likely than not that the player caused the ball to move, even though that conclusion is not free from doubt, the player incurs a one-stroke penalty under Rule 18-2 and the ball must be replaced. Otherwise, the player incurs no penalty and the ball is played as it lies unless some other rule applies (e.g. Re 18-1).

With reference to the considerations above, here is the key example the USGA relied on: 

-A player’s ball lies on a flat portion of the putting green on a day with light winds. The player addresses the ball and the ball immediately moves. Under these circumstances, it is more likely than not that the act of addressing the ball caused the ball to move. 

The USGA officials involved decided that the immediacy of the ball moving was enough to convince them that the weight of evidence standard had been met. 

Let the bickering begin!

This is the guidance provided by the USGA in conjunction with the R&A....  Particularly helpful since DJ didn't actually address the ball.  And I'll remind that we're not talking about your home club greens... Here was Ewan Murray's lede from the linked piece above:

Let us briefly visit a land where common sense prevails. There, a significant sporting occasion would not be thrown into utter confusion in front of a worldwide audience at its key phase. There, a golf ball placed on a surface closely resembling a marble fireplace in texture may well move. There, the glaring evidence of no advantage either being sought or claimed would never result in a penalty.

I'll also encourage you to read this Bradley Klein piece on green speeds, in which he dtails the effects of multiple cutting and rolling of greens in a give day: 

The real problem is that while an athlete as gifted as Johnson is held accountable for

what happens to his golf ball, there are moments dictated by science, gravity and friction (or its virtual absence) when it’s not clear whether anyone could be in control. 

That’s what happens when green speeds reach 15 on the Stimpmeter and putting surfaces slope at 4 percent. The combination leads to a moving violation. Increasingly, we’re seeing an escalation in what superintendents can achieve. In 1977, the year before Oakmont hosted the PGA Championship, the course’s lightning-quick greens averaged 9.81 feet on the then-prototype Stimpmeter being tested by the U.S. Golf Association’s Green Section.

But go back to that italicized portion of the excerpt of the decision language, and think about its implications and implementation in the context of the "absence of friction" described by Klein.  The USGA dodged a huge bullet when DJ's margin of victory rendered the one-stroke penalty moot, but it was a bullet of their own creation.

So, let me suggest where this needs to go, assuming of course that distance gains will not be addressed and championship golf will continue to be played on greens that resemble marble fireplaces.  This will make heads explode in Far Hills, NJ, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.  If yo speak to a non-golfer, they will first ask an incredibly naive question, does the player gain and advantage when the ball moves?  Think about that for a moment... why are we doing this to ourselves?

I'd like to see the rule change, but that's not even necessary since the vast majority of us play on greens where this isn't an issue.  The pros could implement a local rule to the effect that unless the player physically touches the ball, if it moves it's deemed to be by outside agencies and the ball should be replaced with no penalty.

Lastly, while we all understand that the USGA officials are in good faith interpreting the rules of our game, all of the discussion of 18-2/.05 quite possibly ignores or is in conflict with another section of the rule book:

Oy!  So that rules official with Dustin on the 5th green?  His decision was final... at least until it wasn't.

Redemption Song

Where to begin to capture the essence of a long, strange trip weekend?  I suppose first with a confession...  I didn't actually see all that much of it, at least not the important parts.  Saturday night was crustacean-fest at Willow Ridge, denying your humble blogger the opportunity to see most of the third round, and yesterday was the high school graduation of my niece.  We got home last night just in time to see see DJ hit his tee shot on No. 16, and perhaps the harshest critique is that I quickly came to the conclusion that I hadn't missed anything of importance.

So, let's give the winner his due:

Dustin Johnson's physical gifts have never been in dispute, but sometimes it seems like

everything else is. 

In a scene reminiscent of the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, Johnson wound up in another rules dustup at the 116th U.S. Open at Oakmont on Sunday. But he played so well it didn't matter, beating Jim Furyk (66), Scott Piercy (69) and third-round leader Shane Lowry (76). 

"Luckily it didn't affect the outcome," Johnson said. He laughed. "It's just one more thing to add to the list, right?" 

Johnson birdied the par-4 18th hole to ice it, and after the round he was given a one-stroke penalty for his ball having moved as he addressed it on the fifth green. The penalty stroke, while controversial, was a moot point as Johnson's 69 and his four-under total was still good for a three-shot win.

OK, he played the best so he gets the trophy.... I'll never be a DJ fan because he's John Daly with easier-on-the-eye pants and girlfriends....  To me the greatest sin is to waste God-given talent, and DJ is high on the list.

I'll take you back to the 2010 Open at Pebble, in which our hero had a three-shot lead going into the final round.  One of DJ's handlers tried to convince us that his man would hold up in that final round because he was a flatliner, i.e., that he simply didn't feel pressure.  He actual was correct, he just didn't realize that he was looking at an EEG, as opposed to an EKG.... or, as was bandied about in the media center, DJ was simply too stupid to sense pressure.

The Penalty - Wow, nobody looked good here, did they?  Shack takes a shot at it here, and this would be the relevant criterion:

Party Like It's 2010...

If the weight of the evidence indicates that it is more likely than not that the player caused the ball to move, even though that conclusion is not free from doubt, the player incurs a one-stroke penalty under Rule 18-2 and the ball must be replaced. Otherwise, the player incurs no penalty and the ball is played as it lies unless some other rule applies (e.g. Re 18-1). 

With reference to the considerations above, here is the key example the USGA relied on:

-A player’s ball lies on a flat portion of the putting green on a day with light winds. The player addresses the ball and the ball immediately moves. Under these circumstances, it is more likely than not that the act of addressing the ball caused the ball to move. 

The USGA officials involved decided that the immediacy of the ball moving was enough to convince them that the weight of evidence standard had been met.

In case you missed it, Shack has a Vine of it here.   To my eye, DJ did not cause the ball to move or, perhaps more accurately, that which he did should not have caused a ball to move.  But it's admittedly gray area, and the determination seems to have been that on a calm day nothing else could have caused it.....

Except I'll point you to that rather hard-to-miss elephant in the corner....  You know what else can cause a ball to move on greens shaved to their roots running at 14 on the stimp?  A guy sneezing in Philadelphia.... a woman dropping her cell phone in Peoria.  Shall I go on?

I'm reminded of that stupid USGA commercial about the rules of golf....  it's allegedly a virtue that they're the same for everybody.  Except that we civilians don't play on greens devoid of frition to hold the ball in its place.... unless, I guess, you're an Oakmont member.  So I have to concede that the rules have changed, but only to add ambiguity and to make the proceedings feel like farce.

The Tour Confidential panel was obviously asked to opine on this subject, and here's one response:

Sens: DJ made it moot, luckily, sparing the USGA some truly harsh questioning. But it was still flat-out bad, and it called into uncomfortable relief golf’s arcane and archaic ways.

Josh is referring to both the ruling and the timing thereof, and all credit to DJ (as well as the other players) for soldiering on in the face of scoring uncertainty.  But archaic seems exactly the wrong term, as it's the combination of modern green speeds and high-speed cameras that create the issue.

But I, for one, wish it had made a difference, bringing the madness of these green speeds to the fore.  Combined with the recurring play stoppages at The Open Championship, this will be a recurring theme in professional golf going forward, and it's inevitable that at some point it will determine the outcome.

Ironically I played in a low-key fourball match on Saturday in which a relatively minor rules issue arose and one of our opponents suggested playing two balls.  I explained why that is not permitted in match play and the matter was quickly resolved, but it points out the difference with stroke play.  The concept of resolving a rules issue after the fact hearkens back to an era without scoreboards when the leaders played at random times through the day.  I'll remind the reader of Arnold Palmer playing two balls on the 12th hole at Augusta and of Sam Snead coming to the final hole of the 1939 U.S. Open thinking he needed a birdie to win.  He made a triple and missed the playoff by two strokes.

DJ had no shortage of support from his peers....here's one example:

But in an era of real-time scoreboards it seems inconceivable that a player could be out there and not know where he stands... especially when one comes to a highly-strategic hole like the 17th.  Obviously this doesn't matter on a Thursday, but it feels untenable and unfair on a Sunday.  As a rhetorical question, is this another area where the rules of golf need to evolve?

Big-Bad Oakmont - What did we think of the joint?  The TC panel took on this question and gave it reasonably high marks:

4. Much of the talk entering the week was of Oakmont’s difficulty -- its deep bunkers, thick rough and lightning-fast greens -- and how players would struggle to break par. In the end, four players finished under par and a few players made runs, albeit unsuccessfully, at Johnny Miller's fabled 63. Did Oakmont live up to its fearsome billing?

Bamberger: It did. It’s a spectacular course. Even the USGA, with all that Fox money, cannot control the weather. But they can control rough heights and the rough was more playable than I thought it would be, even with all the rain. The greens were gorgeous. I have no desire to play the course ever again. But I’m glad the U.S Open is returning to it in nine short years.

Morfit: It was hard. It was fearsome. Players had a terrible time trying to tame it, except for D.J. and maybe a few others. Good for Oakmont. It’s a pretty place, and an interesting course. I wouldn’t want to play it.

I mostly agree, and I think they hit the sweet spot with the rough.  The guys were able to advance the ball, which is always more interesting..... I just wish that the next Oakmont Open (awarded during the week for 2025) could be scheduled in September.  June is simply too hot and too wet...

There's much to criticize this week with the USGA, but creating a venue with only four players under par without excessive carping about fairness is a high-wire act in this day and age.  Remember that USGA report that driving distance has stabilized?  Who ya gonna believe, the USGA or your lyin' eyes?

Shack had an interesting item on the critical role of the driveable 17th hole....  OK, it didn't turn out that way because it was mostly over before the leaders got there, but take a look at his stats:

OK, the rough was down a little from 2007, but take a look at those GIR numbers.....  That's why the greens have to run at 14...And this shotlink graphic is just coole:

In addition to the DJ situation, there's another cost to greens this fast.  

The pace of play -- or the lack thereof -- has been a prominent storyline at the 2016 U.S. Open. And with good reason: Some groups were taking close to three hours to complete nine holes. 

Yes, Oakmont's notoriously tough greens warrant extra study, but 18 holes shouldn't take longer than a cross-country flight. Such duration is problematic under regular circumstances; with players fighting Oakmont daylight to offset Thursday's rainout, the situation is amplified.

This showed up in my Twitter feed on Friday:

After that Masters pairing, this was no surprise.  Spieth's itchiness is well-documented at this point, but apparently Zach Johnson is also sneaky slow.  Not a great week for the USGA or for championship golf, despite a first-class venue.

Fox, Year 2 - Or the soft bigotry of low expectations.... you have to admit, they weren't as bad as last year.  I know, they couldn't possibly be...

Martin Kaufmann posted some criticisms of the Saturday telecast with which I largely agree:

Instead, we saw way too much of Mark Brooks on Saturday. I don’t want to keep beating on Brooks; I know he’s new to broadcasting, but he already has displayed a veteran’s knack for stating the obvious. (As an aside: A friend called to say that Brooks reminds him of “a very poor man’s Tom Weiskopf.” He emphasized “very.”) 

Whenever Buck or Shane O’Donoghue would say, “Let’s go to Holly Sonders,” my first thought is: Let’s not. That meant two things: we were leaving action, and we probably were going to see more of Brooks.

Brooks had me pining for Cory Pavin.....Not only was everything he said blindingly obvious, but he struggled to get the words out.  I always wonder in such circumstances what they see in the guy...  For instance, somebody should put a microphone in front of Geoff Ogilvy when he's done playing....  He might not be a natural on air, but at least he has interesting things to say.  Mark Brooks?  I don't know what Mark Loomis thought he had there, but it didn't survive contact with reality...

My feelings on Holly are well known, and to my surprise has generated more pushback than any other ridiculous things I've said.  Most amusingly, the latest pushback came on the range yesterday from a gent that I didn't know had ever read the blog.  I got something at the end that might really set him off....

Kaufmann had a few other trenchant observations as well:

You know what I’m tired of? Every time the cameras go inside the tower to show a panel of announcers, Shane O’Donoghue and Holly Sonders feel the need to tick off everyone’s credentials. Brooks is the “2001 U.S. Open runner-up,” Steve Flesch is the “four-time PGA Tour winner” and Gil Hanse is “the renowned architect.” This happens several times a day, despite the fact that chyrons identify each person. Stop it. Just stop it. 

And by the way, while Hanse is a wonderful architect who has done great work, he’s not “renowned.” Donald Ross is renowned. A.W. Tillinghast is renowned. In 50 or 60 years, when Hanse has left a large and impressive body of work, then we can call him renowned. For now, Holly and Shane, he’s simply Gil Hanse.

What he said!  Really annoying habit, especially in the case of Brooks where the C.V. is a little thin....

Also this:

While running errands Saturday morning, I listened to the radio coverage on PGA Tour Radio and immediately was charmed by the voice and vivid descriptions of Maureen Madill. She has a magical way with words. There was a stretch during Saturday morning’s play where I was reaching for my phone to type in Madill’s words every time she spoke. The words seemed to come effortlessly, and were delivered beautifully with a pleasing Irish lilt. 

Madill described one of Jordan Spieth’s lies as being “snuggled down” and that he faced a “vicious pin position” and a “monstrously difficult putt.” Zach Johnson, meanwhile, had “delicious options,” but also a “fiendishly difficult putt.” 

Karen Stupples noted on Twitter that Madill described a green as looking like a “rumpled picnic blanket.” What a great image. What a clever mind she must have to come up with such phrases in the heat of the action.

Hey, that's my turf.... I famously described the fairways of the Old Course at Ballyliffin as a rumpled unmade bed, which you'll agree is the far more elegant analogy.... Never mind, I don't know Madill but she obviously won't draw viewers like Natalie Gulbis or Debbie Doniger.... 

Cheap Shots - Or misogyny corner, as it wasn't a good week for the ladies.  My only defense is that, as you'll see below, the harshest comments come from Employee No. 2.

Diana Murphy - The world rejoiced when Murphy was named as the USGA's second womanpresident (Judy Bell was the first).  But in a world of painful awards presentations (can you say Butler Cabin?), new heights of awkwardness and lack of preparation were scaled yesterday.  I get that she was nervous, but how hard is it to introduce Jack Nicklaus?  The obvious method of coping with microphone-fright is to prepare your remarks beforehand, and while you may not know who will win you certainly know that Jack is in the house to present his eponymous medal.

Employee No. 2's take:  Has she been drinking?

Paulina Gretzky - First, did you all catch her pushing Jack out of the way to get to DJ as he came off the 18th green?  That was amusing though of little import...

It's a good thing that DJ's the one bending over...

At the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon, when you have a three-year old child and are going to be on national TV, isn't it time to stop dressing like a slut?  This guy blames Fox for keeping the cameras on her, but how could they have done otherwise?  We all saw DJ consoled by Paulina and Tatum after last year's meltdown, so of course they're going to show us the family's emotional reaction after his redemption....But here's the tell:

Possibly sensing the camera behind her, Gretzky pulled down her dress a couple of times to cover herself.

I totally get that's she's a babe with a body to die for, and I'm OK with it.  One can dress in a manner that presents one's beauty (see, for instance, Ellie Day), without risking accidental exposure of one's plumbing fixtures....  If you need to pull the dress down, it's probably too short and too tight.

Employee No. 2's take:  How sweet of her to show us her vagina!

Frenetic Friday

Argh!  That wasn't the Thursday anyone wanted at Oakmont....  Last I heard, they received 1.1 inches

of rain on Wednesday and another 1.1 inches during the three stoppages yesterday and, because the gods have a nasty sens eof humor, an additional .7 inches overnight.  For those keeping score at home, that's just under 3 inches of rain in total....

The Yangtze Division has been mobilized and the more than 200 bunkers have each been rebuilt and play will resume shortly.  But this tickles my funny bone.... remember how weird it was last year when there were no spectators on the eighth hole at Chambers Bay?  Well, there will be no spectators anywhere on Oakmont this morning, because the parking lots are quagmires....

The course, that had been perfect Wednesday morning, is now softer and slower than is ideal, but will look fine to the viewer.  The good news is that there's only s mall chance of rain today and none for the weekend, so there shouldn't be any issues getting back on schedule and finishing Sunday afternoon (or not, but take that up with the USGA as it would mean a Monday playoff).  But as Gil Hanse noted yesterday on the Fox broadcast, the greens will recapture their speed but not their firmness.... 'tis a pity.

So, a question for you all.... why is the U.S. Open held in June?  You couldn't pick a worse month on the weather calendar, at least in the Northeast.  We've seen this movie time and time again, at Congressional, Bethpage (2x) and Merion spring immediately to mind....

A tough day for those players that got onto the course, because of a curious USGA decision after the first delay:

Others were frustrated. After lengthy weather delays, players are customarily afforded time to loosen up. But after the first stoppage, which lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes, USGA decided against giving the players range time, because of the ominous forecast for the rest of the day.

“That was a bad one,” said Danny Willett, who echoed the complaints of several other players. “We sat in a cabin for an hour and 10 minutes behind the seventh tee without being given a chance to hit any balls or do anything. You're in a U.S. Open, they don't give you a chance to even hit a few balls. 

“Even the second time out, 1:47, and we were told to go back out again at 2:10, never hitting any balls. You can appreciate they're trying to get as many holes in as possible, but sometimes you just have to call it a day and come back.”

I  completely get it, though perhaps it's a bit short-sighted....  You're never going to get better scoring conditions than yesterday, so perhaps one should just suck it up and have at it?  

And how about the position in which overnight leader and previously-unknown Andrew Landry finds himself?  He has a 10-footer for birdie on the ninth hole, his last of his first round, after which he'll have some time on his hands, as his second-round tee time will be in the dinner hour at the earliest....

Kudos to Fox, which has adjusted their schedule and will put in a 13-hour day for us, with coverage from 8:00 a.m. through 9:00 p.m.  

Mid-delay, Shack posted some thoughts on where we go from here:

— Oakmont won’t be able to put up much of fight. Barring 5-percent humidity, wind and news that Sub Air is under the entire property, look for the course to be vulnerable to more red numbers. Is Johnny Miller’s 63 in danger? Probably not, though Andrew Landry briefly flirted with the record before coming back to earth. 

-- The wave that was scheduled to go off Thursday afternoon seems to have the better side of the draw. Those players never had to deal with the stop-and-start fiasco on the first day, and will likely get a soft golf course under clear skies on Friday. 

— The winning score should be under par. Gamblers who took “Under” a +2.5 winning score are going to sleep well the next few nights. 

— The USGA will not play Lift, Clean and Place when play resumes.Never have, never will.

I think all of that is mostly correct....I had thought the storms were expected during the afternoon wave yesterday when I opined that I liked the morning wave.... I do think the late-early groups might end up with the better of it, though I am seeing some breeze on the Morning Drive coverage....  that could help dry things out more quickly....  

But this is just unnecessarily mean-spirited:

— Any more delays and Fox may have to resort to showing us last year’s action from Chambers Bay. Is anyone prepared to re-live moon golf all over again?

Don't make me hurt you, Geoff!  I understand they've been blasting that broadcast at Guantanamo inmates to get them to talk...

So, what do we think of the re-tooled Fox?  Martin Kaufmann sees the glass as half-full:

It’s impossible to assess Fox’s performance on a day when there were three extensive weather delays, but the early signs were promising.

One of the things the first day’s weather delays seemed to illustrate was the wisdom of putting Brad Faxon in the 18th tower with Azinger. I initially questioned this plan; I thought Fox should put Azinger out front and give him a big platform. I was wrong about that. Azinger is the unquestioned alpha dog in the 18th tower, but he and Faxon seem to have a good rapport during the live hits, and when Fox returns to live action, Faxon simply slides over to his duties as a hole announcer. I don’t know if Loomis had considered this, but one of the benefits of his decision to have Faxon in the 18th tower is that it helps Fox kill time with reasonably intelligent conversation during weather delays.

Apparently math is hard.... What he failed to account for is that with Fax in the tower, at least some of his airtime serves to limit Joe Buck's.  Win-win, baby!

 Alas, though, I agree with him here:

The same, oddly, can’t be said for Holly Sonders, who hosts the segments with Ford and Hanse. In situations where she is asked to have a normal conversation with colleagues, she seems excitable, jumpy, ill at ease. The contrast is particularly striking here: Whereas Ford and Hanse are a couple of smooth bourbons that go down easy with viewers, Sonders is a hopped-up triple espresso. She’s still struggling to find her place on the Fox crew. My advice to Sonders is that she take a cue from her colleagues, chill out and simply try to enjoy the conversation. The segments will come off much better.

I didn't get her appeal when she was on Golf Channel, and I don't get it here....John Strege similarly agrees that Fox is improved, also citing the studio work of Ford and Hanse.  But he also touches on this amusing vignette:

The delay also allowed it time to show a promising new feature, “Brownie Points,” hosted by Ken Brown, a former European Tour player turned broadcaster. The segment had Brown showing the cerebral Bryson DeChambeau, a former physics major at SMU, the original Stimpmeter. 

“They say you’re hypertechnical,” Brown said to DeChambeau, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, now a professional, whose irons are all the same length. 

DeChambeau was mesmerized and began throwing out terms like “mgh” (mass, acceleration from gravity, and height), “linear distance,” “cosign factor,” “deviation and the extraction right or left, essentially, for each five, 10, 15 feet, 20 feet, 25 feet.” 

“And how does that help you?” Brown asked. 

“It helps me understand that not every putt is going to go in,” DeChambeau said.

 That's strange, as the all go in for me....

Shack had the video here, and it is quite amusing...

I think we all agree this is not the best rain shelter:

Is that you, Costanza, in the handicap spot?

And just try to take your eyes off this video of a flying divot:

In my mind the soundtrack is John Senden saying "Nice pelt".

There ill be golf, so enjoy!

It's Go Time

This is a course where good putters worry about their second putts before they hit the first one.

LEW WORSHAM on Oakmont

There are two pressing issues that need to be addressed as we approach the early morning tee times at Oakmont:

1. Heavy rains hit Oakmont last night and had greens puddling within minutes.  We won't know the effects until we see balls hitting greens, but there's more rain (plus some lightning) in today's forecast.  It will dry out by the weekend, but based on the current meteorological conditions, I'm liking the guys in the morning wave today;
2. What's up with Patrick Reed's pants?  There's no call for that, unless you're John Daly's love child.  Scariest part is that it perfectly matches the jacket that Shack is wearing on Morning Drive...  Just sayin'....

In no particular order. we'll start with Cam Morfitt and that guy going for the career slam this week:

“My career is built on failure,” Mickelson said, eliciting laughter. A long-awaited

success this week “would mean the world,” he added, since it would complete the career grand slam. He said he’s playing well and putting well after finishing tied for second at the FedEx St. Jude last weekend, his fifth top-five finish this year. He said he hopes the USGA will make Oakmont fast and fiery, since he has the experience to handle it. 

“I would like to see it go over that edge,” Mickelson said, “because I feel like I've learned how to play that style of golf.”

Shall we join in a chorus of Happy Birthday for Phil?  He woke up at age 46 this morning...

I like the self-awareness in that first'graph, but do we believe the premise in the second?  I don't remember him faring all that well on the Shinnecock greens, and he was a much younger man then.

But he seems to have an endless supply of lipstick for this pig:

On Wednesday, Mickelson faced more inquiries about a Securities and Exchange Commission insider trading investigation in which gambler and friend Billy Walters was indicted and led to Mickelson agreeing to repay the SEC more than $1 million that he profited from an inside stock tip. 

“I've actually known for months what was going to happen, and I'm just glad that it finally is out and over with and behind me,” Mickelson said. “So it might have something to do with the fact that it's behind me that I've played well the last two weeks, and I feel like I'm playing stress-free and much better golf. That might have something to do with it. I don't know.

But this is the part I like best:

“AS I SAID IN THE PAST, I'VE GOT TO BE MORE CAREFUL IN MY ASSOCIATIONS GOING FORWARD AND SO FORTH," HE SAID.

Yes, Phil, you've been very good about the saying it part.  The doing it part?  Not so much...

Next up, Van Cynical goes to the mailbag (most of which seems to be from other golf writers) and deals with this existential query:

Hey Van Cynical, Does a tough examination equal finding the best player? And is the Oakmont example actually good for golf?—Lionel Mandrake via Twitter 

Check the list of Oakmont Open winners and you’ve got your answer. Nicklaus. Hogan. Miller. Els. Armour. Pretty stout. But should any sane golf course grow deep rough, put ski slopes on the greens and get them to 14 on the Stimpmemer? No. Somehow, it works at Oakmont. With expert caddies, the members are able to maintain a great pace of play. Maybe great caddies, not just teenaged bag-toters, are the real solution to slow play.

And with the Spawn of Van Cynical in the field, you're no doubt curious:

Hey Van Cynical, How's Mike (Van Sickle) hitting it?—Alan Shipnuck via Twitter 

Nice. Opened Wednesday’s practice round on the back nine by jarring it from fairway at 10 and narrowly missing ace at 11, which he noted on Twitter, Shipmate. His quote: “Not today!!” Gotta save those. But he’s ready, if anyone can ever be ready for Oakmont. Rough was cut Wednesday night, sharply down, and greens kind of receptive Wednesday. There will be some low scores Thursday, pending hellacious downpours.

I'm tellin' ya, that Thursday morning group is the place to be.... Sorry, Phil....

Is this guy a member?  

At the Masters, the Open Championship and the PGA Championship, there's nothing like the echo of a Sunday crowd reacting to an approach shot stopping inches from the cup. But at the U.S. Open, thunderous ovations aren't quite as popular. It's a better tournament when the groan replaces the roar as its defining sound.

That's why I want Oakmont -- maybe the most penal golf course in America -- to bring this field to its quivering knees. As much as I want to see a winner at the other three majors, I want to see a survivor at the U.S. Open, panting and begging for a cup of water.

I feel like he'd fit right in....here's another in the endless series on the masochism required of membership in this exclusive club:

“A shot poorly played should be a shot irrevocably lost,” said William C. Fownes, son of club founder Henry Fownes. 

Always will. 

“Once you become a member here, you just kind of go along with the train,” says Bob Ford, Oakmont’s head professional since 1979. “The train is going down the road. We want it hard. We want it fast. We want it impossible, and we’re not in favor of low scores.” 

Plenty of courses can be toughened prior to a tournament by pinching in the fairways, growing the rough and speeding up the greens. That is a time-tested formula. What makes Oakmont stand apart -- particularly when there is a lot of chatter about making golf easier to be more welcoming to newcomers -- is that it is difficult all the time.

But Martin Dempster might need a bit for fiber in his diet, as I think this is off-base:

It’s that silly week in the golf season. The one where the United States Golf Association seems to go out of its way to try to make the game’s leading players look daft rather than letting them showcase their talents to a global audience. 

The US Open, surely, should be a stage where skill is allowed to shine, not stifled. Yet, time and time again, the USGA, with executive director Mike Davis the chief culprit, apparently, seem intent on it being the focal point of the week rather than the competitors.

Wow, where to start?  Martin's been around for a while, so I wonder if he ever spewed that kind of vitriol over the dreadful Tom Meeks set-ups?

First and foremost, Mike Davis is one of the good guys, rescuing the U.S. Open from the era of 5" rough that allowed nothing more ambitious than hacking back to the fairway with a sand wedge.  Mike has brought us plenty of innovations, things like graduated rough and moving tees up and back to change the playing characteristics of holes.  He's allowed players to make birdies in Opens, while retaining their status as stern tests for the players.

Now, can we criticize the USGA for their failure to control distance?  Absolutely, though I'd prefer to do so while fairly recognizing what a terribly difficult issue it is....  But can we at least acknowledge the fiddiculty of staging these events for guys that are hitting the ball inconceivable distances?  Oakmont has a notoriously difficult opening hole, for instance, and yet last night the guys on Golf Channel were talking about it being reachable in the right conditions.....

Davis is actually liked by the players (perhaps not Billy Horchel, but he's a bit of a diva who never actually gets around to winning anything), because he's accessible and takes the heat when it goes bad.  In general I'm supportive of his attempts to widen the range of venues, though that doesn't mean I don't question some of those choices (cough*ErinHills?cough*).  But what choice does the man have?  

OK, I don't know about you, but I feel better....  Now, who will win the damn thing?  The SI/Golf Magazine crew takes that on here, and the results of the primary question, i.e., pick the winner, they're dreadfully predictable.  Rory runs away with it (have they not seen his wedge play?), with a predictable level of support for Jason Day and a couple of votes for Adam Scott.  One lonely sould is in Spieth's corner... I don't particularly like Spieth, but he's on the right side of the draw.

More interesting are the dark-horse picks, though I'm concerned that the phrase is intrinsically racist.  We can quickly dispense with this pick:

VAN SICKLE: Long-shot has to be Pittsburgh resident and local favorite Mike Van Sickle, who's got some local knowledge after winning a junior tournament at Oakmont and nearly winning a Pennsylvania Open here. Also, I know him.

How do you know him, Gary?  But does anyone like this pick?

MORFIT: Bubba Watson was in the mix at the 2007 U.S. Open here, before he'd won anything, so the course must suit his eye. He's my dark horse, if you can use that term for a two-time Masters winner.

Ick!  I'll concede that he's less unlikely than Cabrera was, but still...

Other names include Shane Lowry (a mudder), Sneds, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Jordan Spieth, but of course I'm calling BS on that last one...

But before we move on, keep your eye on this guy:

Andrew "Beef" Johnston: If I win U.S. Open, I'll be drunk for a week

If he wins, I'll be drunk for a week, and I'm a two-beers-per-year drinker....

Midweek Musings - Oakmont Edition

The bride and I are off to play Whippoorwill later this morning, so without further ado....

Pair-Shaped -  The USGA has announced tee times for Thursday-Friday, and the absence of a sense of humor in Far Hills is palpable.  There was this:

Defending U.S. Open champion Jordan Spieth will play alongside Zach Johnson and

Bryson DeChambeau on Thursday and Friday at Oakmont. It's traditional for the defending champs of the U.S. and British Opens to play with the reigning U.S. Amateur champ. What's not as traditional is how the pairing came about. DeChambeau forfeited his spot by turning pro earlier this year, but earned a spot through sectional qualifying on Monday. DeChambeau held his own head-to-head against Spieth for two rounds at the Masters two months ago before a closing triple bogey on Friday. That trio will tee off Oakmont's 10th hole at 8:35 a.m. on Thursday.

That act didn't open to rave reviews at Augusta, spawning the fake Twitter account @grellerstowel.   Though I did catch Shack on the tube suggesting that it was the youngster and Zach Johnson that were actually the slowpokes.

OK, I'm disillusioned by the absence of a fat group or, as per my own suggestion, a Grizly Adams group, but there is this:

World No. 1 Jason Day will play with two of the sweetest swings in golf the first two days: Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen. All three contended at Chambers Bay last year. They'll start on the first hole at 2:20 p.m. on Thursday. 

And Rory McIlroy will go off No. 1 at 8:24 a.m. on Thursday. McIlroy is paired with reigning Masters champ Danny Willett and Rickie Fowler.

 Pairings don't matter, unless they do.....

Handicapping - Not really, as I'm the '62 Mets of fantasy golf...just some thoughts on the subject.

Golf Digest Equipment Guru Mike Stachura goes all existential on us:

I love the U.S. Open for two reasons. First, it exudes despair, agony and pain. So in terms of how I relate to golf, it speaks to me. As someone who struggles to make pars and routinely finds himself embarrassed and spiritually denuded by the game’s evils, I watch the U.S. Open every year with the kind of schadenfreude that some psychologists might term clinically disturbing. Or so I’ve heard.

Well, good luck with all that, Mike....But I'd ask you not to discuss this with Phil, who has his own issues with the event...

But conversely, I think I love the U.S. Open because it is just that: Open. Meaning there is a way, theoretically, I could find myself playing in it. Just like there’s a way, theoretically, I could find myself living on Mars. 

Of course, the U.S. Open’s open-ness is what makes choosing its winner so difficult. But that hasn’t stopped me, despite the fact that my choices to win the U.S. Open, like all of my legendary major championship prognostications, have been so decidedly and wildly incorrect: Boo Weekley in 2013 (missed cut), Bill Haas in 2014 (T35) and Phil Mickelson in 2015 (missed cut). My ridiculously complicated and relatively pointless statistical formula hasn’t exactly helped, either. Nevertheless, several Excel spreadsheets later I am ready to release my choice to history.

Of course that's ass-backwards, as the inclusion of qualifiers makes predicting the tournament easier, as those guys never win.  You want more along those lines?

But this year’s U.S. Open is rich with another quality I find appealing: Obscurity. Which in its own way is a kind of despair. The field is replete with players who barely have standing in the world of professional golf, unless you consider “standing” to be what Roy McAvoy had in Tin Cup. More than half the participants teeing it up at Oakmont on Thursday have a world ranking outside the top 100, 53 of those are not currently in the top 300 and a full 32 players either do not have a world ranking or are positioned outside the top 1,000 players in pro golf. In a way, no different than you and me.

No different than you and me?  There is that 1.4 or lower handicap index, not a small thing....

 Rory had some interesting thoughts on the subject as well, a scaptured by Gary Van Sickle:

"The majors that I have won have been soft and under par scores and they suit my style

of game," said McIlroy, who plays a power game with a high trajectory. "To win on a course like Oakmont with the conditions the way they are, it would maybe be my biggest accomplishment in the game. It would make me feel like a more complete player, I guess. I'd be very proud if I won on a course like this." 

The odd thing is, McIlroy fits the traditional profile of Oakmont champions from the latter half of the 20th century. They were mostly power hitters or precision iron players. Just run down the list—Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Larry Nelson, Ernie Els and Angel Cabrera.

That list of winners does point one towards the big boppers, though I think it's a bit misleading as well.  When Oakmont opened at 6,900 yards in the 1920's there's little doubt that it was a beast.... But let's note that the last two visits we've seen guys like Jim Furyk, Loren Roberts and David Toms, with a cumulative record of three days in the gym, compete and almost win.

But this is the nub of it I think:

The game has changed, however, even since Cabrera's win. This week is the first time anyone has talked about Oakmont being on the short side. It has always been a beast. 

Sorry, The Beast. But even an aging Phil Mickelson isn't intimated by Oakmont's length anymore. 

"The reason why I'm optimistic about Oakmont is that it doesn't require me to hit a lot of drivers," Mickelson said at the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis last week.

That's right, a course with a par three that may be stretch to 300 yards plays short.

Ummmm Gray, the USGA just released a study the approximate thickness of the Tokyo phone book that assures us the guys aren't hitting it much further than they did in 2003.... They wouldn't con us, would they?

As a side note back on the open theme, Gary's spawn Mike just got into the event, and I'm hoping that Dad will be on the bag.

Shack grabs a couple of quotes from the pressers that seem to point to different strategies:

Q. So you see taking a risk off the tee as being worthwhile, ultimately?

RICKIE FOWLER: To a certain extent. You can't try and be very aggressive on this golf course. You kind of have to take what it gives you. You can't try and push it too much. 

There's some holes where it's just as wide with driver as it is with a driving iron or a 3 wood, and I feel like I hit my driver just about as straight as any of those.

So I'd rather take my chances of having the shorter iron in and having a chance to possibly play aggressive and get a shot close, versus just trying to get one on the green.

Contrasted with this from Rory:

I don't think there's going to be many drivers out there this week. Maybe the two par 5s you'll hit driver. 7th hole. I think, if the 2nd hole is downwind, you can hit driver there and try to hit it up on the green. But, yeah, I don't think there's going to be many drivers this week, to be fair. I'll hit 2 iron off the tee much more than I'll hit driver.

 I'm very interested to see how the guys play certain holes, but I'd remind all that their default setting is "Bomb and Gouge".  And Cabrera definitely followed that strategy in 2007, hitting less than 50% of his fairways.... though he was in Beast Mode as per this:

In 2007 Angel Cabrera averaged 310.9 yards off the tee (ranked second for the week) and hit enough fairways to rank T-3 in greens in regulation.

Obviously a decision to bomb it is taken with an understanding of the playability from the rough.  Ernie, a man one assumes favorably disposed to the course, had this keen agronomic insight:

It's crazy. I don't know how many of you guys were here in '94. Oh, there you go. A couple. But it's amazing how we played the game in those days and how we play today with the golf ball, and a lot of us were still using wooden drivers back in '94 and so forth. 

And it's amazing how the golf course has also changed. You could definitely move the ball out of the rough on to a lot of these greens. Nowadays, you can't really do that.

I don't know what kind of chemicals they put in that grass, but it's growing. So that changed a lot. It's been how many? 22 years since '94. Obviously, a lot of tournaments have passed. I think I played in my second U.S. Open then, and I think I'm playing my 24th. It's been quite a journey, to say the least. It's all good. 

I would say they've really upped the ante the last five to ten years with the rough. Whatever they call it, the graduation of the rough, whatever, it's just thick, and it's a lot more dense than it was back in the day. We could move the ball around. It was almost more fun to play that way because you could advance the ball, you could get the ball to run towards the green. You're not always going to hit the perfect shot, but you had a chance of actually hitting a shot. 

Now it's at least a half a shot penalty. You try to get a wedge out to where you can play your next shot from. That's just the way it is. They've really got the premium on accuracy and ball striking. It is what it is. I'm just saying, back in the day, it was a little different. We could maneuver the ball out of the rough.

Here's an explanation from the USGA's Jeff Hall:

“The whole idea is if you have 10 golf balls in the rough, we'll like to see six or seven be able to play to the green,” Hall said. “Maybe three or four you have to chop it out. But the 5-inch rough will be just the opposite.

“Where we think the benefit of that is at Oakmont, when firm and greens are bold, we want that players can chase a 6- or 7-iron onto the green and let the architecture take the ball where it's going to go as opposed to hitting a sand wedge out then wedging it onto the green. We don't want to lose some of the excitement. It's about the characteristics of the ground, which are used masterfully with the design."

This something to watch for in early round play.  Shack has noted in his tube appearance that, while the rough is not especially long, it's got a cushy feeling under foot and it's so think that he's concerned about the playability, especially around the greens.

The late (and great) Jim Murray once dubbed the U.S. Open  “Beelzebub in plus fours”, the first part of which I'll confess to not understand.  Anyone with time on their hands can explain it to me...But John Strege uses that as the tent-pole for a fun column, which includes this from Murray himself:

The late Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray, an unapologetic fan of the 18-hole train wreck for the material it provided him, noted this in discussing club pro Tony Lopez, an unfortunate qualifier for the 1972 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, who had rounds of 86 and 91. 

“You have to understand,” Murray wrote, “the pros not only volunteer for this misery, but they fight to get in. Imagine a guy playing in two qualifying tournaments, then paying to play and then having a guy walking around behind you with a sign saying you’re 33 over par. Tony Lopez ought to at least get Green Stamps.”

Do green stamps still exits?  This form the much-missed Frank Hannigan is so true:

“All you have to do is take one hole that’s called a par 5 and don’t do anything to it and call it a par 4,” the late Frank Hannigan, former executive director of the USGA, once said. “It’s a mind game.” 

Indeed. The ninth hole at Oakmont, 477 yards, was played as a par 5 until the 2007 Open. That year, it was the fourth most difficult hole, its average score 4.49. In 1994, as a par 5, it was the easiest hole of the tournament with a scoring average of 4.62. 

“You want to make an easy hole hard what do you do? Just change the par,” Fran Nobilo said on Golf Channel.

Ain't that the truth, though Webb Simpson did post this to ease the pain of his fellow players on the 8th hole, that notorious "Reachable Par-3":

Loose Ends - Shack does his usual merchandise tent thing, and I'm all in on this item:

For those scratching their heads. that's an Official Church Pew Bottle Opener that is way cool....

That Long Shot - If you scroll back up to that list of previous winners of Oakmont Opens, can you identify the missing name?  Doug Ferguson has the answer for you:

OAKMONT, Pa. (AP) — Sam Parks Jr. rates among the most unlikely winners in U.S. Open history, especially compared with the Hall of Fame list of champions at Oakmont.

He was a 25-year-old club pro from Pittsburgh who played on the winter tour without ever winning. And then he took down a field in the 1935 U.S. Open that included Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen, Denny Shute and Horton Smith. 

An upset?

Maybe in pedigree. But not in preparation.

Here's Doug's point:

In the months leading up to the U.S. Open, Parks played nine holes at Oakmont every morning before going to work at nearby South Hills Country Club so he could learn the nuances of the fastest greens in golf and develop a strategy. Sarazen wrote of Parks in a column going into the Open, "His knowledge of Oakmont and its pitfalls should be a great asset." And it was. 

USGA executive director Mike Davis only wishes more players would take note.

That last bit harkens back to Chambers Bay, where Davis famously suggested that arriving on Monday of Open week was a bad strategy, serving only to piss off today's delicate flowers.  We could spend much time debating this, but it's a damn major and some additional prep work is not excessive.

This is eerily similar to jack Fleck's preparation at Olympic in 1955 where the only limiting factor on practice rounds was daylight.... and, same story, it was the only tournament Fleck ever won (at least until a Super Senior event decades later).

The Perils of Paula - We recently heard from Paula, the last major winner at Oakmont, about her strategy that week.  This I thought was wise:

While not presuming to offer advice to the men playing next week on the USGA's most-experienced Open venue, Creamer graciously shared her formula for victory. Here, then, are Paula's tips for winning a U.S. Open at rough, tough Oakmont.

But you know what else might have been wise?  Returning Bubba's yardage book.  Bubba was seen on video yesterday complaining (though with tongue firmly in cheek) that the yardage book he loaned her in 2010 hadn't been returned, and that he and caddie Ted Scott were busy recreating it....  

Paula is having none of it:

I trust she sent it certified....