Third Round of U.S. Open Starts on Father's Day

By: Jay Flemma

So far, the U.S. Open at Bethpage has been: waterfalls and mud pies, more stops and starts than my girlfriend driving a stick, fluky leaders, playing conditions based on luck of the draw, and no one - player, writer or USGA rep - has been able to get into a flow because the weather has made the tournament run in unpredictable fits and spurts.

Are we having fun yet?

The soggy playing conditions and intermittent rains caused two anomalies. First, luck of the draw has played a role, just like it did at the 2000 and 2002 U.S. Opens. Those years, Tiger Woods played in relative calm and dry conditions and cruised to victory. This year, just like at Muirfield in 2002, Tiger got the short straw and had to play in the teeth of a downpour and struggled.

I guess such breaks even out in the long run.

On Saturday in his second round, Woods followed an opening 74 with an up-and-down 69, closing with a disappointing bogey. He struck the ball well, hitting 14 of 18 greens and 10 of 14 fairways, but his 61 putts left him 11 behind the leader, Ricky Barnes, and the record number for coming from behind to win the U.S. Open (Lou Graham did it at Medinah in 1975).

"The putts I hit well didn't go in, and the putts I hit poorly weren't even close," Woods lamented after the round. "My score doesn't reflect how I'm playing, but I've got 36 holes over the next three days," he joked to a smattering of chuckles.

He did assert that the Thursday draw hurt him, but also admitted he didn't respond to the adversity as much as he needed. "One-under par was the best score out of my side of the draw. That would have been a really good score," he acknowledged. "But I ended up 4-over, which was about average for the day on my side, which is not what it takes to win a U.S. Open."

Instead, he trails a pair of unknowns and Mike Weir who have achieved a small measure of separation for the moment. But ask Retief Goosen or Gil Morgan how fast a big lead can evaporate at a U.S. Open. Barnes went out early and fired a sparkling 65 to compliment his opening 67. He had a clean card - five birdies, no bogeys, a 40-foot birdie putt on the par-3 eighth and a twisting 25-footer on the par-4 11th. He's had one bogey all week, the 10th in round one, and has miraculously transfigured into a model of a U.S. Open winner, hitting 31 of 36 greens in regulation (86%) and 19 of 28 fairways, (68%).

The confounding stats are these: In his entire PGA Tour career Barnes has had a paltry 15 sub-par rounds and his U.S. Open record stands at missed cut in 2000, missed cut in '02, T-59 in '03, and missed cut in '07. His overall PGA Tour record is similar as he's earned roughly $68,000, and his best finish is tied for 47th. This guy now holds the U.S. Open record for low 36 holes.

Oh well, at least we know more about him than Michael Campbell.

"Could I have predicted I would shoot 132? No," Barnes asked and answered rhetorically. "No. Did I know I had it in me? Yeah," he finished confidently. He credited a newfound patience and humility with his recent resurgence. "I've grown up . . . it's been paying dividends.

Barnes is one shot ahead of another head-scratcher of a leader, Lucas Glover. Glover also took advantage of benign early conditions to fire a 64. His card too was clean, with birdies at the first, third, sixth - which he played 5-wood, 9-iron - 10, 13 and 18. Like Barnes, he followed the tried-and-true U.S. Open formula of "fairways and greens," hitting 32 greens and 20 of 28 fairways, (71.5%). Glover can go low; he shot a 63 at Olympia Fields in 2003.

But he also mirrors Barnes in another way: his U.S. Open history is similarly ragged, three missed cuts in three Opens, (2002, '06 and '07). Glover has surged this year, T-3 at the Buick and T-2 at Quail Hollow. "But he's still Fluke-us Glover," quipped one irreverent wag. "Who the heck picked him?"

Pre-tournament pick or not, officially, Glover tied the competitive course record Saturday. I say officially because the governing bodies of golf don't recognize a 17-year-old catholic school kid named Steve Young who shot a 62 in a high school tournament from what was then the tips, roughly 6,950 yards (May 11, 1961).

The other 64 is Weir. One of the Tour's Steady Eddies, he's been indifferent so far off the tee (57%, avg. driving distance 263), but has needed only 56 putts. His second round 70 put him at 134, two behind Barnes and one behind Glover.

Tomorrow, Weir will play with another unexpected party crasher. Japan's Azuma Yano, fired another stellar early-morning round, a 65, balancing five birdies against a bogey on the 16th. He did it with his iron play as he only hit seven fairways, but 13 greens, and took merely 25 putts.

That stat is one of many that show the graded rough may be a little too easy. Even if the players miss by a foot, they should still not have exactly the same difficulty of shot as if they hit the fairway. Had the course not turned into a mud-wrestling pit, long hitters would have had a huge advantage.

Yano stands at 3-under for the championship and is tied with Swede Peter Hanson - he of the fast cars - and fan favorite David Duval. Yano is so obscure, the players guide doesn't have his picture or list his home town. As he's 50th on the Japan Tour money list, he may be obscure in his own country. "Could you image if he wins?" moaned one journalist. "Please. Please. Please. don't let that happen!"

Hanson is obscure only because he's Swedish and plays on the European Tour. Duval is hoping to reprise his major championship win at the 2001 British Open and add the U.S. Open Trophy to his Claret Jug. That's a nice set of bookends.

Other major champions within 10 shots include Todd Hamilton at 2-under, Phil Mickelson at 1-under, Geoff Ogilvy at level par, and Retief Goosen and Jim Furyk at 1-over.

Nevertheless, we are at the mercy of the schizophrenic rain. It's now 36 days out of 46 with rain and the forecast is for more straight through Tuesday. Two rounds down, but it still looks like rain, which means uncertainty for everyone. They went off two tees Sunday starting at 7:30.



Since launching his first golf writing website in 2004, http://www.jayflemma.thegolfspace.com, Jay Flemma's comparative analysis of golf designs and knowledge of golf course architecture and golf travel have garnered wide industry respect. In researching his book on America's great public golf courses (and whether they're worth the money), Jay, an associate editor of Cybergolf, has played over 220 nationally ranked public golf courses in 37 different states. Jay has played about 1,649,000 yards of golf - or roughly 938 miles. His pieces on travel and architecture appear in Golf Observer (www.golfobserver.com), Cybergolf and other print magazines. When not researching golf courses for design, value and excitement, Jay is an entertainment, copyright, Internet and trademark lawyer and an Entertainment and Internet Law professor in Manhattan. His clients have been nominated for Grammy and Emmy awards, won a Sundance Film Festival Best Director award, performed on stage and screen, and designed pop art for museums and collectors. Jay lives in Forest Hills, N.Y., and is fiercely loyal to his alma maters, Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and Trinity College in Connecticut.