US Open Shag Bag #PGA

Thoughts on what is fast becoming one of the least enjoyable golf tournaments of the year.

--The US Open is not fun to watch. Pebble Beach is beautiful, the scenery second to none, but the golf on display is horrible. Simply put, the track is just too hard. Yes, par won. Yes, there was a low round or two each day. But when there is virtually no chance of a player making a Sunday run to catch someone from behind, (stay seated Johnny Miller), the tournament becomes stale. Seeing who can make fewer bogeys, fewer doubles, and in the case of Dustin Johnson, fewer triples, is death. The best players in the world are getting gobbled up and watching who bleeds less, sucks. It sucks very much.

--Graeme McDowell...Good guy, great accent and was already making jokes about getting hammered at the press conference. He was the one guy who kept it together, didn’t cave under the pressure and made shots. The ONLY guy. No, Gregory Havret, you don’t count. You need to be ranked in the top 390 in the world for me to take you seriously. McDowell may be a guy who wins another major at some point, but he doesn’t quite fit on the list of other major winners at Pebble Beach. Which of these is not like the others; Nicklaus, Watson, Kite, Woods, McDowell. That’s what I thought.

--Phil Mickelson...Starting to look more and more like he is never going to get the US Open trophy. He opens with a birdie, has a 12-footer for eagle of 4 and 3-stabs, nice knowing you. Talk all you want about the driving and the decision making, it is the putter that is going to keep him from lifting that hardware. It’s not that he likes to play shots off of TV cables, (he does), it’s that he struggles getting the ball in the hole from three feet on Sunday. Nice white pants.

--Tiger Woods...Can we just all come to this conclusion once and for all, and then just move on and not talk about it anymore? Tiger Woods is a bad guy. He isn’t going to change. He isn’t going to wave and shake hands. He isn’t going to be a good interview, and he is never going to be anything other than a pathological liar. He is one of the world’s worst husbands not named Scott Peterson. Let’s agree on that and talk about other things. Namely, his game is not coming around. He played well one day out of four and blamed the other three days on the greens, his caddy and other things. Give him credit for this, he has gotten one new trick, blaming others. Since when does he not own his mistakes? His act after the final round with the interviewer was classic Tiger. Combative, short, and self-serving. The good news is, at least now, everyone can root against him with unrestrained glee...or at least they should. Oh, one other thing. He’s going to win at St. Andrews in a month and then pretend to be a good guy again. Don’t buy it.

--Ernie Els...Um, nice try. The one guy in the field who had multiple chances to win the tournament and couldn’t do it. MIss at 12. Miss at 14. Miss at 18. And then he left without talking to anyone. His manager described him as ‘gutted’. Yep, pretty much. That might have been his last chance to win a major and he choked it. FACT.

--Dustin Johnson...Next. Nothing to say here. He took care of all of that on his own with his play on Sunday. Double, triple, thanks for playing. The guy had a three shot lead and was off TV coverage by the 5th hole. Not easy to do. Good luck shaking that one off.

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