Us Open

[FredPuli43]

Anybody watching the golf? Who do you think is going to win? I fancy Mickelson to do it. He's not playing too badly, and he's been there in so many majors that he's got the game and the experience to perform on the last day.
But what a course! Not a great length, not a links, but a course for the thinking golfer just the same.

[DaisyNonna]

Thinking?

[ELVIS68]

Absolutely, I've backed Poulter, Els and Stenson at big prices

[toalisi]

Luke Donald

[FredPuli43]

Yes, Daisy, 'thinking'. There are courses where hitting the ball a long way and being able to pitch and putt will do.Most American courses are like that, the players playing what's called target golf. The fairways are pretty level and the greens are fairly soft and receptive. The great courses never give you a level stance in the fairways, and, for example, the holes are arranged so that when you want have to make the ball fly right to left in the air, the ground lies so that it will fly the opposite way. Every hole presents new problems. That's a course for the thinking golfer; it requires strategy as well as great skill.

[DTCwordfan]

I wouldn't quite put Merion in US Open colours into that category, Fred.....

They let a group of amateurs tackle Torrey Pines under such Open conditions and, if I remember right, the +1 handicapper got round in just under the ton!

[FredPuli43]

Yes, DTC. We amateurs don't realise just how good these pros are, since we only see them playing other pros. Years ago, 4 members of the British Ryder Cup team visited my local course, for a charity exhibition. In their first round they scored 70, 69 etc, just under par That was their first sight of the course. On their second sight of it they shot 63, 64, 65 and 65! The 63, by Dave Thomas, was the lowest score ever recorded there by anyone, amateur or pro. It does help if you can reach the longest par 5 with a drive and an 8 iron and put your second a foot from the cup,as he did, but there's a bit more to it than that, methinks.

[ChillDoubt]

Well, Lefty and Mahan certainly don't seem to want it!

[ChillDoubt]

Scratch that! In a curse of the commentator kind of way, both have played superb golf since I last posted.
Can Justin hang on?

[ChillDoubt]

Rose just off the back at 18, deserved a far better result than that.
Tricky one, chip or putt?

[ChillDoubt]

He chips it with a fairway wood to within an inch for par.
Now he waits......

[FredPuli43]

Hope he can. When a player gets what is, in effect, a hole in one, as Mickelson did in this round, it always feels not quite right if he ties or wins by it.

[ChillDoubt]

Mahan looks to be out of it, needed birdy birdy finish, left himself a 12 footer for par.

[ChillDoubt]

All over for Mahan. Lefty will need a birdy and two of the best shots of all time on 18 to make it a play-off, Rose has one hand on it now.

[ChillDoubt]

Didn't know Mickelson didn't have the big dog in the bag, gonna be even tougher!

[ChillDoubt]

And that tee shot by Lefty pretty much secures it for Rose, bar a miracle I feel.

[ChillDoubt]

Player and interviewer both getting choked as Justin talks about his late Dad on Father's Day.
I think a few of us felt a tightening in the throat there too!

[ChillDoubt]

Lefty needs to chip in from miles away, Rose can start celebrating.
It's gonna be emotional, that's for sure.

[FredPuli43]

Talking of lefties, just discovered that of the three men to win majors, playing left-handed; Mike Weir, Bob (later Sir Bob) Charles, and Phil Mickelson; only one, Charles, was left-handed. The other two are naturally right-handed. Isn't that extraordinary? It used to be that left- handers would play right-handed, because they started as caddies or very young and they didn't have access to left-handed clubs.

[ChillDoubt]

Lefty can't pull off a magicians stroke and Justin Rose wins.
Very well done indeed, been a long time coming.

[bibblebub]

i had Rose at 7/1 (after the 2nd round)