2013 U.S. Open Running Thread

Last time there was an Open at Merion was in 1981. David Graham shot 7-under.

Give me Kuchar as my favorite, Furyk to place (he's from the area) and Woods to show. My underdog: David Lingmerth. Don't laugh. Did very well at The Players and didn't show any nerves at being in the final twosome on Sunday with Sergio. While Sergio was hitting two in the water at 17, Lingmerth stuffed it to 7 feet. Plays a very controlled game. He's 21st in driving accuracy on the Tour, 26th in scrambling (pars after missing the green) and his scoring average gets better from Friday to Saturday to Sunday. One key stat for him: The Tour has a stat for average distance to the hole when hitting the green from the rough of a fairway bunker. Lingmerth is 19th.

 

I'm of a like mind. Sometimes they set those courses up so that luck, more than anything else, determines whether a shot is a good one or not. Luck is a part of the game, but it's not that big a part of the game.

 

The USGA would be wise to take lessons from the R&A on how not to mess up an Open course. (Only exception that immediately comes to mind is 1999 at Carnoustie.)

 

Love the fact that this will be a more traditional course (loved that it was at Olympic in my backyard last year as well.) Just hope someone who does not use a broomstick wins.

This is tailor-made for a guy like Sergio who can bomb it yet hit it straight as an arrow; alas he's horrible with the putter.

You'd think a Zach Johnson type would be perfect, straight and consistent, deadly with the wedges. This has got to be Luke Donald's best shot in a long time.

As much as I want Tiger to break his 5 yr drought, this is just the wrong venue.

I'm taking Donald, Watney and Jason Day.

Last thought, really respect Furyk but damn him blaming his loss on the tees being MOVED UP last year? You're saying that on a Par 5 on Sunday they move the tees up to the ladies/red tees and you're COMPLAINING??? Ridiculous. Learn to hit a 4 Iron/Hybrid off the tee.

 

I would have thought the USGA would have learned it's lesson after the debacle at Shinnecock. That will always be the prime example of how you lose a golfcourse.

 

Shinnecock they lost the greens out of the desire to keep them too fast to putt. Since then, USGA setups have been notably less intense -- even last year. Merion, which I was once fortunate enough to play, is a wonderful course, but it's also muni-short by current pro performance standards. Unless there's some freak of nature (a day with a windy storm, a drought baking the fairways to cinders), the winner will be at least 5-under this year. That's a cinch.
Sometime between the Masters and the Players, Woods began having trouble keeping his tee shots in play again. That's not a formula for Open success.

 

2 things you can be sure of:

What happened in 2011 will never happen again.
Chambers Bay will be an absolute bear.

 

You shouldn't hit the green with a mid-iron and have the ball take two rocket bounces and roll off down a cliff, like what happened too often at Olympic Club. The greens should be able to hold good approach shots.

I suspect the winner will be a Lukas Glover-Webb Simpson type.... good, solid tour players who the average sports fan has never heard of. Someone who keeps the ball in the fairway and makes a lot of par putts and never takes a big number. Borrrrrr-ing!

 

I understand what you're saying on mid-irons in, to a point. If you have a sectioned green, and you hit into the wrong section, you deserve to be penalized.

Don't look at it like one big green.....look at it like 4 small greens that you're playing into.

 

Yeah, but the penalty should be a much more difficult putt, not a chip from 60 yards out of whatever sort of rough.

 

It's called adapting your game and hitting the ball lower and lighter with more of a bump-and-run approach rather than skying it into the the green as if it's Kemper Open soft.