The U.S. Open

Hockey is over. Football will be starting here in a few weeks or so...but right now I'm all about the golf! Finally, a sport I can talk about where I have true experience! The U.S. Open started this morning at Bethpage Black in New York. They are currently under a rain delay. I feel a bit bad for them considering it's the rain we had been getting for the past few days--showers aren't much fun when you're playing in a major! There's already enough other mental and physical challenges of a major...being wet and frustrated doesn't make it any easier. It just seperates the men from the boys and the guys who get it done on the course this week will be rewarded with lots of cash, a place in history, and even one of them will be called a U.S. Open Champion.

So, who are my picks?

This is a really good question. I'll be honest. I haven't paid that much attention to golf since the Masters in April. This is highly unusual, but my favorite golfers haven't been playing that much or playing so poorly that they haven't been making the cut. Adam Scott...are you listening? I know you're going through a swing change (I loved your swing before!) and you've got your hand in 10 or 15 pots outside of golf (which is good and bad at the same time), but this is the time of your life to make an impact on the game. What happened? Do we need a fun round of golf with you, me, and Clunesy? You name the time and place and I will be there! But Chris better be there too because he's freaking awesome! So needless to say, I do not have Adam on my list of picks for this week. He's been struggling with keeping the ball in the fairway. Add on the fact that he's got to play U.S. Open rough that is soaking wet from all the rain and I can only see disaster. Sorry, Adam. I love you, but I'm honest! Maybe take Chris back out on tour with you!! Or maybe you're doing all of this, and I just don't know about it! Just don't forget how much you love the game! It will turn around soon...it has to!! You've that "it" thing they talk about!!

Yes, that does say "To Melissa, Best Wishes, Adam Scott!"


Here's me and Clunesy watching Adam practice.

Who is on my radar for this week: Geoff Ogilvy, Jim Furyk, Henrik Stenson, Tiger (duh!), and not Phil Mickelson. I know New York loves him and he always seems to play well there, but I'm just not feeling it this weekend. He says he's hitting the ball well, but if you don't shoot well, it doesn't much matter how great you're hitting the ball! At the end of the day it doesn't matter how you get the ball in the hole, it only matters if you take the least amount of strokes to get it there! I think winning would be great for him and his family in their time of great need. My prayers are with him, Amy, and his family. But I'm still not feeling a victory come Sunday. Sorry, Phil.

Ogilvy won the match play tournament earlier in the year. He's a great ball striker, but he's kind of disappeared since the win. I feel like he's ready for a breakout. Jim just always seems to be in the game somewhere. He may not win, but he'll be a top 10 finisher. Stenson, he's European. He can play in this weather and not be bothered. I also think he has one of the best games in the game today! Tiger is Tiger. You never count him out.

With the way the course is set up and the weather playing a part, this tournament as my coworker describes it is really a "crap shoot". It's anyone's game. Watching Tiger hit the splash shots he did this morning leads me to believe that it is impossible to hit the ball with any sort of accuracy. There's no spin on the ball to control it. These guys are going to be lucky just to get the ball on the green and have it stay there! Good luck to them!

It's times like this when I don't miss playing golf in the pouring rain because we have a 3 hour practice, or 9 am practices in January when we're outside hitting golf balls into snowbanks, or playing tournaments when it's snowing!! It's so much more fun just to play when you want to and not be forced to play in nasty conditions! But I'll tell you what, those were some of the best days and years of my life! I wouldn't have done it any differently except to have played golf more for myself instead of trying to prove to my coach I could do it.