Open Reads Thursday

Dreading two days of listening to Bobby Clampett and Ernie Johnson? Well, I doubt it’s even close to a simulcast, but there will be a radio feed at the Open official site.

Peter McCleery prepares us for the Jack farewell and how television will handle it(again). And he’s as excited as most of us about the prospects of Clampett and Johnson yammering away while Jack says goodbye.

Art Spander looks at Jack's last Open. Well, maybe his last... Spander also writes that Jack has trouble saying goodbye.

Ron Balicki reports on Michelle Wie's first round win at the Pub Links.

And by the way, who are these people running the game? Why is course setup so elusive? This Independent story by James Corrigan does a much better job of pinpointing what Vijay and Els have been complaining about. There is brutal rough in all sorts of new places: along the boundary walls(!?) and to the RIGHT of 17 fairway (which has been narrowed even more since 2000...there's always been rough left, which never made sense because the more you bail out left, the harder the approach is...well, before the 300-yard drive became commonplace). The article also says they have cut a new landing area on the fourth in case that 290-yard carry proved too much. You'd think the R&A would want to do something about the distance issue just so they wouldn't keep embarrassing themselves with these setup glitches.

Instead, the R&A’s Peter Dawson responded, calling Singh's criticism "astonishing." Astonishing is the R&A figuring out during tournament week that if you have a tee resting out of bounds, it’s hard to hit an out-of-bounds tee shot! Finally, Willie Park, Alister MacKenzie and Bernard Darwin will be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.