The fate of golf would seem to lie in the hands of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club and the United States Golf Association. Can we expect that they will protect and reverence the spirit of golf?
MAX BEHR
Okay, he didn't say that but as Steve Elling reports, he reveals he's yet to play 18 holes since knee surgery. And doesn't sound too worried about it.
"Hopefully, I'll be close to 100 percent," he said. "If not, no big deal. I've won tournaments like that before."
As the U.S. Open Sectional's are played this week (you can get results here), Jim McCabe considers the relevance of international qualifiers and in particular the recently contested 12-spotter in Japan where Craig Parry was one of this year's qualifiers. (Note: McCabe filed this piece before it became known that the European Tour entrants were dropping like flies.)
All in all, more than 800 titanium-toting chaps will be spread across 14 sectional qualifying sites in hopes of securing precious few berths in the upcoming US Open. For most of them, the odds will be long and the patience short, but if they ever ponder the difficulty of their task, let us remind them that there was always the option of Osaka, Japan.
That's right, Osaka. A pricey trip, yes, but the weather's not bad this time of year and the competition wasn't going to be overwhelming. In fact, a mere 12 golfers teed it up and things grew thinner when one of them, Prayad Marksaeng, quit after the morning 18. That left 11 competitors vying for two spots into the US Open. Not bad odds, of course, but the question has to be asked: What kind of tournament has just 11 golfers signing scorecards?
It's the fourth year the US Golf Association has held sectional qualifiers in international ports to make the US Open more accessible to golfers in other lands. But whereas the site in England routinely attracts dozens of established professionals, the tournament in Asia has been thin. Only 17 teed it up in 2005 and similar numbers arrived the next two years (19 and 18). Each of those three years, the USGA generously awarded three spots. This year, when only a dozen golfers showed up, just two spots were granted, but Mike Davis, the USGA's senior director of rules and competition, said it would be wrong to criticize that situation.
In fact, through a USGA spokesman, Davis offered the opinion that the Osaka field was the strongest of the 14 sectional sites, with seven of the 11 finishers ranked within the top 250, and it's a legitimate point. There's also the fact that world golf leaders are committed to "growing the game," and extending opportunities to golf professionals in far reaches of the globe, men such as Artemio Murakami of the Philippines. In Osaka, Murakami, ranked No. 363d in the world, shot 69-69 -138 and tied former PGA Tour winner Craig Parry for medalist honors, and both players have their tickets punched to Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif.
The question isn't whether Murakami belongs in the US Open field. He certainly does. No, the problem is perception. When you take extraordinary steps to go outside your boundaries and graciously extend an opportunity for success, it would be nice if more than a dozen folks were involved.
You have to give them marks for consistency, because for the third year in a row many of Europe's finest entered the U.S. Open qualifying at Walton Heath only to pull up lame (but still not costing the rest spots).
Mark Garrod reports:
More than 20 European Tour players have now pulled out of Monday's 36-hole US Open qualifier at Walton Heath.
It is the route used by New Zealander Michael Campbell when he won his first major title three years ago, but since the introduction of the event that season it has always suffered from a large number of withdrawals.
Among those who have decided to skip the chance to compete in the second major of the year are Darren Clarke, former Open champion Paul Lawrie, recent Irish Open and Spanish Open winners Richard Finch and Peter Lawrie and Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell, currently 10th in the Ryder Cup race.
Clarke made his decision two weeks ago, saying: "My schedule is firmly based around Europe and my goal is to make the Ryder Cup team."
He and others feel that a trip out to California if they made it through the qualifier was not going to benefit them in the coming weeks.
Just over a week ago a total of 76 players were listed for the qualifier, but that is now down to 50 and organisers could well be asking golfers in America who just failed at local qualifying level if they fancy filling the gaps in Surrey.
Four more WD's and they can tie 2006's count. And here was the mild threat issued after last year's antics. You can see it really worked.
A few interesting snippets from Phil Mickelson's pre-Memorial press conference:
Q. What sense did you get about the rough out there? Any different here than in the past years?On Torrey Pines...
PHIL MICKELSON: It's very long and thick. I'm not a big fan of that. I like what we had last week where if you hit it in the rough you have to take some chances. I think the recovery shot's the most exciting shot in golf. And you have a lot of that at Augusta. You have a lot of that here. We had it at Wachovia where they cut the rough down a little bit just off the fairways so you could hit some recovery shots. That's not the case here. It's wedge-out rough. I'm not a big fan of that. But it is what it is.
Q. Have you thought or heard about the idea of moving 14 up as a drivable par-4?
PHIL MICKELSON: I've read what you guys have talked about. You actually would know better than I would. They would, nobody would tell me what, hey, hey, come hit up here. That wouldn't happen.
Q. What do you think of that?
PHIL MICKELSON: I looked at it. I think it would be cool. There aren't any fun holes there. They're all just long beasts. And to have a fun hole would be fun. I mean it would be cool. It would mix it up a little bit.
The problem with doing it on 14 is, 13's a reachable par-5, if they play the normal tee and you have two birdie holes back to back. I think in a U.S. Open that's not favored.
And this bodes well for a full playoff run by Phil...
Q. You mentioned that you were in New jersey yesterday, can you talk about I think you were at Ridgewood. Can you talk about that since it's going to be a TOUR venue?
PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah, I played where we're going to play the Barclays the first FedExCup series events and I think it's a wonderful golf course. It's a Tillinghast design which I'm biased to and it had a lot of same looks a Baltusrol and Winged Foot has and I think the players are going to love it. It's one of the premier courses in the land. It's spectacular.
They held the Ryder Cup there in I think '35 and it's, they have converted a few par-5s, they have integrated from the three nines that they have 18 holes there. They have taken two par-5s, turned them into par-4s, and so the course will play long at 73 plus hundred yards, par 71. It's going to play long and difficult.
Wait, he's sponsored by Barclay's and it's the Barc...ignore me, just typing out loud.
Doug Ferguson reports on the finalization of U.S. Open exemptions, now at 72 as sectional qualifying beckons. He focuses on the unfortunate case of Arron Oberholser who was bumped out of the Open by .004 world ranking points.Oberholser was losing a spot or two each week in the world ranking while recovering from injuries to his left hand, falling to No. 45. But he dropped six spots to No. 51 at the worst time – the cutoff for the top 50 being exempt to the U.S. Open.
He wound up .004 points behind Soren Hansen, who already was eligible.
“It’s a goofy system – we all know that. But it’s the system we have,” Oberholser said while waiting on lunch at Muirfield Village. “I probably deserve it. I haven’t played but five events because of my hand. And when I have played, I haven’t played well.”
Tim Rosaforte fawns over Phil Mickelson's appearance at a Boys and Girls Club tournament and calls him the "unofficial host pro" when the U.S. Open arrives at Torrey Pines. But more importantly, we learn that Phil is just a regular guy, carrying his own Callaway double strap bag (and here I figured Phil would have picked up a Sun Mountain on ebay).
Mickelson's buddy Gregg Tryhus, the Scottsdale developer (Grayhawk and Whisper Rock), walked every step with them, but Phil never let him take the bag.
Uh, you don't usually hand your bag off to a developer who overpays you to design a course for him.
Seeing Mickelson in shorts, carrying his own sticks, is nothing new around Torrey Pines. Lefty has been doing that since he was playing junior golf. He was out with brother Tim before the Players in the same gear and came back with a scouting report and take on the Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge. Tim, the coach at the University of San Diego, is actually longer than Phil, who drove one 357 yards on Thursday at Colonial during an opening round 65.
"Phil has enjoyed carrying his own bag since his junior golf days," Coe said. "He just feels more connected to the course and it allows him to play at his own pace. I feel if the USGA would let him, he would pack his own bag for the Open and probably imagine he was playing in another Junior World."
And if his sponsors let him, he's play barefoot with a shred of hay tucked between in his cheek.
Now about this Boys and Girls club dinner...
Hosting the dinner was New York Times best-selling author Jim Nantz, who said during the introductions he had a vision of a Mickelson victory.
Okay I know I keep interrupting here, but New York Times best-selling author Jim Nantz? Continue...
Afterward, they sat on a stage and conducted a question and answer session that lasted almost an hour. Phil was open, self-deprecating, teasing, funny. At one point, radio host Rush Limbaugh stood up and asked an impassioned question about Tiger Woods, but Phil gave it the full dodge, as any good politician would.
Phil made new friends that night, East Coast guys who were never around him before, who just read and heard about this Left Coast character and never knew what to think.
I'm sorry, did I miss the part where this article started with "For Immediate Release?"
And talk about your buried lede. The last sentence:
Phil forgot to mention what he told the guys gathered around him on the putting green Tuesday morning at Torrey. Even at 7,607, he'll only have to hit driver four times.
With four straight Buick Invitational wins at Torrey Pines and six overall, Tiger Woods is even more of a U.S. Open favorite than normal. Mike Davis, the USGA's Director of Rules and Competitions, has joked that if Tiger does not win the Open at Torrey, the USGA would be blamed.
But with it now official that he will play no warm up event, has Tiger taken some pressure off of the USGA setup to produce him as a winner? Or is this simply the most inane question ever posed on this blog?
Hey, it's Friday and I have to get back to the Laker game.
A Golfweek staff report says that the USGA will make Torrey Pines' 14th hole a driveable par-4 during the final round.
Golfweek learned that the fairway toward the green of the par-4 14th hole (which normally plays 435 yards) recently was narrowed. The reason? It’s going to be played as a 277-yard par 4 on Open Sunday, with play proceeding from the forward tee and the hole cut front left on the green. The narrowed fairway approach makes sense for players opting to go for the putting surface. In all likelihood, they won’t even need a driver, and if they do hit it long, they’ll have to deal with a shaved-down rear bank that feeds into the irrecoverable canyon.
What is it about these USGA venues and vandals working in the middle of the night?
Tod Leonard reports on the latest minor incident (thanks NRH for the link), which has prompted officials to install a chain link fence around the third green. Some crime scene tape for the character-free front bunker wouldn't hurt either.
South Course – City Golf Manager Mark Woodward said workers arrived before dawn to find fresh footprints in the dew and heavy heel marks stamped into the surface of the green.
Woodward said a two-word vulgarity was etched in the sand of one bunker, and that several sprinkler heads were broken off. The incident was reported to San Diego police and is being investigated.
The damage to the green was minimal and quickly repaired, Woodward said, and though a Torrey Pines men's club outing that was to begin at 6:30 a.m. was delayed by 10 minutes, several golfers said they didn't notice any problems with the green after they played it.
The incident follows another act of vandalism on the same green about a month ago. In that case, Woodward said, it is believed the flagstick was used to scrape an obscenity into the green's surface, but the effect was cosmetic and was fixed with routine mowing.
Steve Elling talks to the USGA's Mike Davis about finishing the U.S. Open on a reachable par-5 and the answer might surprise you.
"From a personal standpoint, nothing would please me more than to see giant swings in scoring on this hole," Davis told CBSSports.com. "A player eagling the 72nd hole to win would be a dream come true."Following U.S. Open media day, John Strege posts this item about the 7,643 yard golf course.
Somebody pinch me.
A day after Ogilvy had admitted he'd won the Open in ugly, cat-burglar fashion he'd not care to see repeated, Davis' surprising sentiments were relayed. A wry smile creased the Aussie's face as he though of Davis, an affable guy in his third year setting up the Open venue. Davis' tenure has been marked by innovation and an approach that players have broadly characterized as more conservative than his Draconian predecessors.
"Makes you wonder how he got a job working there, huh?" Ogilvy cracked.
But Mike Davis, the senior director of rules and competition for the USGA, said that number is deceiving. "I feel very confident saying we will not play that length one day of the championship," he said.
Davis said the USGA will utilize the variety of tee boxes available to them, resulting in a course that will play "somewhere in the neighborhood of 74 [7,400 yards] and change up to 75 [7,500 yards] and change." That's a big neighborhood, notwithstanding the USGA's benevolence in backing it down somewhat.
The USGA hosted its annual U.S. Open media day to give the region's newspaper assistant copy editors, middle-of-the-night radio sports talk show hosts and club newsletter columnists the chance to spend six hours slashing around Torrey Pines for free.
Jay Rains addresses the press (click to enlarge).
As part of the trade out for being comp'd and receiving a cap and bag tag, the moochers had to sit through a press conference hosted by media relations man Craig Smith, with speeches from president Jim Vernon (who made a great impression, as expected), executive committee member Jay Rains (it's okay to smile Jay!), Torrey Pines superintendent Mark Woodward (talks faster than Marty Scorsese on speed), championship committee chair Jim Hyler (the next Prez) and USGA competitions director Mike Davis (the main draw).
Each offered remarks you can read here, including some fresh golf course setup insights from Hyler and Davis. Following was a short Q&A and on beamed in DVD, defending champion Angel Cabrera interviewed by Alex Miceli.
A transcript of the Cabrera interview was passed out before the play button was hit, which allowed everyone who remained to track every painstaking minute, which turned out to be 20 for those of us who stayed around. Nothing against Cabrera, but it became obvious within a minute or so that no one really wanted to hear each question translated in Spanish, followed by the answer in Spanish before we heard the interpretation.
Note to USGA: editing was invented for a reason.
As the interview progressed, it became hard to hear Cabrera above the chatter among those still in attendance. The droves filed out to prepare for losing ten balls and posting their three-digit scores.
While someone surely appreciated the journalistic integrity of showing us questions and answers in Spanish, next time let's chop that baby up and whittle it down to the English portion of the proceedings, eh?
I have to admit it was fun watching the blue coats nervously looking at the crowd filing out and amongst themselves wondering if they should pull the plug.
That said, I'm very excited about the Open's return to Southern California and anticipate that the combination of San Diego's fun coastal vibe, the magnificent arena the course should be (thanks to tree removal) and the exciting setup touches being cooked up by Mssrs. Davis and Hyler, that it's going to be a special week.
Some general thoughts and photos after spending the last two days walking around Torrey Pines:
View from grandstand behind No. 5. The classic Open look is taking shape (click to enlarge)Golf Course - The South Course is in excellent condition. The heat wave we had a couple of weeks ago apparently made the kikuyu happy, so the fairways are excellent but not so thatchy that it'll prevent Woodward from speeding them up. Even as wet as the course is right now with dense fog and some irrigating, I saw a lot of balls running.
The rough is dense, apparently a tad thicker than the USGA had hoped. Therefore they have slightly lowered some of the cut heights (see Davis's comments in the transcript). That said, it's predominantly rye and poa rough, with the occasional kikuyu lie. The first cut of rough will be reduced to 15 feet from 20 because Davis has decided that the course is already playing wide enough. 
Healthy crop of rough just waiting to be trampled by spectators (click to enlarge)
The greens are in fine shape, still rolling a couple of feet slower than they hope to have them for the Open where they are aiming for 13 on the Stimpmeter Monday-Sunday. They still don't have the firmness, but there's plenty of time to deal with that. 
A newly cut approach improves No. 4 (click to enlarge)The bunkering looks a lot better with longer rough, but not nearly as attractive or strategically placed as I'd like to have seen. Rees Jones decries the "collapsing" bunkers of Doak, Coore/Crenshaw and Hanse, yet he is okay with them at "seaside" courses like Atlantic. When I asked him why Torrey Pines didn't count as a seaside course, he reasoned that the public couldn't have handled such bunkers.
Oh yes, Rees and I chatted for a while in the midst of one of his on-course photo shoots...
Rees Jones (click to enlarge)Rees: He made sure to let me know that he was not in fact the vandal of Chamber Bay's lone tree, so it's nice to know that Rees is surfing the web in between press conferences, photos shoots and exclusive interviews.
In general the Open Doctor is very excited about Davis's plans to vary the setup of more than half the holes and will probably taking credit for having built so much variety into the course by June. Though I don't sense he's too wild about encouraging players to go for the par-5s at No. 9 or No. 18 in two. 
The merchandise hangar (click to enlarge)Infrastructure: I paced off the merchandise pavilion as slightly over 100 yards long. And there's also a "satellite" location near the bus drop off by the 12th hole. The various corporate tent villages are coming along nicely and most feature great ocean views, though I did find the ones along No. 1 and near No. 2 tee to be a tad close to play. The Trophy Club (I don't know what it is, but I'm guessing it ain't cheap) sits in a stunning location on Torrey North's No. 2 hole, and just east of it is the media center which will feature an awesome patio and dining area overlooking the ocean. But it is surprisingly far from the drop off point, so scribblers bring comfortable shoes.
View from The Trophy Club (click to enlarge)
Speaking of the most important people in the world...
Media Hotel: I was bummed not to get in the Doubletree Del Mar since I've stayed there twice now at ridiculously low prices (thank you Priceline and Biddingfortravel.com). Besides housing 300 scribes, it's where the media parking and shuttle is located. After driving around the business parks surrounding the Doubletree, I realized how little there is around the it in the way of local dining in an area with so much great local faire. Then again, how can you not love a hotel that asks you at check-in to initial a pledge to respect it's no-tolerance-for-smoking-anywhere-on-the-property policy?
Let the "I hate California" columns begin!
The Cowboys QB will still get to play Torrey Pines thanks to his exemption into the June 6 whatever-it's-called-contest.
Romo shot a 5-over 75 Wednesday in a local qualifying event for the Open, finishing four shots out of a playoff for the eighth and final spot for a chance to compete in a sectional qualifying event.
"I found a good rhythm on the backside, but it just took too long to get started," said Romo, who had five video cameras and 25 people following him.
How nice for his playing partners. I take it those were cameras developing the reality show backstory? If so, nice touch.
"I just haven't been able to practice or prepare. I've got a lot of football stuff. That's part of it."
The U.S. Open is June 9-12. The Cowboys have organized team activities June 10-12, then their lone minicamp June 17-19.
However, Romo will be at the Open as a celebrity guest for an event June 6.
Nice that AP didn't bother to, uh, brand it.
Monday, June 2, 2008 at 07:27 PM