"What's wrong with putting 1 and 2 together, given their background at Torrey Pines?"

Doug Ferguson fleshes out his exclusive on the unique pairings structure for this year's U.S. Open.

Mike Davis, the senior director of rules and competition for the USGA, said the top 12 players will be grouped together and spread over the four various time slots — starting on the first tee or 10th tee in the morning, and first tee or 10th tee in the afternoon.

The biggest stars usually are dispersed among the morning and afternoon times, largely at the behest of television. Davis said the USGA has been thinking about a major change over the past few months and decided to give it a try.

"Why not put them in the same wave?" Davis said in a telephone interview from San Diego. "The heck with what TV wants. Let's do what we want for the championship."

You can do these things when they are signed through 2014 or whatever it is.

The original thought was to keep Woods and Mickelson near the same time, but as Davis spoke to USGA executive director David Fay and other executives, they decided to go a step further.

"What's wrong with putting 1 and 2 together, given their background at Torrey Pines?" Davis said.

From there, they decided to involve the top 12. That means Ernie Els, Ogilvy and Justin Rose would be in the same group, while Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk and K.J. Choi would comprise another, and Vijay Singh, Sergio Garcia and Stewart Cink would be the other.

The U.S. Open traditionally groups the defending champion, the British Open champion and the U.S. Amateur champion. That would not be affected with Angel Cabrera at No. 22 in the ranking, Padraig Harrington at No. 14 and U.S. Amateur champion Colt Knost not in the field because he turned pro.

"If there was a right year to do it, this was it," Davis said, alluding to Woods' and Mickelson's history at Torrey Pines.

Update on Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 08:10 AM by Geoff

And here are the pairings, courtesy of USOpen.com.

Comments

[Glyn]

What's the rationale behind that? Creating some tension between the players? For the fans on site it will just pack up certain pairings on the course even worse, esp Woods/Mickelson.

[johnny knoxville]

Ok, USGA has some 'perceived' problems with the grasses in the rough which they couldn't see coming after a year or more.

Now they are trying to energize the pairings, seemingly at the last minute.

USGA spends too much time dinking around on side issues in the last few minutes after years (??) of planning.

It is now time to play golf. Low aggregate score wins.

[dsl]

I like the pairings. I've said here before that I only want to watch Tiger anyway. Aside from watching Tiger, I also enjoy giving the old 'NOONAN!' to every shot Phil hits, so this'll make it easy to accomplish both. The pairing pretty much guarantees that the focus will stay on them for 2 straight days.

[Martin Del Vecchio]

This will be great for TV, regardless of what Davis says.

It will not be great for the patrons, however. Good luck to them.

[Adam Clayman]

The busy people of San Diego (patrons)will benefit. They won;t have to wait hours and hours to get a glimpse of some of the guys, all they have to do is stick around, or follow. All within a shorter timeframe.

[The Armchair Golfer]

If I'm an Els, Singh, Garcia, etc., I think I might like the idea of a Woods-Mickelson pairing. Maybe the giant stir it would cause would be a bit distracting for them and help the others go quietly about their business.

[JackM]

As I understand it, ESPN wanted some control over pairings and tee times if they won the rights to Thurs - Fri PGA Tour telecasts. Alas, they dropped out of the bidding (not sure if this was part of the reason) and so we are left with Kelly and Nick. By the way, is anyone else grossed out by Nick's weird sucking noise?

Anyhoo, if someone at the Tour thinks Thurs-Fri telecasts are important (and it seems they do), then OF COURSE you have Tiger and Phil paired every chance you get. And you send Tiger and Phil out at 11:00 AM Thurs and 1:00 PM Fri so they feature on the telecasts both days. Not sure why viewers should settle for either Tiger or Phil but not both.

This is obvious. Television is the reason the guys play for $1 million each week, so the broadcasts should be as viewer-friendly as possible. How much would the winner at, say, Memphis receive without TV? $300K?

Also, I would get all potential Ryder Cup players grouped together on Thurs-Fri so they can bond.

[C. Freeman]

The 8:50 with Kim, Romero, and Imada is a fantastic group to watch.

[dsl]

For the pairings - is there a reason why the Americans have their city and state listed, but the internationals have only their home country listed? Seems odd to me.

[S. Wynn]

Best bet is 8:06's Tiger Clone.

[JD]

ESPN has Thursday-Friday

[NRH]

Jimenez/Weekley/Katayama = plenty of sign language
Austin/Perez/Levet = two hotheads and a cuckoo bird
Immelman/Johnson/Weir = how cute
Watson/Holmes/Wetterich = on pay per view in Mesquite, NV
Sabbatini/Toms/Monty = Toms rubbed somebody the wrong way

[KevinR]

Here are some paring comments someone posted on a golf equipment board...I like the last one, in particular:

s this the hot-heads pairing?:

11:06 a.m. - 1:36 p.m. — Woody Austin (Derby, Kan.), Pat Perez (Scottsdale, Ariz.), Thomas Levet (France)

all scandies pairing:

11:39 a.m. - 2:09 p.m. — Carl Pettersson (Sweden), Soren Hansen, (Denmark), Daniel Chopra (Sweden)

green jacket pairing:

1:03 p.m. - 10:33 a.m. — Trevor Immelman (South Africa), Zach Johnson (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), Mike Weir (Canada)



chicks dig the long ball pairing:

1:47 p.m. - 11:17 a.m. — Bubba Watson (Bagdad, Fla.), J.B. Holmes (Orlando, Fla.), Brett Wetterich (Jupiter, Fla.)

team england pairing:

1:14 p.m. - 10:44 a.m. — Ian Poulter (England) Paul Casey (England), Luke Donald (England)



over rated pairing:

1:47 p.m. - 11:17 a.m. — Camilo Villegas (Colombia), Charles Howell (Orlando, Fla.), Martin Kaymer (Germany)

is this the a-hole pairing? - i thought toms was a nice guy - though he did whine about the masters a couple of years ago:

2:09 p.m. - 11:39 a.m. — Rory Sabbatini (South Africa), David Toms (Shreveport, La), Colin Montgomerie (Scotland)

don't speak english pairing?:

11:39 a.m. - 2:09 p.m. — Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spain), Boo Weekley (East Milton, Fla.), Shingo Katayama (Japan)

[JohnV]

Sabbatini, Toms, Monty - a rose between two thorns?

dsl, for some reason the USGA has always put country only for foreign players. I don't know why, but it has been that way as long as I've been paying attention.

[OWGR Fan]

The Armchair Golfer says...

"I think I might like the idea of a Woods-Mickelson pairing. Maybe the giant stir it would cause would be a bit distracting for them."

Check the results of the first 2 rounds of the 2006 PGA. Tiger, Phil and Geoff Ogilvy were paired. Didn't bother Tiger a bit. He left Phil and the rest of the field in the dust. This grouping may distract Phil. It will not distract Tiger.

[F. X.]

Love it. May they both play well and be paired on the weekend as well.

[Huh]

I sort of feel sorry for the pairings behind/ahead the Tiger/Hefty/Scott threesome. They are going to have to deal with a *lot* of gallery movement.

[LEFTY]

Didn't Toms give a spectator the finger on the course a few years back? Still...poor guy has to deal with two testy players and a bad back.

[C-Dog]

OK, it's not as obvious to me which is the prick pairing....is it Monty/Rory/Toms (and if so, how is Toms included, middle finger notwithstanding?), or could it be Bubba Watson/Johnny "The Wad" Holmes/Wetterich? After all, Bubba is well disliked on tour, just ask Elk. Holmes just dissed Nicklaus at his own event, and Wetterich is a bit of a hothead as well, isn't he?

[JD]

Playing with Tiger didn't hurt Mickelson at Deutsche Bank last year when he played three rounds with him. Armschair QBs, relax.