A Few Random Thoughts on the 2015 US Open

A few random thoughts before the running of the 115th United States Open championship. 

First, let's thank the United States Golf Association for eliminating the home-court advantage and selecting a links course for its 2015 championship event.   Perhaps the Royal and Ancient will return the favor and add Winged Foot to its Rota.

Second, no less an authority than Tony Jaclin in a recently published article stated that some of the golfers will be putting from 50 yards away from the pin.  That is because the grass at Chambers Bay on the green on the frog hair and in the aprons approaching the green from the fairway are all grown from the same type of grass (fescue) and mowed down to the same length as the putting surface .  Once again,  advantage Great Britain golfers with plenty of links golf experience.

Third, can Jordan Spieth hold off the Euros and become the first golfer to win the Masters and US Open back-to-back since Tiger Woods in 2002 (and only the fifth golfer to accomplish this feat since World War II – Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Ben Hogan (twice) being the others.)  Spieth has a homegrown advantage as well since his caddie was a looper at Chambers Bay for a number of years and knows the course as well as anyone in the field.  

Fourth, who came up with a wacky idea of lengthening the golf holes during the tournament changing them from par fours to far par fives and in several cases potentially lengthening the whole by 100 yards overnight.  In a word this is ridiculous.  The U.S. Open is traditionally as difficult a championship as there is.   there is no need for the trickery of transforming the golf course overnight, essentially creating a new course each day of the tournament.  (Augusta National or attempted to Tiger-proof the course after Woods ran away with his Masters victory in 1997.  How did that turn out?)  Changing the nature of a hole overnight can happen in Europe on links-style courses but that determination is made by Mother Nature, not officials of a golf tournament.  Yes, a par three one day with a short 9-iron off the tee can require a 3-wood the next day depending on the elements and the strength of the wind in your face.   But trying to reproduce the effects of Mother Nature with human intervention as always will be an abject failure.  Robert Trent JonesJr. has basically replicated his Ballybunion New Course design on the west coast of Ireland.  Throw in an homage to the Road Hole at St. Andrews, replete with railroad cars chugging by during the golf game, with modern-style  Easter Island monoliths quietly watching the action, and you have a course that bears no relationship to any previous US Open course.   

Next,  can Lefty break his US Open losing streak at age 45, not much younger than Hale Irwin who remains the oldest Open champion at this point in time.   It would seem like Mickelson short game would be tailored for this golf course but the long hitters will also have an advantage.  Since Mickelson is no longer one of the big hitters on tour, look for Mickelson to compete but ultimately fail to break his bridesmaids’ street.

Will any American golfer other than speed finish in the top five given the extreme links nature of Chambers Bay?

Will Rory pull a Congressional and jump so far ahead of the field that the USGA officials rig the length of the holes on the course to bring his competitors back into the competition.

Finally, simply put, will Tiger Woods make the cut.  The course may be sufficiently wide open to accommodate Woods’ typically errant tee balls. However he will need to resurrect his supreme short game to contend in this tournament.   I am skeptical that that he will compete for his 15^th major victory.

  

AMDG

The GOAT Got It Right

Kyle Porter,Golf Writer for CBS Sports.com, recently wrote about Dan Jenkins’ recent published comments concerning the quality of Tiger Woods’ competitors in his Majors’ victories.  Porter reported that;

            Dan Jenkins, it would appear, is all in on Tiger Woods.

Golf Writers' GOAT

The most famous golf journalist alive made a splash when he wrote a satirical piece about Woods last fall that Woods actually responded to.

Now, he's saying Woods never really beat anyone in his 14 majors. From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Incidentally, there's much more talent at the top (and the bottom) than there was during Tiger's peak years. Tiger beat a lot of nobodies to win most of his majors.

Yeah, there was Phil [Mickelson] and [Ernie] Els around, in and out, but go back and look who was second to him in those majors and tell me where they are now.

I see what Jenkins is saying here -- golf is deeper in 2015 than it was in 2000 -- but I don't really agree with the way he's framing it.

Here are the 14 runners-up to Woods at the majors, by the way.

Tom Kite, Sergio Garcia, Ernie Els and Miguel Angel Jimenez, Ernie Els and Thomas Bjorn, Bob May, David Duval, Retief Goosen, Phil Mickelson, Chris DiMarco, Colin Montgomerie, Chris DiMarco, Shaun Micheel, Woody Austin and Rocco Mediate.

The last three are an abomination but that's not an awful list. Let's hold it up to, say, Rory McIlroy's runners-up at his four majors.

Jason Day, David Lynn, Rickie Fowler and Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson. A better, but similar list.

The Golf Album Blog covered this debate in one of its first posts here.  In comparing Golf’s Greatest, the Golden Bear himself, Jack Nicklaus, to Tiger Woods, the TGA Blog reminisced about  Nicklaus’s Masters victory in 1986. 

Every golf fan old enough to hold a club at that point in time knows where he was that second Sunday in April in 1986.  But even without that remarkable victory at age 46, Nicklaus was the greatest ever.  Not only did Nicklaus win 18 majors (in 163 majors appearances), perhaps more incredibly, he finished second in major tournaments 19 times!  Even more incredibly, he posted top-five finishes in major championships 56 times!  That’s a top-five finish twice a year for 28 consecutive years!  He finished in the top ten in major tournaments 73 times!  By the way, Nicklaus also won 8 senior majors titles, more than any other golfer,

Woods, on the other hand, in 62 major championships appearances has won 14 times but finished  2^nd just 6 times and has 29 top-five finishes (and hopefully won’t improve those totals any time soon, despite his recent win, most ironically, at Jack’s Memorial tournament.) 

            And Nicklaus wasn’t playing against the undistinguished crowd of nameless golfers that win one major and disappear, like Woods’ crew of opponents – Nicklaus was playing in the Golden Age of Golf against a cadre of the greatest golfers of all time.  Legends like Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Gary Player, Johnny Miller (who remains the only golfer to shoot 63 in the final round to win a major), Seve Ballesteros, and Greg Norman, all squarely in or close to their primes.  Of the 18  golfers with victories in three or more majors (other than Nicklaus and Woods), whose careers overlapped those of Nicklaus and/or Woods,   Nicklaus competed against thirteen of them during his time on tour.  Conversely, Tiger has competed against seven such triple winners, but that list includes Nick Faldo (last victory in a major was 1996), nonagenarian Tom Watson (last victory in a major was 1983), Payne Stewart (tragically died in 1999) and Vijay Singh (last victory in a major was 2004). In fact, the only golfers against whom Tiger has competed who won all three of their majors since Tiger won his first major in 1997 are the aforementioned Singh, Phil Mickelson and Padraig Harrington.  Their combined list of nine major championships does not include one U.S. Open. 

            And in that historic Masters in 1986, Nicklaus in his final round passed Seve Ballesteros, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Nick Price, Bernhard Langer  and Tom Kite, all of whom are in the Golf Hall of Fame, and who together combined for 19 major titles.  Jack also started the final round tied with Sandy Lyle, winner of the 1988 Masters and The Open Championship in 1985, Corey Pavin, the 1995 U.S. Open champ and Bob Tway, the 1986 PGA Championship winner.    

            Woods, on the other hand has been competing against majors winners like Shaun Micheel, Geoff Ogilvy, Jim Furyk, Ben Curtis, Stewart Cink, Rich Beem, David Toms, Yang Yong-eun and the like, one-hit wonders when it comes to golf’s majors. Switching sports metaphors, this is not exactly a Murderers’ Row of golfing greats, especially compared to the lineup of legends against which The Bear competed. 

In Taylor’s comparison, Jenkins’ comments may seem off the mark just a little. But when viewed in the context of the competition faced by the man ahead of him on the all-time majors list, Woods’ record pales in comparison, at least on the level of the overall competition he faced. 

Golf's GOAT

Here’s a list of the golfers who finished second to Nicklaus in his 18 Majors’ victories: 

 Arnold Palmer, Gary Player,  Johnny Miller, Tom Kite,  Greg Norman, Billy Casper, Tony Lema , Gay Brewer, Tommy Jacobs, Bruce Crampton,  Bobby Mitchell, Tom Weiscopf, Doug Sanders, Dave Thomas, Ben Crenshaw, Raymond Floyd, Simon Owen,  Isao Aoki,  Dave Ragan,  Andy Bean.

That list contains the King; one of the top five golfers of all time (Player); nine Hall of Famers; at least three golfers who belong in the WGHOF (Weiscopf, Lema, Crampton); Doug Sanders (20 PGA victories); Gay Brewer (10 PGA victories, including the 1967 Masters; and Andy Bean, with 11 PGA wins. The remaining golfers have combined for at least 25 PGA and International Tour victories. Okay, so there is an outlier or two.  But you get the point.  Nicklaus played in the Golden Age of golf and routinely competed against the best in the game.  Woods did not.  With the exception of Mickelson, Els, and perhaps Kite, there

Bridesmaids All

are some golfing very goods but no golfing greats on Woods’  bridemaids list.  As is usually the case, the GOAT got it right.

AMDG

Tiger Not Becoming In A Onesie

Saturday, June 6, 2015,was a remarkable day in sports history.    At the one end of the greatness spectrum in the sports world American Pharoah joined the celebrated ranks of horse-racing immortals by winning the final leg of racing's Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, by 5 1/2 lengths in convincing fashion.  Pharoah finished strongly, posting a winning time that was second only to Secreteriat's all-time Belmont record that was set 42 years ago and likely will never be broken.

On the other end of the sports immortality spectrum Tiger Woods recorded one of the worst rounds of his professional career in the Memorial Tournament hosted by Jack Nicklaus.   Woods shot an 85 and found himself at the end of the third round in dead last place.   For the first time in his storied professional career Woods teed off on the morning of the fourth round first and played by himself.   Playing a tournament fourth-round as a onesie is a dubious distinction for any golfer, let alone a golfer considered by some (but not this space) as the greatest golfer ever.