Carmel, California is a beautiful part of the world. Needless to say, the Monterey peninsula holds some of our country’s greatest sites. Add to this the U.S. Open golf tournament and you cannot find a better place to be. Thanks to my sister Joy and her friend Rebecca Costas, my wife and I were able to spend the weekend at the golf tournament. Well more precisely, I spent the weekend at the event while they shopped and enjoyed each others company. Due to her new book “The Watchman’s Rattle”, Rebecca needed to spend most of her time on the launch and publicity which was exciting in its own right. Even with such a daunting task, she stilled opened her home to us which was an awesome place to stay.
As for the golf, I guess there were about 30,000 other people that thought Pebble Beach would be a great place to be that weekend. The crowds were huge and as each day wore on they got bigger. If you love golf and have ever been to Pebble Beach, you will understand that watching the professional golfers tee it up and struggle so much on a great course is somewhat satisfying. When I have played Pebble, the greens were always the most difficult part of the course. To say the pros had trouble with the greens, would be an understatement.
Thursday morning I watched as some of the early tee times went off of #1 and #10. Seeing the young stars of tomorrow hitting the first drive with the thought of winning the U.S. Open is a great moment. You know they believe they have a shot at the trophy. However reality will set in after two days and most will not make the cut. Friday comes with new thoughts of trying to survive to the weekend, making the cut and staying close to the leaders from the previous day. Many of the top professionals struggled the first two days and didn’t make the cut. Either the wind, which was cold and blowing both days and the slick greens would do them in. Some of the notables who didn’t make it to Saturday were Tom Lehman, Geoff Ogilvy, Louis Oosthuizen and Trevor Immelman. What do they players have in common you ask? Each has won a Major including Ogilvy at Wing Foot in New York (I was there and it was great) and Louis Oosthuizen (British Open 2010). Check my next blog!!
The thing I love to do is read all the papers after the first two days to see what everybody is saying about the course, the conditions and the leaders and their play. Being out on the course you get a first hand feel of the conditions and set up. For me, I will honestly admit that to par just one hole playing on the course as it is set up would be an accomplishment. As the commercial says “These guys are good”. On Saturday, the real test comes. The USGA (United States Golf Association) who runs the USGA events such as the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, etc., has total control over the way the course is set up for play. They decide each day what to do with the pin placement, speed of the greens and length of the holes.
Some would say these guys are evil. Some have said the USGA doesn’t like the golfers breaking par on the U.S. Open layout such as Pebble Beach. The golfers will always be politically correct in the assessment of the USGA officials. After all, they are professionals. But make no mistake the courses the PGA (Professional Golf Association) set up each week for the weekly events in no way resemble the USGA layout for the U.S. Open. The USGA doesn’t work for and is not run by the PGA.
So with the scores being somewhat better than expected, the USGA decided to bring them up a bit. They let the greens get firmer and faster, the set up pin placements in locations that were near impossible to reach. Case in point, #8 and #14 were both holes that for the resort golfer (guys like you and me) we would get on the green and two putt and move on, hopefully with a par! Not this time, the shot over the ravine and water on #8 too me is the hardest shot at Pebble Beach. It is no less than 180 yards of all carry and you have to carry a final bunker to a sloped green. Go long and you are in another bunker or worse in the rough chipping down a steep slope. If you watched the golfers on Thursday and Friday, they were going at the green with no real success. The best shots were in the front bunker and then a sand shot to the pin with hopes of a short par putt. On Saturday and Sunday, the players were “laying” up to the front apron and pitching the ball up the slope of the green to the back pin placement. Those that went for the flag were chipping down the slope and watching the ball roll past the green to the place where others were pitching back up from. No fun at all and believe me, if you were reviewing all the scores from that hole, you would see that many of the golfers who finished 2nd and higher, didn’t par that hole each day. Now take the 14th, a par five that seemed to garner all the attention. Did you see the 9’s that were posted on that hole? It was ugly. Watching this in person made you cringe and turn away, almost like a bar fight where one guy was beating somebody past the point of making the point, if you know what I mean. Nobody knew what would happen on this hole. It got so bad that laying up to around 80 to 100 yards didn’t assure you of anything. I walked up on this green on Sunday after play was complete and the location of the hole and plateau of the green where the ball would stay without running back down the fairway or into the rough was about the 10’ x 20’. Needless to say, from 100 yards, you go out and try and keep the ball within this area on CONCRETE!! The greens were so hard and fast that par was a Great score on that hole. Bogey 6 was acceptable and applauded when the players were lucky enough to obtain that.
BUT, with all that adversity such as the wind, the USGA set up, the difficulty of the course itself (nobody ever said Pebble was easy, at least I don’t think so) the shot that still stands out in the everybody’s mind is the tee shot on #18. This is a daunting site. The vista overlooking the ocean on the left, the Monterey hillside and the Lodge at Pebble on the right is one of the most impressive last holes you could ever play. You want to hit it out over the ocean and carry as far as possible up the fairway. You want too. But you don’t. You borrow as much as possible to the right without being completely lame and try and hit it square. You then take a second shot up the fairway and hope to be on in three and two putt for a par. Ok, I have tried to hit it up the fairway, but I still haven’t found those shots in the water off the rocks!
But the shot that makes us take a deep breath and hope to finish strong is now the last hole of the U.S. Open and the professionals need to get home to win. Each and every golfer went to the tee box for the first two days with a chance to win the tournament. On the last day only a handful had the chance. All failed except one. Graeme McDowell from Northern Ireland was able to meet the challenge. He was able to complete the round and tournament of his life in 284 strokes. He was 3 over par for the day and Even par for the 4 days of the event. Remember what I said about the USGA and breaking par. They succeeded in their wish and McDowell was the last man standing.
Many of the top names, Woods, Els, Michelson and Davis Love III finished in the top ten and all had a chance to take the trophy. But each met with some form of failure be it lack of putting (Woods) bad shots at big moments (Michelson) or just plain didn’t have it that day (Els and Love). As for me, watching these fantastic players struggle at some point on such a great course is why I know that playing the game of golf is a privilege that should be enjoyed. Making par is great, breaking par, well I will let you know when it happens. But the bottom line is, they all play at a level that many of us will never know. So go out and enjoy the game, have fun and pretend that you just made a putt to win the U.S. Open! Graeme McDowell used to do this and you know what, it finally happened to him.
As some of you know, this was the second of the 4 Major championships played each year. My Masters blog was posted and this is the second major of the year. I will be posting the British Open followed by the PGA championship in August. My personal “bucket list” for the year is ½ complete. Onward and upward!!
