SOUTHAMPTON, NY – Brooks Koepka may have won the trophy again, and Tommy Fleetwood might have won the hearts of golfers everywhere with his tournament record-tying 63 and rock-star hair, but Shinnecock Hills won the 118th U.S. Open. As it should be; at a truly great U.S. Open, the course is always the star. Koepka became the first repeat U.S. Open Champion since...
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – Pre-eminent sports writer Rick Reilly’s hat said it all. “Pray For Birdies,” it blared in red, white and blue. It feels like an old-school U.S. Open even though the golf course is as wide as a weekend bogey golfer could wish for. Despite the widest fairways in modern tournament history, at the halfway point of the 118th U.S. Open at venerable...
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – I want to thank the great Dan Jenkins for today’s writing prompt. He published some of his favorite (and not so favorite Opens) and reminded me that it’s time for my annual U.S. Open history lesson for y’all. So here we go; class is in session. Take good notes. You never know when you’ll be quizzed. GREAT STORIES YOU NEVER HEAR ABOUT, BUT NEED TO...
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – My colleague and friend Mike Vaccaro, a sparkling gem of the New York Post sports writing diadem, likes to collect datelines. I remember he was especially proud of “Beijing,” but lamented publicly that it couldn’t be “Peking” instead. Mike and I met writing the dateline “Mamaroneck” in 2006 at Winged Foot, and together we watched Phil Mickeson fall...
SOUTHAMPTON – “It’s a process, it’s a process, it’s a process.” If the old Tiger Woods – describing his swing changes – said it once, he said it a thousand times. It became a joke in the media center. I thought it was merely a combination of platitude and mantra; something to he chanted to himself as he worked the range that had the added benefit of...
Here are the tee times for the 118h U.S. Open. We’ll be live at Shinnecock Hills all week starting Tuesday morning. Thursday (June 14), hole #1 / Friday (June 15), hole #10 6:45 a.m. / 12:30 p.m. – Harold Varner, Gastonia, N.C.; TBD; Matthieu Pavon, France 6:56 a.m. / 12:41 p.m. – Michael Putnam, University Place, Wash.; Scott Gregory, England; Will Zalatoris...
So my U.S. Open preview is up at Golf News Net. (They always male it look fantastic!) Ryan Ballengee and I will have wall-to-wall coverage of the tournament all week long, with radio, video, and 1,500 words a day. Plus I’ll have three-day coverage of the Anderson Memorial at Winged Foot. Throw in a round at National Golf Links of America, and that’s a...
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – It’s the best golf design magic trick since Oakmont made 5,000 trees disappear. Now you see it, now you don’t – prest-o! change-o! – and with a wave of a wand, a whiff of diesel, and a crackerjack grounds crew, the fairways of 2018 U.S. Open host Shinnecock Hills narrowed pretty much overnight. Penn and Teller got nuthin’ on Shinnecock head super...
As always, Golf Course Trades did a phenomenal job with my preview for the U.S. Open. Super Jon Jennings leads an all-star cast of supers, meteorologists, and USGA brass in getting Shinnecock Hills ready for the pros and the National Championship. Jennings is a fascinating guy. as the articles states, “Golf is lucky to have gotten Jennings at all, actually. He...
The awful weather of this never-ending winter continued all across New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and into the Rust Belt and Heartland, crippling travel and causing multiple delays to the start of golf season. Even Shinnecock Hills, site of this year’s U.S. Open, has been affected. Erring on the side of caution (of course) the Club will Open one week later than...
I suppose it’s fitting that on the 30th anniversary of Sandy Lyle donning the Green Jacket that our generation’s heel of a golfer – a person as sour, dour, and sometimes unlovable as Lyle – won the 82nd Masters. Patrick Reed slouched and slogged his way into Butler Cabin and the Green Jacket with a workmanlike but uninspiring, up-and-down final round 71 for a...
Wow, what a terrific job Ryan Ballengee and the GNN team did publishing my fun look at the various U.S. Open Qualifying sites. Click here for the story. My fave part of the article: Orange County National’s Crooked Cat course is another boring, watery, center-line slog, so much so that during the week of the PGA Show, you’ll often hear golfers that played it lament...
Imagine my surprise when I saw something called “Hombre Golf Club, the Bad and Ugly Courses” listed among the nearly 100 local qualifying sites for the 118th U.S. Open. What passes for names these days! First we had the Mighty Ducks in hockey, now we have the Good the Bad and the Ugly in golf? What’s next? Is the Outlaw Josie Wales gonna pop out from behind a...
One last U.S. Open redux as Tony Dear, our European Correspondent, came on the sow to talk U.S. Open, Brooks Koepka, and miss the trivia question yet again:):) We’ll be checking in with him again in a couple weeks to talk Royal Birkdale and the Open Championship.
TOWN OF ERIN, WI – No less a personage than nine-time major champion Gary Player himself said that, “the long bunker shot is the most difficult shot in golf.” How fitting it is then, that the 2017 U.S. Open was essentially sealed by Brooks Koepka with one of the most exquisite played in the recent annals of the tournament. Clinging to a one shot lead over plucky...