U.S. Open

[cuseattle]

Welcome to the beautiful Northwest! Great to have the best players in the world here this week and Phil is off to a great start. Hope it is a successful event and returns on a regular basis.

 

[Crusty]

Welcome to the beautiful Northwest! Great to have the best players in the world here this week and Phil is off to a great start. Hope it is a succesful event and returns on a regular basis.

Looks like this will be an interesting Open. Best wishes for a successful championship.
It sounds as if this course is like some of the courses in Scotland where they let nature water the course. Hard ground and very tight lies are harder to adapt to than one might think. They just got through with Muirfield, which is always one of the better manicured courses in the country (day in and day out) - the exact opposite type of play than they will find this week.

Should be fun to watch.

 

[jordoo]

Patrick Reed starting out hot!

Phil also starting off strong. He may have a good chance here because its more open than your average US open and the ruff is playable instead of heavily penalizing like it traditionally is.

I agree with Crusty the ball rolls around on this course like a British Open

 

[CanadianSU]

Looks like the worst spectating course ever lol, other than that it's a cool change imo.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

I'd hate to have to walk that course. Should be an interesting few days.

 

[Oakland]

I played Chambers 3 months after it opened and you could still see the catapillar tracks in the mounds off the fairways.

Looks like this will be an interesting Open. Best wishes for a successful championship.
It sounds as if this course is like some of the courses in Scotland where they let nature water the course. Hard ground and very tight lies are harder to adapt to than one might think. They just got through with Muirfield, which is always one of the better manicured courses in the country (day in and day out) - the exact opposite type of play than they will find this week.

Should be fun to watch.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

I played Chambers 3 months after it opened and you could still see the catapillar tracks in the mounds off the fairways.

How did you shoot. It appears that you need to be a pretty shot maker to play this course. Every time I look up, guys are either in the rough or in the bunkers.

 

[jordoo]

How did you shoot. It appears that you need to be a pretty shot maker to play this course. Every time I look up, guys are either in the rough or in the bunkers.

I think its most important to drive it accurately there and then to know the way the greens roll on your approach shots from what I'm seeing. Once you are off course you are somewhat at the mercy or the terrain. There are some brutal slopes and the bunkers scare the crap out of me from a golf perspective.

 

[Oakland]

Not so good. I was working my way down from Vancouver to Bandon dunes on a business/golf trip. When I played Chambers my game still had a ways to go. I remember #8 chewing me up and spitting me out - two or three times.

Actually, I just found my score card - 92 - 10 on #8, from the blue tees, 7,000 yds.

How did you shoot. It appears that you need to be a pretty shot maker to play this course. Every time I look up, guys are either in the rough or in the bunkers.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

Not so good. I was working my way down from Vancouver to Bandon dunes on a business/golf trip. When I played Chambers my game still had a ways to go. I remember #8 chewing me up and spitting me out - two or three times.

Actually, I just found my score card - 92 - 10 on #8, from the blue tees, 7,000 yds.

You must be a pretty good player. That's a decent score from 7000 yards for playing that quirky course for the first time.

BTW, what do people think of Dustin Johnson. Do people like him and are they rooting for him. The guy has had so many allegations/rumors/facts about him but we do know three sure things: 1) He's a damn good player, 2) He was a bad enough boy that he was suspended from the PGA and 3) He's married to a pretty hot Gretzky. Even though she seems to be a loose cannon, she still is eye candy.

I try not to judge people, especially ones that might have an addiction they can't control, so I guess I would like to see him do well, but there are definitely a host of others that I would root for first (Go Patrick Reed!!!).

 

[CanadianSU]

You must be a pretty good player. That's a decent score from 7000 yards for playing that quirky course for the first time.

BTW, what do people think of Dustin Johnson. Do people like him and are they rooting for him. The guy has had so many allegations/rumors/facts about him but we do know three sure things: 1) He's a damn good player, 2) He was a bad enough boy that he was suspended from the PGA and 3) He's married to a pretty hot Gretzky. Even though she seems to be a loose cannon, she still is eye candy.

I try not to judge people, especially ones that might have an addiction they can't control, so I guess I would like to see him do well, but there are definitely a host of others that I would root for first (Go Patrick Reed!!!).

I would root for DJ any day over that Reed dude, comes off arrogant, especially after he said he was one of the top 3 players in the world after winning some dinky tournament. Imo. Fun tournament though lol, it's kinda like mini putt out there sometimes!!

 

[PoppyHart]

[/QUOTE]The guy has had so many allegations/rumors/facts about him but we do know three sure things: 1) He's a damn good player, 2) He was a bad enough boy that he was suspended from the PGA and 3) He's married to a pretty hot Gretzky. Even though she seems to be a loose cannon, she still is eye candy.

[/QUOTE]


We actually only know 1 of them. There was no "official" suspension, and they are only engaged.

 

[MSOrange]

I would root for DJ any day over that Reed dude, comes off arrogant, especially after he said he was one of the top 3 players in the world after winning some dinky tournament. Imo. Fun tournament though lol, it's kinda like mini putt out there sometimes!!

Totally agree. My perception is Reed is an arrogant jerk.

 

[jordoo]

I wouldn't mind Reed wining. Speith needs a nemisous moving forward. And really if you don't think you are top3 then you never will be. I'd love to see Reed and Speith battle down the stretch in a close one the next two days.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

One of the worst 3rd round leader boards ever. I'll still watch but I might be the only one. I'm sure if you are in the area of Chambers Bay you could get in today for next to nothing. Fox better hope that Phil can make an early run and then maybe Dufner or Kuchar. After that you have the amateur or Jason Day who are both good stories. Can't believe the 3rd to last group is Tony Finau or Joost Liutin. Not even sure they are household names in their own household. I used to pride myself on knowing every guy, what they looked like, who sponsored them and a few key facts about them (like what their wife or girlfriend looked like). Now it's near impossible to know everyone of these guys.
http://www.sbnation.com/golf/2015/6/20/8817687/2015-us-open-tee-times-groups-start-time-saturday

 

[cliftonparksufan]

I wouldn't mind Reed dining. Speith needs a nemisous moving forward. And really if you don't think you are top3 then you never will be. I'd love to see Reed and Speith battle down the stretch in a close one the next two days.

You want to watch Reed eat. Ok. Whatever you are into.

 

[CanadianSU]

Totally agree. My perception is Reed is an arrogant jerk.

Hey he could be a nice guy, as far as I see it, some of his comments are pretty jerkish lol.

I hope Phil makes a run, now there's a guy so easy to cheer for.

 

[jordoo]

You want to watch Reed eat. Ok. Whatever you are into.

 

[MSOrange]

Hey he could be a nice guy, as far as I see it, some of his comments are pretty jerkish lol.

I hope Phil makes a run, now there's a guy so easy to cheer for.

I read the Sports Illustrated article about Reed and just not a fan. Then you factor in the cheating allegations. Obviously those haven't been proven as fact, but it seems like a situation where there is smoke there is fire.

 

[upperdeck]

in listening to the radio coverage it sounds like its a fun experience to play for the avg player.. they take the speed down to a 8-9 so that the slopes still matter but the ball doesnt run so much and they water it so the fairways are not so severe. when you take a 1000 yds away from a course it changes quite a bit for any player.

but you need to have some control over the driver to play almost any of these course the pro's play on.. play enjoe from the tips and drive off line just a few times and your score is screwed, drive it well and you can appreciate just how well the pro's have to hit every hole to score at all.

 

[Crusty]

Epic Gary Player Rant.
<iframe width="854" height="510" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ywM-YUiPVZA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I agree with almost everything he said. If the USGA doesn't do something about the golf ball they won't be able to build courses long enough.

 

[upperdeck]

i wonder if club head speed has really changed that much over the last 40+ years? if not then its all ball/clubs/grooves. all the stuff that makes the avg player better.. But I agree level the playing field with the ball. nascar went to 1 tire company to make things equal. honestly most of the money made off the amateurs buying balls is for buying balls that are not what the pro's play anyway.

have the companies come up with 5-6 balls so guys have some choices and then let them have at it.. do it one tournament to try it out. make the ball go 50 yds shorter off iron byron and then let the guys play at it.. they would still be good, but driver/wedge would go away for many and they would have to hit into the greens with the clubs the older course were designed for. hit a 1/2 iron into 17 like Niclaus and now these guys hit 7 iron.

they still have all the other advantages of more forgiving/longer clubs with more grooves and hybrid to help them out.

not sure why the best in the world complain about bumpy/fast greens. its all equal, they had a long time to prepare, the avg player plays on crappy greens and rock hard bunkers year round there are many courses around with crazy greens. sometimes they miss by a few yards and get bad results but some of these misses are 20-30 yds off and you get what you get when you miss that bad. on other course you would be in the water with misses like they made this week.

this isnt like the greens are so fast you cant even make a putt. Oosthhazuen? could have shot 62 today with all the missed 10 ft putts.

 

[MSOrange]

So even when he's dizzy, Jason Day is one of the best players in the world. Wow!

 

[SWC75]

I also agree with Player and will add a few comments of my own as a TV viewer.

The backdrop of this course is beautiful but the course itself is ugly. It's a filled in rock quarry and looks like it. The rough looks like a desert. The greens look like the fairways. They actually had to mark them with white markers so the golfers would know the difference. It actually looks like they randomly stuck flags in the middle of fairways and that's the green. The greens are also blotchy due to the multiple types of grass, giving them a "camouflaged" look that the golfers find hard to read. And the multiple types of grass will obviously make it bumpy. Basically anything but a tap=in is an 'approach' put. It's fun to see the pros use imaginative puts that go off in one direction and come back another but when they have to do that on every hole it comes off as gimmicky. It's a challenging golf course but visually featureless, with the one tree and no water, although the many bunkers look like water hazards from a distance because of the odd hue of the sand, (which I assume must be volcanic). The big appeal of watching golf on TV is that golf course are beautiful to look at. This one is just weird.

Maybe the problem is that the course, which is only 8 years old, needs to mature. The alst time there was this much criticism of a US Open course was Hazeltine in 1970, which was also 8 years old:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_U.S._Open_(golf)
They said the USGA had always wanted to host an Open in the northwest but the courses there tend to be too soggy in June. This one was chosen because it was so dry. They said the air current are weak there and it makes it hard to grow grass. That doesn't sound like an ideal place to build a golf course. Robert Trent Jones Jr., the architect, was interviewed on Bud and the Manchild and said that when they built the course, they had their eye on hosting an open and the workers wore T-shirts saying "2030 US Open". That might have been a better idea.

 

[SWC75]

One of the worst 3rd round leader boards ever. I'll still watch but I might be the only one. I'm sure if you are in the area of Chambers Bay you could get in today for next to nothing. Fox better hope that Phil can make an early run and then maybe Dufner or Kuchar. After that you have the amateur or Jason Day who are both good stories. Can't believe the 3rd to last group is Tony Finau or Joost Liutin. Not even sure they are household names in their own household. I used to pride myself on knowing every guy, what they looked like, who sponsored them and a few key facts about them (like what their wife or girlfriend looked like). Now it's near impossible to know everyone of these guys.
http://www.sbnation.com/golf/2015/6/20/8817687/2015-us-open-tee-times-groups-start-time-saturday

I think it's a great leader board. Jason Day trying to overcome vertigo. Dustin Johnson trying to win the major that has eluded him, (one of them because of that weird ruling at Whistling Straights). Jordan Spieth with a chance at a run for a Grand Slam.Rory McElroy now pressuring the leaders. I hate the coruse but love the tournament.