2015 U.S. Open thread

[MileHigh]

Fore please!

I've been geeked for this site for a few years. West Coast major golf rules because it will play late.

The good: New -- and wickedly cool -- course. Pacific Northwest for the first time. My boy's caddie's course gives him a bit of an advantage to get him halfway to the Grand Slam. No more sletzer spray "happy hour" garbage from Berman.

The bad: Fox televising major golf for the first time.

I like change in golf. This brings it. We'll have tradition in a month at St. Andrew's. Mike Davis rolled the dice last year at Pinehurst with back-to-back Opens with the men and women. This is a different animal. Drought doesn't help but as they say on the other side of the pond ... play the conditions.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

MileHigh, West Coast Opens are great for fans, but for East Coast sportswriters on deadline, not so much. At Olympic in 1998, the USGA put Casey Martin in the next to last threesome on Thursday and that was back when they all teed off from the first hole. First and only time I ever wrote a golf running column.
Course does look like fun, though. The USGA has its problems, God knows, but they are doing a better job of representing the variety of American golf.

 

[qtlaw24]

Love the test and the layout. Apparently the sod is fescue, which is something native to Europe but very rare over here. Should be a great test of golf. Speith has stayed hot since the Masters and it would be awesome to see him win (not likely though).

Fox and Joe Buck blows compared to NBC and Miller but there's going to be 8 hours of coverage every day. Norman? Please, he's such a narcissist, we'll be inundated with the "when I nearly won....." Would have loved to see Fox go off the board with some middling former pro with a great wit and knowledge ( Goydos?) Lee Janzen?

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

So odds this rivals Winged, Merion and Oakmont?
I can see the winning score being above 288. I don't see it topping 299 though.

Really excited to watch. I think you're going to see a first timer (and subsequent nobody) bag this one.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

I'll bet Norman doesn't even know who half of these players are.

 

[I Should Coco]

Can't wait to head over for Friday's round. I've attended and covered PGA events a few times, but this will be my first U.S. Open ... and the second for my dad (he was at Medinah in 1990).

Some good pairings to follow for a few holes: Mickelson, Watson, Cabrera (Friday afternoon); back-to-back groups of Spieth, Day and Rose, then Woods, Fowler, Oosthuizen (Friday morning); and back-to-back groups of Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and Kaymer, amateur Gunn Yang and Rory (Friday afternoon).

 

[trifectarich]

I'll be in Seattle next summer and Chambers Bay definitely will be on my to-do list. This week, with all the time the ball will spend rolling along the ground, I fancy a European player. This place ought to make for great TV.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

When I first saw the course on TV on a FoxSports preview show, my first thought was "here's a place where Seve could've won a US Open." I'm not sure this favors today's Europeans that much, however. Aside from the Open championship itself, Euro tour tournaments are almost all held on parkland courses not all that different from most US courses.

 

[JackReacher]

I was really excited for this tournament at this location. Turns out, though, I'll be out of the country this week and will miss it. I'll try to convince myself to watch online, but there's zippy chance of that actually happening. Just in case, I assume FoxSports.com will be streaming it?

 

[User 11148]

Count me among those who're happy that somebody -- anybody -- other than Miller/NBC is televising it.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

What's your objection to Miller?

 

[cranberry]

I was over Joe Buck about 10 years ago. I don't think there's ever been a sportscaster who projects boredom as much he does, no matter what sport and how important the event. I always get the impression he doesn't want to be there and that he feels his audience is beneath him.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Too bad we couldn't pair Joe Buck with Artie Lange.

 

[User 11148]

What's your objection to Miller?

Not every shot that doesn't go into the hole is a choke.

 

[Alma]

So odds this rivals Winged, Merion and Oakmont?
I can see the winning score being above 288. I don't see it topping 299 though.

I think it'll be somewhere in the 276-282 range unless the weather's bad.

I don't anticipate it being much harder than Whistling Straits, but we'll see.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

You guys are hard on Buck. I like Joe and think they'll do well. Not a huge Norman fan though. But we'll see.

I'll miss Miller.

 

[Cosmo]

Love a West Coast Open since our city championship is on Father's Day weekend every year, and I have to cover it, meaning a miss a ton of the Open action. Not so this year. Can't wait. If you follow U.S. Open Championships on Facebook, they've been doing neat fly-by videos of all the holes in the run-up to the event.

 

[poindexter]

I was over Joe Buck about 10 years ago. I don't think there's ever been a sportscaster who projects boredom as much he does, no matter what sport and how important the event. I always get the impression he doesn't want to be there and that he feels his audience is beneath him.

I'm no Buck fan, but I think was a legit criticism 5 years ago. I think he has definitely upped the enthusiasm on NFL broadcasts (I don't watch enough MLB on Fox to know).

I think Buck brings gravitas to events that few pbp guys do. Hannah Storm's husband (name escapes me) has been the lead guy on NBC for a long time. It won't be a stretch to be better than him.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Weather is supposed to be beautiful. Late starting time on Sat/Sunday for final groups will provide great visuals of the early-evening sun over the Puget Sound. Longest days of the year in terms of daylight, too, should be light until 9 p.m. or so. I think the players will enjoy not baking in the heat or soaking in high humidity.

 

[UPChip]

I'm no Buck fan, but I think was a legit criticism 5 years ago. I think he has definitely upped the enthusiasm on NFL broadcasts (I don't watch enough MLB on Fox to know).

I think Buck brings gravitas to events that few pbp guys do. Hannah Storm's husband (name escapes me) has been the lead guy on NBC for a long time. It won't be a stretch to be better than him.

Dan Hicks?