Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009), known as the
PocketFavorite.com

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Lucas Glover holds on to claim two shot win

Lucas Glover steadied his hands for a 3-foot par putt on the 18th hole, an anticlimatic finish to five dreary days at a U.S. Open filled with more delays than drama.

The unlikely champion turned to soak up a beautiful sight beneath gathering clouds Monday at Bethpage Black.

“I just looked at the scoreboard to make sure this was really happening,” Glover said.

Some 24,000 fans, speckled with mud from a long walk soiled, could surely relate.

Glover never lost the lead over the final 12 holes, even though the attention was always on someone else. He closed with a 3-over 73 for a two-shot victory in a U.S. Open that might be remembered more for the week than the winner.

The stage belonged to Phil Mickelson, as it usually does in New York.

Lefty charged into a share of the lead with a startling bid to finally win the Open, his final event before a summer of uncertainty as his wife battles breast cancer. A fairy-tale finish turned all too familiar, however, when Mickelson missed two par putts over the last four holes and wound up setting the wrong kind of record by finishing second for the fifth time in the American national championship.

“Certainly I’m disappointed,” Mickelson said. “But now that it’s over, I’ve got more important things going on.

“And,” he added, pausing, “oh, well.”

Next came David Duval, out of nowhere. Winless in eight years, he ran off three straight birdies on the back nine to tie for the lead as the No. 882 player in the world tried to show why he was No. 1 a decade ago.

His hopes ended with a five-foot par putt on the 17th that spun 180 degrees out of the cup, and his silver medal was no consolation.

“I stand before you certainly happy with how I played, but extremely disappointed in the outcome,” Duval said. “I had no question in my mind I was going to win the golf tournament today.”

Ricky Barnes was the long shot who didn’t last very long with the 54-hole lead. He shot 40 on the front nine to turn control over to Glover, and wound up shooting a 76 to join Mickelson and Duval in a tie for second.

Glover didn’t have a compelling storyline, just the kind of golf that wins a U.S. Open in any conditions.

He made only one birdie in the rain-delayed final round, and it could not have been timed any better. Tied for the lead with three holes to play, he split the middle of the fairway and had 173 yards left to the hole at No. 16.

It was a smooth 8-iron, like thousands he has hit on the driving range. It landed six feet from the cup.

“The putt was all you could ever ask for under pressure,” Glover said.

His caddie, Don Cooper, helped him with the read and told him, “There’s no way we’re missing this.”

“It would have went in a thimble,” Cooper said.

Glover arrived at the 17th tee in time to see that Duval had made bogey and that Mickelson earlier had dropped a shot there, too. Suddenly, he was two shots ahead, and he made sure the U.S. Open didn’t have a surprise ending.

The 18th tee was moved forward to play 364 yards, and the record will reflect that Glover hit a 6-iron off the tee and a 9-iron to the green on the final hole of his U.S. Open victory.

No matter. His name is on the trophy, right under Tiger Woods, in the same company as so many greats.

“I hope I don’t downgrade it or anything with my name on there,” Glover quipped. “It’s an honor, and I’m just excited and happy as I can be to be on here.”

Glover finished at 4-under 276 and earned $1.35 million, moving from No. 71 to 17th in the world.

The 29-year-old from South Carolina, who chews tobacco and listens to Sinatra, had not won since holing out a bunker shot on the final hole at Disney nearly four years ago.

But this was no fluke.

“I hit the shots today that I had to hit in the situation, and that was a little more gratifying,” Glover said.

It was the first time the U.S. Open ended on a Monday without a playoff since 1983, courtesy of relentless rain.

And for the first time in five years, all the major trophies belong to someone other than Tiger Woods.

The defending champion reached under par for the first time all week with a six-foot birdie putt at the par-3 14th, leaving him four shots out of the lead but running out of holes. Not that it mattered. He hit a 5-iron over the 15th green to make bogey, and had to settle for a 69 that left him in a tie for sixth, four shots out of the lead.

“I striped it this week,” Woods said. “I hit it just like I did at Memorial, and unfortunately I didn’t make anything.”

Glover closed with the highest score of a U.S. Open champion since Ernie Els had a 73 at Oakmont in 1994, although the only score that mattered was his even-par 35 on the back nine—and that crucial birdie.

Mickelson wasn’t so fortunate with the putter, typical of his fortunes in a major he can’t seem to win.

Starting the final round six rounds, he shot into a share of the lead with a 35-foot birdie putt on the tough 12th hole, then hit his approach to 4 feet on the par-5 13th for an eagle. He walked to every green giving the fans a thumbs-up, feeling the love from the crowd, believing this might be his year.

But after a pulling off another unlikely shot—a hybrid from the rough on No. 15, up the hill to the back of the green—it all fell apart. From the fringe, Mickelson’s putt stopped about three feet above the hole. To the horror of thousands of fans surrounding the green, the par putt didn’t touch the cup.

“I just thought that it was going to stop breaking, and it broke a little more,” Mickelson said.

He came up short on the 17th, chipped eight feet short and didn’t hit that par putt with enough speed. His last hope was to make birdie on the 18th, but his 30-foot effort slid by the hole.

Mickelson lingered at Bethpage an hour after he finished to sign autographs, then headed home to an uncertain future. He has said he probably won’t go to the British Open and isn’t sure when he will return to golf.

“Maybe it’s more in perspective for me because … I feel different this time,” he said. “I don’t know where to go with this, because I want to win this tournament badly.”

David Duval still in the hunt

No. 882 in the world, No. 3 at the U.S. Open with 16 holes remaining.

David Duval doesn’t qualify as one of those out-of-nowhere stories this week at Bethpage Black. He’s captured a major championship already, has prevailed in 13 PGA Tour events and won four times in a three-month span 10 years ago on his way to spending 15 weeks as the world’s No. 1 ranked player.

A series of ups and downs—mostly downs— derailed his game since.

So here he is, with pins honoring the New York State Police and the Fire Department of New York on either side of his collar, in position to return Monday morning with a shot at a stunning U.S. Open victory. He’s 2 under through two holes of the final round, in a four-way tie for third place and thickly in the hunt.

“I’ve been there before,” Duval said. “It’s not like a distant memory.”

Not for him, it isn’t.

But he wants his wife and kids to be able to see him competing for wins at the highest level now—and not in the 10-year-old video footage that proves he was one of the game’s true greats for a brief while.

“They haven’t seen me at my best,” Duval said. “I want them to.”

Duval’s longtime coach, Puggy Blackmon, insisted that this U.S. Open run is no fluke. Duval needed to shoot rounds of 66 and 69 at a qualifier just to get here, but his camp believes this could be the beginning of his golf revival.

“I think he’s back,” Blackmon said, “and everybody’s starting to see that.”

Find a way to hoist that silver chalice given to the champion on Monday, and everyone indeed will see that.

Duval’s last win was the 2001 British Open, and inexplicably, his game went away almost instantly.

Duval is now wedged between a Korean amateur named Byun Jin Jae and an American named Josh McCumber in the world rankings, 17 pages after the spot where he used to hang out in his heyday. He hasn’t had a top-10 finish on the PGA Tour in his past 105 events, going all the way back to the Invensys Classic in October 2002.

He showed a brief flash last summer at Royal Birkdale, getting within three shots of the lead after 36 holes of the British Open. But on an incredibly windy day, Duval moved the wrong way—shooting 83.

No such disaster awaited in this third round. Duval shot his second straight even-par 70, moved up one spot on the leaderboard, and has as good a chance as anyone not named Ricky Barnes and Lucas Glover, who left the course at nightfall Sunday knotted at 7 under.

“Confidence and success, they are so closely entwined,” said Duval, who made the cut this week for only the fifth time in 14 tries on the big tour. “As you’re not having success, you’re losing confidence.”

This week, he’s having success.

Right on cue, he’s gaining confidence.

“It’s been a long, hard process for him,” Blackmon said. “He’s worked very hard at it, and I think he’s back. All the signs say he’s validating that. If you go back and look over the last several weeks, San Antonio, he made a move there, Memorial, he shoots 5 under on the front nine and hits a guy in the head.

“But this is huge,” Blackmon added. “His confidence level is back to where it used to be.”

Duval was a bit of an enigmatic guy at his peak, someone who seemed to use the dark sunglasses wrapped around his head to shield both his eyes and his persona.

Marriage, kids, it’s softened him considerably. So, too, probably has years of losing.

He visited a Sept. 11 museum in New York this week, where his father-in-law — a sculptor—has an exhibit. He’s spent time chatting with policemen and firefighters over the past few days. He’s embraced the Bethpage crowd, and because his family has ties to upstate New York, it’s like those fans have embraced him right back.

He’s enjoying every step.

“I’d like to think I enjoyed it immensely, you know, eight, 10 years ago when I was on top of the world,” Duval said. “But with a life that’s a little more complete, I probably, honestly, enjoy it more now. I have no less desire at this point than I did back then. However, I probably feel like I don’t simply do it for myself anymore. And that’s a nice feeling.”

Lucas Glover & Ricky Barnes share lead

Lucas Glover was quick with a one-liner when asked about the reserved crowd reaction Sunday at the rain-drenched U.S. Open when he pulled within a stroke of third-round leader Ricky Barnes.

“He’s got cooler pants than me,” Glover said, joking about his playing partner’s plaid slacks that were as loud as Barnes’ newfound fans at Bethpage Black.

Glover—tied for the lead with Barnes at 7 under with 16 holes left in the final round—then offered a deeper and revealing response, one befitting a man who has read four books this week and hoped to find another Sunday night.

“I don’t think there’s very many people that think I can or will do it anyway, so that’s fine,” said Glover, the 29-year-old long-hitter who won his lone tour title in 2005 at Walt Disney World—about as far from the U.S. Open as it gets on the tour.

What did Glover, facing a 123-yard shot from the second fairway when play resumes Monday, think about his chance of winning?

“Well, that’s my opinion and I’ll keep it,” he said about 2 1/2 hours before he caught Barnes—six strokes ahead in the third round—with a par on No. 1.

After opening rounds of 69 and 64, Glover matched Barnes with a 70, then pulled even with a routine par to Barnes’ bogey from the left rough on the opening hole in the fourth round. They were five strokes ahead of Phil Mickelson, David Duval, Hunter Mahan and Ross Fisher.

“We got 16 1/2 holes to go. It’s just golf,” Glover said. “We’re going to have to make some birdies. There’s birdies to be had out there.”

He dismissed the notion that it was a two-man race.

“No. The golf course is too hard and there’s too many players,” Glover said. “You know, somebody is going to make a run. The greens are still soft and they’re rolling perfect. I fully expect a handful of guys to make a run. You have Phil sitting there and everybody that’s playing is a great player so, no, you can’t think that at all.”

After dropping four strokes in a three-hole span in the third round, Glover made three birdies and eight pars in his final 11 holes. Barnes also helped, losing four strokes to par on his final 13 holes.

“I felt like I had to attack on the back to get back in it,” Glover said. “When I had an opportunity with a good angle or a short iron or something, I went at it. Ten was a bonus, 5-iron close, and 11 was a pitching wedge and 16 was a 9-iron.

“When I got a short iron in my hand, I had to go at it, and when I didn’t or didn’t have a good yardage, I just played to one side or the other. I had to be a little more aggressive on the back than I wanted to be … because of my results on the front.”

After bogeying Nos. 18 and 1, Barnes hit his final shot of the day into the deep left rough on No. 2, giving Glover a slight edge when play resumes.

“Ricky’s been great. We’ve been friends a long time and we’ve known each other forever,” said Glover, making his fourth Open start after missing the cut at Bethpage in 2002 and again in 2006 and 2007.

The former Clemson player used a football analogy—grandfather Dick Hendley starred for Clemson and spent a season with the Pittsburgh Steelers—when asked if he was a scoreboard watcher.

“Sure. Sure, I have to. I like to know where I stand,” Glover said. “Football coaches don’t coach the fourth quarter not knowing what the score is. People are different in that regard. Some people don’t want to know, but I do.”

Glover turned to humor again when asked about how loose he was between rounds.

“It’s an act,” he said.

He might get the last laugh Monday.

“I dream about it every day,” he said. “It’s a goal, but they don’t give it to you.”

Tiger Woods & Phil Mickelson loom on Monday

The 6:25 p.m. tee time was running late, which wasn’t all that surprising since nothing has happened according to plan in this U.S. Open. The thousands who lined the fairway of the dogleg-right first hole didn’t seem to mind, though, because Tiger Woods was approaching in Sunday red.

Woods promptly hit it way right into the trees, which also wasn’t that surprising since nothing has seemed to go according to plan for Woods since he opened his first umbrella at Bethpage Black. No matter, because the screams were always going to be there for Woods as long as they were selling beer along the first fairway.

“You can do better Tigah,” one fan shouted out.

They certainly thought he would do better. So, too, did Woods, who was still talking between rounds Sunday about how a collapse on the last four holes of his opening round killed his momentum.

“That finish put me so far back I had to try and make up shots the entire time,” he said.

That left Woods with a major problem as he began what would be a splintered final round, one that won’t be finished until sometime Monday. For much of Sunday he was so far back he seemed almost certainly out of it, no matter what he—or the well-lubricated fans at Bethpage—thought about the pedigree of the leaders.

But just as all appeared lost came a putt in the gathering darkness. It wasn’t much, about eight feet for birdie on the seventh hole, but it sent a message nonetheless.

Yes, the pulse is still weak. But somehow Woods is still alive.

That alone raised some hope that not all is lost in what so far has been a maddening and joyless Open. It will also raise some ratings for television, which begins broadcasting Monday morning about the same time workers are reaching for that first cup of coffee in offices around the country.

It’s more than NBC executives could have hoped for after a day in which the best golf they could find to show were highlights of Woods’ stirring win at Torrey Pines last year.

But there’s even more.

Golf’s biggest smile will light up television sets, too. And Phil Mickelson is not only also alive in the Open, but bordering on almost well.

Right now it’s still the Lucas and Ricky show. But it wouldn’t take much for it to star Tiger and Phil.

“I feel like I’m only 18 good holes away,” Mickelson said before teeing off for his fourth round.

Make that 16 good holes, after Mickelson opened with a pair of pars before play was halted because of darkness. He gained one shot on a faltering Ricky Barnes and went home just five off the lead shared by Barnes and Lucas Glover.

Better yet, there’s no one in between. If the pressure starts taking its toll as it most often does in the final round of the Open, Mickelson should have a straight shot toward the top.

Stranger things have happened. And there’s been no stranger Open than this one.

“I feel like if I can get a hot round going, I can make up the difference,” Mickelson said.

That would have seemed almost laughable for much of Sunday’s gloomy third round. Mickelson was 10 shots down before closing with two birdies in his last three holes, part of a run in which he halved the lead in just five holes.

Woods was even further out of it. Midway through his third round he was 15 shots back, and now he’s only seven. True, he has only 11 holes to make that up and there are five players between him and the lead, but, then again, he is Tiger Woods.

The thought of Woods on the prowl had to make the leaders even more unsettled than the weather. That’s especially true for Barnes, who just graduated from the Nationwide Tour and went to bed knowing he’ll return to a ball snarled in deep rough on the second hole and an almost certain bogey or worse.

Mickelson should worry them more, if only because he has found so many ways to lose Opens that it may be his turn to find a way to win his first one. Like Woods, he’ll also have a very vocal backing on Monday from New Yorkers who adopted him as one of their own seven years ago and seem to love him even more now that he’s on a mission to bring the trophy home to his ailing wife.

If Mickelson somehow succeeds, he’ll have even more to smile about.

And maybe this Open will be one to remember instead of one everyone so far wants just to forget.

Bad luck pegs Tiger Woods eleven back

There are things that even the great Tiger Woods can’t control.

Rain, for one, but he’s not alone. Had the USGA known what a mess the heavens would make of this U.S. Open, it would have taken the millions it put into Bethpage Black and used it to build a course somewhere in the Mojave desert.

Then again, had the USGA known that putting Woods in the opening pairings Thursday morning would have caused such havoc on the leaderboard, it surely would have moved him to the afternoon where he would have the proper conditions to defend his title. As great as he may be, even Woods isn’t nearly that interesting when he’s 11 shots out of the lead and everyone from Phil Mickelson to Rocco Mediate is bunched somewhere in between.

That doesn’t mean NBC won’t find a way to show him every five minutes Sunday as the Open marathon hopefully draws to a close. Who knows, Woods may even get more airtime than Al Roker, who made his way up to Bethpage on Saturday to drone on incessantly about weather but was mysteriously missing by the time rain finally came.

What it does mean is that Woods won’t be jetting home with any new hardware from this Open. He’s too far back, there are too many people in front of him, and, as great as he is, he’s never come from behind on Sunday to win a major championship.

Bethpage is also playing way too easy so, even if the remaining field wanted to collapse at the sound of Woods’ gallery, they would have to find some new and imaginative ways to do so.

This, of course, was supposed to be the week Woods made a triumphant return to the site of his 2002 Open win and edged closer to Jack Nicklaus with his 15th major championship. With his knee finally healed and his drives finally finding the fairways, there seemed little the other 155 players could do but watch in awe.

Nicklaus himself predicted it would happen after Woods made birdies on the final two holes two weeks ago to win the Memorial.

“If he drives the ball this way, and plays this way, I’m sure it will,” Nicklaus said. “And if not, it will surprise me greatly.”

Nicklaus isn’t the only one surprised. Woods arrived here Monday in full swagger, confident in his swing and eager to add to a collection of major trophies second only to the 18 won by Nicklaus.

Oddsmakers made him a prohibitive favorite. His fellow players fell all over themselves deferring to his greatness.

Then the rain came, and everything changed. Woods was out of this U.S. Open almost before he had a chance to get in.

Blame the pairings and the weather for some of that. There hasn’t been a major championship in recent memory where one group of players got such an advantage over another.

But Woods didn’t himself any favors, either. He was plugging along OK in the rain and mud of the first round before collapsing with two bogeys and a double bogey over the last four holes.

“Yesterday was the day that did it,” Woods said after finishing 36 holes at 3-over, then making one final par to start his third round before play was finally called because of rain Saturday. “Especially on my half of the draw. I had to finish at even par, 1-over-par at the worse. That would have been a really good score.”

Playing partner Padraig Harrington said Woods was hitting the ball better than he was when they played together earlier this year at Bay Hill, and his distance control was as superb as ever. But the short game was missing in action on greens slowed by heavy downpours.

“The worst part of his last two days was his chipping and putting, which is always his strength,” Harrington said.

Woods didn’t seem terribly distressed by it all, which by itself is unusual for him in a major championship. Maybe he just figures that history will record this Open as one the weather gods simply refused to let him have.

Barring some miracle, he’ll leave New York still stuck at 14 major titles and be without a major in his possession for the first time in four years. He’s still relatively young at 33, but each year that goes by without winning one of the big four will make it more difficult for him to accomplish the ultimate goal of his remarkable career, which is to win more majors than Nicklaus.

Woods said earlier this week that Nicklaus was still the greatest player of all time for that reason alone.

“He’s got 18,” Woods said. “I’m at 14.”

That’s the way Woods keeps score. And that’s why, for him, this Open will almost certainly be tallied up as a big fat zero.

Big names miss the cut at Bethpage

Sixty players—the lowest number possible—made the 36-hole cut for the U.S. Open on Saturday, with 11 players one stroke away from being able to play the final two rounds at Bethpage Black.

Peter Tomasulo, who missed the cut at Torrey Pines last year in his first Open by two strokes, was among those who missed this year by one.

Tomasulo shot a 3-over 73 in the first round and lost three more strokes to par in the second round before a run of four straight birdies starting at No. 1, his 10th hole of the day, had him at 2 over. However, the 27-year-old, who has made the cut in three of 14 PGA Tour events this year, bogeyed three of his last five holes to drop to 5 over.

Nathan Tyler, a second-year pro playing in his first Open, was in the final group on the course and needed a birdie on the par-4 18th to make the cut. He drove the ball in the fairway but pulled his second shot into high, heavy grass near a greenside bunker. He didn’t advance the ball with his first swing, knocked it into the bunker with his second and then holed out from the sand for a bogey 5, missing the cut by two strokes.

There were plenty of big names heading home, too, including former major champions Padraig Harrington, Ernie Els, David Toms, Justin Leonard and Michael Campbell.

Toms, Rory Sabbatini, Luke Donald and Miguel Angel Jimenez were at 5 over, one stroke better than Brian Gay, who won the St. Jude Classic last week, and Leonard.

Harrington, the reigning British Open and PGA Championship winner, finished at 12 over, while Ernie Els, the 1994 and 1997 U.S. Open champion, missed the cut for just the third time in 17 Open appearances, finishing at 15 over, one shot better than Campbell, the 2005 Open champion.

Paul Casey, ranked No. 3 in the world, was 10 over.

Harrington shot consecutive 76s to miss the cut in a major for the first time since the 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont. The British Open and PGA champion hasn’t broken 70 on the PGA Tour since a first-round 69 in the Masters.

“Such is life. Can’t do anything about it now,” Harrington said.

He’s having trouble consistently fading his shots.

“I don’t have any shape at the moment,” the Irishman said. “When you’re not playing well, it’s not easy to play with no shape. That’s something for me to look into. I’ve only got half the fairway to look at because I don’t know which way it’s going to go.”

Phil Mickelson hits a shot to remember

Phil Mickelson gave his adoring fans a shot to remember Saturday in the U.S. Open—a remarkable hybrid that none of the Bethpage Black regulars would even think to try, let alone have the club to play it.

From 164 yards in rough left of the 15th fairway, he opened the face of the hybrid as if playing a wedge and launched a high shot—the crowd cheering as the ball took flight, trying to help it to the elevated green—that stopped 25 feet from the hole.

“This is a special club I actually made, taking the back part of the hybrid out so that I can open it way up and get through that thick rough,” Mickelson said.

He was 1 under—seven strokes behind leader Ricky Barnes—after rounds of 69 and 70 and a nifty par save on the first hole in third round before rain stopped play.

Unsure he would even play the event after learning wife Amy has breast cancer, Lefty missed the birdie putt on 15, walking away with his second par on the 459-yard par 4—the hole where Tiger Woods made a 6 Friday and bogeyed from the fairway Saturday.

“The way the left side kind of cuts in, it’s just awkward to my eye,” Mickelson said. “I have a tendency to miss it left there. The lie wasn’t great. It was in the thick rough, but it wasn’t horrible. Short, it’s terrible there. And with those pins just on that top section, it’s very difficult to get up and down.

“I thought I could get a 5-iron out of that rough up by the green. And I was concerned that it might come out a little dead and be short. I took the hybrid and dug in after it and was able to get it there. I actually was trying to play over the green and get it past, but it came out dead and turned out perfect.”

Mickelson returned to the soggy course early Saturday to complete the final eight holes of his second round. He was even par in rain-free conditions, dropping a stroke on the par-5 13th for the second straight day and getting back to red numbers with his second birdie on the par-3 17th.

On No. 1 in the third round, he drove in the deep left rough, hacked out to the fairway, pitched 25 feet past the hole and made the par putt. He drove in the left rough No. 2 before hard rain washed out play for the rest of the day.

“I like the position I’m in,” Mickelson said after the second round. “I think that if I can get hot with the putter, I like my chances in the next two rounds.”

And there will be two more rounds, no matter the weather, however long it takes.

“It’s nice knowing from a player’s standpoint, because it allows you to play a certain way,” said Mickelson, never worse than fourth in four previous U.S. Opens in New York. “I wasn’t out there pressing today forcing birdies, thinking this might be 54 holes. Knowing that it’s 72 is helpful.”

While the rain has made the greens receptive, Mickelson figured the Bethpage layout has lost only a little of its bite.

“I wouldn’t say it hasn’t shown its teeth,” Mickelson said. “This is a very difficult golf course. It’s long. The rough is very difficult, and just a very few yards off the fairways in spots is literally lose your ball or unplayable lie. … Ernie Els, one of the best players in the game, was 15 over. It’s not easy.”

That was evident on the 605-yard 13th, where Mickelson’s drive embedded in grass on the bank of a bunker, forcing him to take a penalty stroke for an unplayable lie. He called for a ruling, but PGA Tour official Mark Dusbabek— called in by Mickelson for a second opinion—determined the ball didn’t break the surface of the ground.

“I don’t disagree with the ruling. I understand the rule,” Mickelson said. “But I still wanted to get it double-checked.”

He didn’t need to check twice to know he got a break from the weather that plagued Woods and the other half of the draw.

“We had a great end of the draw,” Mickelson said.

Flash of old form from David Duval

Former world number one David Duval moved into contention at the U.S. Open on Friday, 11 days after qualifying for the event for the first time since 2006.

The 37-year-old American, who has not won since the 2001 Dunlop Phoenix in Japan, birdied three of his last six holes for a three-under-par 67 in the opening round.

That left Duval three shots behind pacesetting Canadian Mike Weir at a rain-sodden Bethpage Black.

“I’m controlling the ball well and hitting it good,” Duval told reporters after recovering from two bogeys in his first three holes. “I feel like I know exactly what I’m trying to do.

“I did what you need to do in the first round, a simple recipe: hit the ball in play and knock it on the green. That’s been my goal ever since the qualifying rounds in Colombus.”

Duval, whose slide from the pinnacle of the game in 1999 has been one of the most perplexing stories in golf, booked his place here after 36 holes of qualifying in Ohio.

“That was an important day,” the 13-times PGA Tour winner said. “I put a lot of pressure on myself because it was very important for me to come here.

“I’ve never made bones about it. I think the two Opens (the British and the U.S.) are the most important events of the year.

“I’ve been working hard and I’ve been playing well,” added Duval, whose only major title came at the 2001 British Open.

“I have felt like for most of this year, my scores have not been reflective at all of how I’m playing but they are slowly catching up to how I’m playing.”

Duval has missed eight cuts in 13 starts on the 2009 PGA Tour with a best finish of tied 55th at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in February.

Just over a decade ago, however, he had eclipsed Tiger Woods as the world number one and appeared set for a long spell in the game’s upper echelon.

Duval won four times on the 1999 PGA Tour and once more the following year before clinching his only major at Royal Lytham.

From that point on, though, his world ranking plummeted as he struggled with his swing and a series of injuries.

For a while he came close to giving up the game before deciding to persevere with tournament golf. Since then his biggest motivation on the course has been his family.

“I think there’s a part of me that wants to show my family the golfer that I was years ago before they really knew me,” Duval said.

Champions grouping struggles

One by one, they climbed the steep hill toward the 18th green at Bethpage Black in what resembled a parade of major champions Friday in the U.S. Open.

U.S. Open champion Tiger Woods arrived from a bunker, the third time in four holes he failed to find the fairway. Masters champion Angel Cabrera needed a search party to find his ball along the weeds right of the fairway. British Open and PGA champion Padraig Harrington looked beat after a long two days of too many bogeys.

They have combined to win 19 majors.

They were a combined 14 over par, the only numbers that really mattered in the first round.

“The course is playing tough, obviously,” Woods said after a 74, his highest opening round in a major in three years.

Harrington has struggled all year and had missed three straight cuts going into the U.S. Open, and the problem on rain-soaked Bethpage Black was missing the fairway. He didn’t make a birdie until the 13th hole, and a birdie on the last hole left him with a 76.

Cabrera was smashing his driver, at times 20 yards past Woods, but he missed too many short putts for birdies that could have helped balance the inevitable bogey. He wound up with a 74.

Woods delivered the star power, and the shocker.

He returned from the rain delay on Thursday by missing a 10-foot par putt to go 2 over, and it was a battle to get back to even par. He finally got there with a towering 8-iron to 6 feet behind the hole at the par-3 14th for a birdie.

The sun began to fight through the clouds. The gallery came to life, screaming cheers at Woods and the other two major champions as they walked down the hill at the 14th, crossed the street and headed to the 15th tee to finish off the round.

But they didn’t finish it in style, particularly Woods.

“I was even par with four to go, and I was right there, where I needed to be,” Woods said. “Two bad shots and a mud ball later, here we go, and I’m at 4 over par.”

It was his worst start at a major since the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, when he played for the first time in two months because of his father’s death. Woods missed the cut that year, his only weekend off at a major as a pro.

He is danger of leaving early again.

The top 60 players and anyone within 10 shots of the lead make the cut at the U.S. Open. Woods already was 10 shots behind former Masters champion Mike Weir, who opened with a 64 in more benign conditions.

Woods left Bethpage Black uncertain when he would return for the second round on Saturday or what kind of weather he would face. A 74 didn’t appear that terrible when he finished, only when the afternoon wave attacked soft greens and made birdies with regularity.

And to think he was one shot out of the lead when he teed off on the 15th, a hole he played at 1 under for the week in 2002.

“I think when he got it back to even par he maybe thought the job was done,” Harrington said. “And that’ll come back to bite you.”

His tee shot was well right on the 15th, but a decent enough lie in the rough for Woods to go for the 40-foot elevated green. The shot came up a yard short, plugged into the thick grass, allowing for a free drop. Woods had an awkward stance, popped the chip up, but knew he was in trouble when the ball began to trickle, then gather steam.

It wound up 70 feet away, and he three-putted for double bogey.

Then came a splotch of mud on his ball after a pure drive on the 16th. He tried to play a draw to counter the effects of the mud, only for it to squirt right and leave him a downhill chip. Another bogey.

Then came the 18th, when his fairway bunker shot was a few yards away from being perfect. It found the rough, instead, and Woods chipped to 8 feet and missed another par putt.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t finish off the round the way I needed to,” Woods said.

Neither did Cabrera, the only man who can capture the Grand Slam this year. He also was trying to get back to even par, but those hopes vanished when he tried to reach the 605-yard 13th hole in two and hit 3-wood into the trees on his way to a bogey.

Asked if he was surprised by Woods’ poor finish, Cabrera shook his head.

“He’s human,” he said.

The major champions all looked that way in the first round.

Emotional day for Phil Mickelson at US Open

Phil Mickelson was walking toward the 11th tee late Friday evening, his 29th and final hole of the day, when he looked at the wooden scoreboard bearing the names of his group.

Goosen. Els. Mickelson.

His, though, was different. Next to his name, fitting perfectly between the slots holding the letters, was a pink ribbon with the words “Find the Cure” written on one side—the tribute to breast cancer patients everywhere.

“I just figured we should show our support to Phil and Amy,” said Bob Lamb, the volunteer captain who came up with the idea.

For 9 1/2 hours of play Friday at the rain-delayed U.S. Open, Mickelson found sanctuary and support in the game where he’s ranked ahead of all but one person in the world. Shows of support for his wife—Amy Mickelson was diagnosed with breast cancer last month—and family were everywhere.

It was an outpouring that Mickelson described as “incredible.”

“I certainly felt it,” Mickelson said after finishing 1 under for the day, five shots behind overnight leader Lucas Glover. “It was very cool.”

When play was suspended at 8:24 p.m., Mickelson had a bit of a walk from the 11th green back to the ninth fairway, where a van awaited to bring him back to the clubhouse.

He passed two young girls with pink caps, and stopped instantly.

“Give me those two girls’ hats,” Mickelson said, pulling out a marker and scrawling his name. “Make sure they get them back.”

He signed those and about two dozen more items, many of them for children, before finally catching his ride off the course—which, by then, was pitch black.

His play wasn’t perfect, not even close.

The driving was erratic, he missed some short putts—an affliction that’s cost him plenty in past majors—on the back nine, and he clearly wasted some chances.

But he survived. He finished the opening 18 tied for seventh and was still tied for 12th, five strokes back, when darkness fell.

“The soft conditions are great,” Mickelson said. “The balls that hit the fairways are staying in the fairways. … The soft conditions are helping.”

So were the fans.

Here’s how eager the gallery was to get behind the world’s No. 2 player: The order of play in the 11:06 a.m. group off the 10th tee started with Retief Goosen, followed by Ernie Els and then Mickelson.

Goosen swung away, getting polite applause.

Els, like Goosen a two-time Open champion, swung next, but the throngs of ticketholders all but deemed his presence irrelevant.

By the time Els’ tee ball landed, the shrieks and bellows—“C’mon, Phil!” — were cutting through the air.

Mickelson nodded, the woman with the white “I (heart) Phil” T-shirt squealed in delight, and Bethpage’s adopted son was ready to play. He hitched up his pants, tipped his cap, took a couple of practice swings and began a six-hour quest to tame both the Black course and any thoughts of what lies ahead for his wife and family.

“They’ve treated us so good here,” Mickelson said.

The way those fans tell it, he’s treated them just as well.

He interacted with them often Friday, tipping his cap to one who yelled “Driver!” when he and caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay were contemplating what to hit on the sixth hole of the second round. Mickelson pulled out the driver, crushed one down a hill and out of sight, and made an easy birdie.

Fans reached out to him, literally, and he reached back, tapping fists with several on his way to the 10th hole.

“I think he’s a great player. I think he deserves the attention, especially in New York,” said Joe Vesey, 36, a marketing professional who lives just north of New York City. “He loves the fans. That’s why they love him. Phil reacts to fans. Phil feeds off fan power. He understands New York.”

Vesey got his fist bump, too.

“Go get ‘em, Phil!” he shouted.

This week—well, this U.S. Open may stretch into next week as well—will be his final on tour for a while. He expects to miss the British Open because his wife begins treatments on July 1.

Bethpage’s fans loved him in 2002. They’re loving him again now, albeit for deeper reasons this time around.

“I just love playing golf here,” Mickelson said. “I love coming up to this area. I think all sports teams love playing in front of these people here. They are some of the best sports fans in the country.”

Struggling stars may suffer at Bethpage

Anthony Kim has lost the dynamic game that made him one of the PGA Tour’s rising stars last summer, and knows that Bethpage Black in full U.S. Open trim is an unlikely place to find it.

“I just haven’t been as patient as I need to be on the golf course, and if there’s anywhere that’s going to test it, it’s going to be at Bethpage,” said Kim, set to begin play Thursday on the long, difficult public course.

A two-time winner last year, Kim—who will be 24 on Friday—opened the season with a second-place tie at Kapalua, his only top-15 finish of the year. He’s making his first start since tying for 54th three weeks ago at Colonial.

“To be honest, it’s not far off, and I said that early last year before I went off and won a couple tournaments,” Kim said.

Sergio Garcia, Padraig Harrington, Vijay Singh and Adam Scott also are far from their best entering the second major of the year.

Harrington won the British Open and PGA Championship last year and began the season at No. 3 in the world, but the Irishman tinkered with his swing and has slipped to No. 11. He missed the cut in the Memorial (75-77) and St. Jude Classic (72-72) the last two weeks and hasn’t broken 70 on the PGA Tour since a first-round 69 in the Masters.

“There has been a bit of focus on work I have been doing on my swing,” Harrington said. “In fairness, I’ve done that work all the time at different stages in my career. And what all the difference is, I’m a little bit more high profile now and the spotlight is on me and people are noticing that I’m doing it.

“I was No. 3 in the world. I wanted to get better, and the way to get better is improve things and change things, and if that means I step back a bit, that’s OK in the short term. I would have liked to have come out just a little quicker, and certainly I didn’t intend to drag it so far into the season.”

He knows he’ll have to drive well to contend.

“If you drive it straight and long, you’re going to be a happy man this week,” said Harrington, grouped with defending champion Tiger Woods and Masters winner Angel Cabrera for the first two rounds.

Garcia finished fourth at Bethpage in 2002, but is best remembered that week for constantly re-gripping his club—to refrains of “Just hit it, waggle boy!”—and giving the vocal fans a middle-finger salute.

“I am the way I am, but I think that’s what people love about me, because this is what you get, unfortunately both in a good and a bad way,” Garcia said. “I think as you get older, you learn from things you’ve done in the past, and you try to mature.”

The Spaniard missed the cut last week in Memphis, shooting 70-73 in his first PGA Tour start since The Players Championship. He also has struggled emotionally after breaking up with girlfriend Morgan-Leigh Norman, Greg Norman’s daughter.

“I feel much better,” Garcia said. “I think I’m obviously looking forward to playing a bit more now and I can see that the things I’m working with, with my dad (Victor) and Stan (Utley), they’re doing good. It’s not easy. But at least if you are looking forward to working on it and trying to get better, it always helps.”

Scott has had a miserable season, missing cuts in seven of his last eight events. At the Memorial in his last start, the Australian shot 77-81.

The 46-year-old Singh, a three-time major champion, had a season-best sixth-place tie in the Colonial, then missed the cut in the Memorial (75-75) in his last start.

The slumping stars have little margin for error at Bethpage.

“If you get it on the big stuff, hopefully you’ll manage to come out of there alive,” Garcia said.

Angel Cabrera amongst the golfing elite

Angel Cabrera’s win at the Masters earned him a spot in the marquee opening threesome at the U.S. Open.

It almost never happened. The only man with a chance at this year’s Grand Slam nearly skipped the Masters.

Barely a week before teeing off at Augusta National, Cabrera was so disenchanted with his game that he considered pulling out of the season’s first major championship. Couldn’t putt at all, he said, meaning there was no way he could handle the demands of Augusta.

That’s when fellow Argentine and mentor Eduardo Romero stepped in with a vital assist—again.

Romero talked Cabrera into playing, and things fell into place. Cabrera won that Masters in a playoff, his second major in 22 months, and when the U.S. Open begins at Bethpage Black on Thursday, he’ll be alongside fellow reigning major winners Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington in the featured group.

“Now after winning the Masters, I know what it’s all about,” Cabrera said. “I can go through it a lot easier.”

That wasn’t the case after he pulled off the surprise win at the 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont.

He was never near the hunt last year as the defending champion at Torrey Pines, shooting 79-76, missing the cut by a mile and later acknowledging that he was ill-equipped for all the responsibilities that came with defending a major title.

But this week, spurred on in part by plenty of Spanish-speaking fans who’ve swarmed to Bethpage Black, Cabrera seems relaxed and at ease.

“Sometimes he needed somebody to push him,” said Romero, at 54 the oldest man in this field after earning a spot as the U.S. Senior Open winner last year. “But he’s a good player. Big talent. … He’s a favorite. Cabrera is one of the favorite players now.”

Romero can take much of the credit for that.

He lived two blocks from Cabrera in their hometown of Cordoba, and encouraged him as a teenager to take up golf. Cabrera, whose career began with borrowed clubs gleaned through his connections as a caddie, tried three times to get his European Tour card in 1995. He went 0-for-3, so Romero bankrolled him for that season.

A good investment, without question.

Cabrera has won only twice on the PGA Tour, but both were majors. Known throughout his career for carrying the nickname “Duck”—even Romero says he walks like one—Cabrera is finally getting some attention for his game, too.

“If I hadn’t won a U.S. Open and a Masters I wouldn’t be playing with Tiger this week,” Cabrera said. “It’s great to be able to play with him, to be playing aside the No. 1 player in the world. It’s an honor. I wish I could play with him every week.”

Can Cabrera win the Grand Slam? Romero doesn’t see why not, noting that the Masters win is still paying big dividends in Argentina, where golf’s popularity is exploding.

“We have to say thank you to Cabrera,” Romero said, “because after the Masters tournament the people are still celebrating over there.”

For his part, Cabrera—who has played only twice in the U.S. since winning the Masters, missing the cut at Quail Hollow and tying for 14th at The Players Championship a week later—says he isn’t letting himself daydream about winning all four majors this year, or anything much past this U.S. Open.

“I don’t think of that,” Cabrera said. “No, first I’ve got to play good this week. Have a good tournament this week. Then I’ll think of the next tournament.”

He won the Masters despite having little belief in his game.

These days, he isn’t questioning his game whatsoever.

“I started the year great, winning the Masters,” Cabrera said. “Obviously, that gives me a lot of confidence to get things done this week.”

Wet weather makes US Open even tougher

It’s almost impossible to find a golfer who doesn’t use the words difficult or long in describing Bethpage Black.

It is impossible to find anyone connected with the U.S. Open who doesn’t want to keep the rain away.

With a recent rain history approaching biblical proportions, and a forecast that has umbrella salespeople smiling, the 7,426-yard, par-70 public course that is hosting the Open for a second time this decade is throwing a wet blanket over the chances of a lot of golfers.

“When I practiced yesterday, (it was) the first time that I saw one of the more difficult golf courses in my life, probably because of the rain,” Eduardo Romero said Wednesday.

Come on, how much rain does it take to bother the world’s best golfers?

“It’s a big golf course. It’s a wide golf course. Right now it’s extremely soft. Obviously the rain, the weather has not been our friend. It’s rained in this area something like 30 of the last 45 days,” Jim Hyler, chairman of the USGA’s championship committee, said, referring to Long Island. “So we have an extremely wet golf course out there. Bethpage would play long in any condition. But particularly with the softness, it will play longer.”

When the Open was held at Bethpage Black in 2002, it was the longest course in Open history at 7,214 yards. Since then, three Open courses were longer and only Torrey Pines, which played last year at 7,643, will be longer than this year’s layout.

Bethpage Black will have three of the longest par 4s in Open history, including the 525-yard seventh, the longest non-par 5 ever played.

Chad Campbell hit driver off the tee and another off the fairway on No. 7 during a practice round. He was asked if he had ever done that before on a par 4.

“Not when it’s not raining, and cold and howling,” he said. “It was wet, but pretty calm when I tried this.”

Did the double driver get him on the green?

“Nope,” he said with a smile. “I’m not very good at hitting driver off the deck. At least I learned I can’t do that very well.”

The field may have to learn a lot in a hurry about playing a wet Bethpage Black.

The forecast called for rain to begin Wednesday and carry into Thursday, the first day of competition.

“It could be as much as half to an inch of rain,” Hyler said. “If we get an inch of rain, it will definitely impact what we do. We certainly hope the thunder and lightning stays away. We can certainly play in the rain.”

They did in 2002. Showers, heavy at times, lasted all day Friday and there was a 49-minute delay for severe weather late in the final round on Sunday.

But the course hadn’t taken on as much water as it has now. Intermediary rough becomes a problem. Deep rough becomes a penalty.

“The issue is the golf course and how much more water it can take and continue to play,” Hyler said. “The area of most concern is the 18th fairway. That is built on a swamp. And it is a swamp—I guess that’s the best way to say it. It is a swamp. It does not drain very well. It’s very, very wet.”

At 411 yards, the 18th is one of the shortest of the par 4s. There’s plenty more for the golfers to worry about before they reach it.

“From tee to green, this golf course is all you want,” said Tiger Woods, the defending champion and the winner the last time the Open was played on Bethpage Black. “With the weather coming in here this week, it’s only going to get longer and harder and it’s going to be even more difficult.”

Padraig Harrington insists changes worthwhile

Padraig Harrington hasn’t changed a thing about the way he approaches golf.

It’s just that people pay more attention now.

That’s the burden of winning more majors than Tiger Woods over the past two years.

Harrington took his place in the record books last summer as the first European in more than a century to win the British Open in consecutive years, and the first European to win two straight majors in the same season.

And what has he done since?

Only twice in his past 21 tournaments has he finished in the top 10— Singapore and in Abu Dhabi. He has yet to crack the top 20 in his dozen starts on the PGA Tour this year, missing the cut in half of them. Harrington arrived at Bethpage Black for the U.S. Open on Saturday after another short week at the St. Jude Classic, the third straight tournament he missed the cut.

Some players are sensitive to slumps, saying the scores don’t reflect how well they’re hitting the ball.

Count Harrington among the honest ones.

“I think the results are very much a reflection of how I’ve played,” he said Tuesday. “I haven’t played very well, and certainly haven’t made things happen.”

Not that he hasn’t tried.

Harrington is the hardest-working man in golf, even though Vijay Singh gets all the credit. The Irishman will practice in any weather at any time of the day, not because he has nothing better to do, but because he’s always trying to improve.

“I don’t hit that many balls,” Geoff Ogilvy said. “But I haven’t been on a range this year that he hasn’t been on.”

Some believe that’s what has led to such an atrocious start to the season for Harrington. He is constantly tinkering with his swing, which would not seem to make much sense because the old swing worked out all right for him.

“The way to get better is improve things and change things,” Harrington said. “And if that means I step back a bit, that’s OK in the short term. I would have liked to have come out just a little quicker, and certainly, I didn’t intend to drag it so far into the season. But some of these are just … .”

Then he paused to smile.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” he said. “I did have good intentions. I’m comfortable with it. I’m going to be patient. I know where I am. That’s very important. I do actually know where I am in my game.”

Whether that’s enough to handle Bethpage Black is not something he can answer at the moment.

But he is not about to panic.

Harrington has been tinkering as long as he has been playing golf. It is not unusual for him to reach a new plateau, then take a tumble backward as he tries to keep climbing.

“There has been a bit of focus on work I have been doing on my swing,” he said. “In fairness, I’ve done that work all the time at different stages in my career. The difference is I’m a little bit more high-profile now, and the spotlight is on me.”

It will shine even brighter in any weather Thursday. He will play the first two rounds with Masters champion Angel Cabrera and Woods, the defending champion at the U.S. Open.

In a search for answers, someone asked Woods why someone would change a swing that won a major or three.

“You’re asking the wrong guy,” Woods said. “After I won the Masters by 12 (shots), I changed my swing. People thought I was crazy for that. I said, ‘Just wait. Just be patient with it. It will come around.”’

Did it ever.

He won 17 times over the next two seasons, and capped off that overhaul by winning four consecutive majors.

“Sometimes you have to take a step or two back before you can make a giant leap forward,” Woods said. “And that’s the hard part, sticking through those periods.”

Geoff Ogilvy used to lose his temper, if not his mind, if his game deserted him for a couple of holes. He understands the frustration of hitting balls for hours on the range without feeling instant gratification.

Harrington is a different breed.

“Most of the guys would get depressed if they won two majors and started struggling,” Ogilvy said. “But he seems to be to just say, ‘It will be all right. I’m working it out. It’s a project of mine. When I work it out, we’ll get back to winning tournaments.’ That’s the way he seems to be approaching it. And not many people can do that.

“He seems to be the only one who doesn’t get frustrated by it.”

That will be the case Thursday, no matter how he plays. Harrington concedes his confidence level is not where it was at Oakland Hills last August, when he won the PGA Championship. How can it be after missing three straight cuts?

“As we say at home,” Harrington said, “the lightning storm is too late to get up and patch the roof. So I’ve got to accept that I’ve got this week.”

Rocco Mediate still centre of attention

Rocco Mediate arrived at Bethpage Black’s driving range Tuesday moments after Tiger Woods left, settling in one spot away from where the reigning U.S. Open champion practiced.

Talk about fitting.

Mediate will forever be remembered as being right beside Woods at the 2008 U.S. Open, where not even a mano-a-mano 18-hole Monday playoff was enough to break their tie and the world’s No. 1 player ultimately prevailed on the 91st hole.

“The greatest memory of my golfing career,” Mediate said.

He’s relived that memory every day since. The 46-year-old Pennsylvanian gave Woods all he wanted at Torrey Pines, succumbing only to a combination of Tiger moments—like the birdie putt on the 72nd hole that left Woods thrusting fists in the air, then another birdie on the 18th hole Monday to extend the playoff.

He never performed better with club in hand than in that glorious week last summer. When this year’s Open starts Thursday on Long Island, Mediate will enter a major championship carrying the burden of expectation for the first time.

“I know what it’s going to be like and I’m ready,” Mediate said. “I love that stuff. It’s not going to be like a shock to me. I think it’s going to be loud and it’s going to be a lot of fun. And if I’m playing good, it’s going to be ridiculously fun. So there’s a little extra heat on me. I like that feeling.”

Sure seems like that’s the case.

He was at Bethpage’s practice area for about three hours Tuesday, spending probably no more than 45 minutes hitting balls. He held his wedge like a baseball bat for a few moments. He’d talk before chipping, after chipping and, in many cases, while chipping. He engaged a few fans, shook hands with friends, checked a couple text messages.

“I don’t take myself so damn seriously, most of the time,” Mediate said.

Of course, that’s not to suggest he didn’t want that Open—or this one— badly.

He took 76 shots in that 19-hole Monday playoff a year ago, and doesn’t like two of them: a wayward 6-iron on the first hole, and a putt on the 18th hole that never broke and kept Woods’ hope of a 14th major alive. They’re the ones that stick with him, not the pulled drive on the sudden-death hole or the second shot out of the sand that struck the grandstand.

Instead, those are moments he embraces. He picked up the ball that struck the stands and happily pantomimed throwing it to the green, hardly buckling in the pressure cooker that accompanies a major championship battle against perhaps the best golfer of all time.

“It was just a pretty incredible week,” said Woods, who played that week with a broken leg and blown-out knee ligament, injuries that required season-ending surgery shortly after Torrey Pines.

Mediate thought so as well, even when the putt he needed to send the day to a 20th hole slid past the right side of the cup.

He walked over to Woods, wrapped his opponent in a hug, and has basked in the afterglow that rarely follows a loss ever since.

“It was a big deal to a lot of people,” Mediate said. “It was a big deal to me. I enjoy that. It meant a lot to me. I really haven’t talked to Tiger about it, but being that he’s won 14, it probably didn’t mean as much to him.”

Mediate started getting a full appreciation of what it meant months later, when a Texas man who lost his daughter in a car crash shortly before last year’s U.S. Open sent him a letter and explained his family’s plight. The man, John Ray, had never heard of Mediate before that week at Torrey Pines, yet found himself rooting for the underdog.

“You showed me that it is possible to lose and yet not be beaten,” Ray wrote.

To Mediate, that meant as much, if not more, than the gargantuan silver cup he would have hoisted if he’d taken Woods down.

“He got something from that,” Mediate said. “I think that was cool.”

His Q-rating has soared in the last 12 months. He’s no longer anonymous in restaurants and coffee shops, even among people who’ve never picked up a golf club.

The people’s champion, indeed.

So where would it be more fitting than a public course like Bethpage Black for Mediate, who wears the blue-collar label as well as any pro golfer, to win a major? He knows there will be no shortage of people behind the ropes and in the stands just waiting to bellow “Rocco!” whenever he hits one close, just as they did at Torrey Pines.

“Maybe I can do one better this year,” Mediate said.

Sergio Garcia trying to shake off labels

“El Nino” is no longer a little boy, even if he sometimes still behaves like one.

The Spaniard whose future once looked so promising is still chasing the first of what was expected to be a string of major championship wins, except now he’s standing on the cusp of 30.

“Thanks for reminding me,” Sergio Garcia said to laughter Tuesday afternoon. “Very close to 30 now.”

A former NFL player once ridiculed “potential” as “a French word meaning ‘you haven’t done a damn thing yet.”’ Apparently it translates into Spanish as well. Garcia, who turned pro 10 years ago, has won seven times on the PGA Tour and another 11 events worldwide. But with the U.S. Open just two days off, he’s 0-for-39 in the tournaments that count most.

“That’s what I’m here for, to try to win it. If I didn’t think it was possible,” Garcia said, “I would probably be back at home watching (TV) or something like that.”

Garcia teased the golf world with a glimpse of how good he can be in the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah. Playing with a bravado that belied his years, he battled Tiger Woods shot for shot until Woods’ approach into the 18th green settled within two-putt range. Garcia played a starring role for Europe at the Ryder Cup two years after that, raising hopes for a rivalry that might extend until he and Woods, four years Garcia’s senior, had to watch their waistlines more closely than each other.

What followed instead was a litany of alibis, needless drama and self-inflicted wounds, beginning with the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black.

The notoriously tough New York crowd ribbed Garcia mercilessly for wayward shots, constantly re-gripping his club before swinging—“Just hit it, waggle boy!” became their chant—and even for his choice of girlfriends, at the time, former tennis star Martina Hingis.

Garcia gave them plenty of fuel, at one memorable moment, with a middle-finger salute. Then Saturday, what started as a steady rain when Woods played in the morning became a steady downpour by afternoon. Moments after walking off the course, a waterlogged Garcia whimpered that if their tee times had been reversed, USGA officials would have protected Woods by postponing play.

As the backlash from those remarks gained steam, Garcia left a note of apology in Woods’ locker. Lot of good that did. Paired together for the final round, Woods staged a clinic on how to wrap up a major and won by a half-dozen strokes. People who claim you can learn more by losing didn’t take Garcia into account. He lost plenty after that, becoming less gracious nearly every time it happened in a big four event.

The low point came at the British Open in 2007, when Padraig Harrington beat Garcia in a playoff and the Spaniard never once mentioned his rival’s name in a lengthy interview afterward. What Garcia couldn’t stop whining about, though, was all the forces that conspired against him.

Never mind that he started the day three shots clear of the field and could have won in regulation with a par 18.

“It seems to me like every time I get in this kind of position, I have no room for error. I need to miss one shot,” he said, “and I rarely get many good breaks.”

It’s been noted that the guys who make their own breaks win majors, in part because they expend little time and energy cursing their luck, focusing instead on the things they can control. Asked whether his temperament helped or hurt his play, Garcia responded, “I think as you get older, you learn from things you’ve done in the past, and you try to mature from those things. …

“I can change a little bit,” he added, “but not too much, because then I wouldn’t be myself.”

It’s revealing that when Harrington was asked the same question about Garcia’s temperament, he responded, “I would suggest I’m probably the last person who could be considered neutral in that matter to give a comment.”

Last year, Garcia could have made a good argument for staying the course. Using a belly putter, he finally won a big tournament, The Players Championship, two other tournaments overseas, posted a half-dozen Top 10 finishes and climbed to the No. 2 ranking in the world.

This year, he came to Doral in mid-March with a chance—in Tiger’s absence — to claim the top spot. He finished 31st that week, hasn’t sniffed the Top 10 since and missed two cuts, including last week.

“A couple of personal things happened, and that didn’t help,” Garcia said, apparently referring to his breakup with girlfriend Morgan-Leigh Norman, daughter of golfer Greg Norman.

“Then obviously you lose a little bit of confidence, and it’s harder to recover from that. But the good thing is it’s moving forward,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the challenges.”

He’d better be. The clock is ticking.

Bethpage - The people's course

They sat on the trunk of their car to change shoes, slung their golf bags over their shoulders and walked across the parking lot toward the golf shop to pay the $55 fee.

This is how it typically works at a public golf course, and Bethpage State Park is no different.

The golf shop doesn’t have a view overlooking the 18th green, or apparel on display like a boutique, or even racks of the latest and best equipment for sale. Golfers stand in lines framed by wooden handrails leading to each window, making them feel like they’re in a county tax office instead of a waiting to play golf.

“When you walk in to pay, that’s when you know you’re on a public golf course, because there is no customer service,” said Jason Andriano, a food service consultant from Albany. “And I don’t have a problem with that. They act like you need them a lot more than they need you, which is true.”

Still, not all public courses have a framed picture of Tiger Woods holding the U.S. Open trophy as he poses with the maintenance crew.

Nor is there a sign on the first tee of the fearsome Black Course that says, “Warning. The Black Course is an extremely difficult course which we recommend only for highly skilled golfers.”

Matt Crudo, who works in construction management, hooked his opening drive into wet grass up to his shins on this rainy Wednesday. He found one ball that wasn’t his, tossed it back and continued his search.

“Dude, keep every ball you find,” Andriano pleaded from across the fairway.

“I’ve got three dozen in my bag,” Crudo shot back.

During this six-hour walk in the park, they heard one player in a group behind him scream out a four-letter word after missing a shot. That’s typical in golf, only this time, the word wasn’t “Fore!” Ahead of them, a teenager wore his New York Yankees cap backward as he putted, not the kind of attire one finds at a country club.

Scott Brennan, a club pro at Orchard Creek in upstate New York, hit one shot over the green and under the grandstands. Even as he looked for his ball, it was a reminder why this day was so special.

“Just seeing the bleachers, that was money,” Brennan said. “That means the best in the world will be here in a few weeks.”

That is when public golfers at Bethpage turn their course over to Woods, Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington and a host of others for the 109th U.S. Open.

The U.S. Open is billed as the toughest test in golf.

Bethpage offers that every day.

It was the first golf course owned by taxpayers to host the U.S. Open in 2002, starting a trend of the USGA mixing in public courses with such tony clubs as Shinnecock Hills, Oakmont, Congressional and Merion.

Woods won last year at Torrey Pines, the public course in San Diego he had played since he was a kid. Both have reasonable rates that are even lower for state (Bethpage) or county (Torrey Pines) residents.

“There are four U.S. Open courses I can play, and I can’t afford two of them,” Andriano said.

Those would be Pebble Beach and Pinehurst No. 2, resort courses. Another public course, Chambers Bay just outside of Tacoma, Wash., is on the docket for 2015, and the USGA is likely to announce Erin Hills in Wisconsin for a U.S. Open within the next 10 years.

The oldest is Bethpage, with the Black Course opening in 1936. And long before anyone conceived of this beastly course staging a national championship, it was the place to go. And it still is.

“When I review our attendance records, we’ve been sold out since 1958,” said David Catalano, the director of Bethpage State Park, a sprawling, 50,000-acre property on Long Island that includes five golf courses—Black, Red, Green, Blue and Yellow.

Catalano has been hanging around Bethpage since he got a job cleaning toilets in 1967. He has been the park director since 1995.

“This is a special place,” he said. “It always has been.”

David Fay, the executive director of the USGA who was largely responsible for Bethpage landing a successful U.S. Open, first played the Black Course in the mid-60s. More than anything, he remembers it being big, busy and “pretty damn cool.”

“For anybody growing up in the New York area, we always knew about Bethpage Black,” he said.

What makes Bethpage unique among U.S. Open venues are the “members” in attendance. Some of the regulars who have been getting beat up by the Black Course all these years might just be standing behind the ropes to watch the best try to tame their course.

John Wood was caddying for Kevin Sutherland in 2002 and recalled a practice round with Neal Lancaster, who was sizing up his approach to the second green when an obnoxious, booming voice came from the gallery.

“It was this big Italian guy, chest out, New York accent,” he said. “The guy says, ‘It’s an 8-iron. I play here every day.’ So Neal made him come out there and hit the shot. He skulled it over the green.”

The Torrey Pines crowd played the course, too, but most of them are used to seeing Woods & Co. at the Buick Invitational each year. There is a far greater feeling of pride at Bethpage, and Justin Leonard couldn’t help but notice.

“Bethpage, being a public course, it seems like all you hear there is, ‘How do you like our course?”’ said Leonard, a Texan doing his best to deliver a New York accent. “They take a lot of pride in hosting the U.S. Open. It’s like you’ve got 50,000 owners out there, all wanting to see you play on their course. It’s fun.”

Bethpage didn’t always look this good.

Fay recalls it being shaggy, and part of him misses that gruff appearance. The USGA paid for the renovations, in which bunkers were rebuilt and replenished with 9,000 tons of sand, tees were rebuilt, the course lengthened and irrigation was installed.

Catalano bristles at the notion that Bethpage Black is only pristine when the U.S. Open comes to town. About the only difference is the firmness and speed of the greens, which requires USGA nurturing to keep that way for a week. The grass would die if it were kept that short the rest of the year.

“That’s not true. Whoever said that doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Catalano said. “If you ask anyone who plays frequently, they would tell you the U.S. Open could have been conducted in any year since 2002 with a month or two notice. The course is maintained almost as well as it’s done for the U.S. Open.”

The tough part is finding those who get to play frequently, because getting a tee time is a chore.

Bethpage is famous for people sleeping in their cars overnight in a “The Car Line” with hopes of getting one of the few spots available on the Black each day, although far more common is registered golfers booking a tee time over the phone. For his group, Andriano worked his magic on speed dial seven days in advance, as only New York residents can do.

“I don’t imagine myself sleeping in a car to go play a round of golf,” former U.S. Open champion Jim Furyk said. “But I think it tells you how special that place is to the people that live there, and how good a golf course it is.”

How tough is it to get a tee time? The USGA couldn’t even negotiate a spot for pop star Justin Timberlake, who wanted a practice round on the Black Course ahead of his made-for-TV exhibition the weekend before the U.S. Open. Catalano couldn’t make it happen.

“He can’t cut anybody any deals,” Fay said. “That would fly around that place in a New York minute.”

Catalano said the peak of Bethpage came in the 1960s, when an average of 300,000 rounds were played on all five courses. They sent them out in seven-minute intervals back then, when golfers played faster.

The courses will be closed, not only the Black for the U.S. Open, but adjacent courses for corporate hospitality, practice ranges and merchandise tents.

It will be back in business a week later. The demand figures to be just as high, with fees a mere $50 during the week and $60 on the weekend for residents, double the price for out-of-state golfers. Using the telephone means an extra $5.

The Black will be as tough as ever.

The foursome from Albany finished their round in six hours, tired and satisfied, then stepped into the Oak Room for a burger and beer. It was the second time they had played a match on the Black, with Andriano and Crudo winning this time.

The appeal of the Black goes beyond it hosting a U.S. Open, although that doesn’t hurt. Steve Lemon, who runs a car dealership in Albany, headed out to the parking lot after his long day and couldn’t wait for a chance to return.

He spoke for his foursome, if not thousands of others who want to experience big-time golf without paying big money.

“It’s one of the best golf courses in the world,” Lemon said. “And we can play it.”

Major winners grouped together

World number one Tiger Woods will launch his title defence at next week’s U.S. Open in high-profile company with 2007 winner Angel Cabrera and British Open champion Padraig Harrington.

American Woods, U.S. Masters champion Cabrera of Argentina and Irishman Harrington are scheduled to tee off on the first hole at 0806 (1206 GMT) in Thursday’s opening round at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, New York.

The heavyweight trio will start from the 10th tee at 1336 (1736 GMT) in Friday’s second round.

Woods, who clinched last year’s U.S. Open in a gripping 19-hole playoff with Rocco Mediate at Torrey Pines outside San Diego, is heavy favourite to win the second major championship of the year.

Although he was sidelined for eight months after his Torrey Pines victory while recovering from reconstructive knee surgery, he has triumphed twice in seven PGA Tour starts this season, including the Memorial tournament on Sunday.

Woods won the U.S. Open when it was first held at Bethpage in 2002 and will be bidding for his fourth success in the tournament next week.

“It was nice to play this well going into the U.S. Open,” the 33-year-old told reporters after winning the Memorial tournament by a shot in Dublin, Ohio.

“This is how you have to hit it in order to win U.S. Opens, especially Bethpage. That golf course is as big as they come. You have to hit the ball well all week. I did that in 2002, and that was one of the reasons why I was up there.”

American world number two Phil Mickelson, who finished second behind Woods at the 2002 U.S. Open, has been grouped with twice champions Ernie Els and Retief Goosen of South Africa for the first two rounds.

Other notable threesomes include British world number three Paul Casey, Australia’s Geoff Ogilvy and American Jim Furyk; Spaniard Sergio Garcia, Colombian Camilo Villegas and Australia’s Adam Scott; and Fijian Vijay Singh, Indian Jeev Milkha Singh and South Korea’s KJ Choi.

Phil Mickelson the fans choice in New York

No one knew for sure what was going through Phil Mickelson’s mind.

He had just wasted a solid start to his round by hitting a fairway metal into the water. The U.S. Open, a major that has teased him for 15 years, was approaching. He was playing for the first time since learning his wife, Amy, had breast cancer.

The fans who followed him faithfully under heavy clouds and a constant rain only saw him smile.

The smile rarely leaves him.

Mickelson handles defeat graciously, and he has had plenty of practice. He is renowned for signing autographs, careful not to miss anyone, taking so much time that he can look fans in the eyes and make small talk.

This took place in the first round of the St. Jude Classic, a quiet tournament in Memphis. It is a scene that has played out across the PGA Tour in Palm Springs or Pebble Beach, in Boston or Houston.

Now bring that to New York, among the most sports-crazed cities in the land.

Make this the U.S. Open.

That might be the only way to explain why a player who drips California cool, who has more silver medals than gold, who once was called a “lovable loser,” can be so universally adored in a city that only celebrates winners.

“I don’t know what to say to that,” Mickelson said. “It’s cool. It’s a really neat feeling.”

The cheers from Bethpage Black in 2002 that grew louder at Shinnecock Hills in 2004 and were thunderous at Winged Foot in 2006 figured to be turbocharged when the U.S. Open returned to Bethpage.

And that was before the golf world learned about his wife. Mickelson waited until two weeks before the U.S. Open to decide that he would play. His wife’s cancer appears to have been caught early, and her surgery will be in the first week of July.

“The people will help him,” Stephen Ames said. “They will be nuts. It will be like a 15th club in his bag.”

Mickelson was a sympathetic figure in New York even before he disclosed his wife had breast cancer.

He inspired the Bethpage gallery in 2002 with an improbable bid to stop Tiger Woods, starting the final round five shots behind and closing within two shots until he ran out of holes and birdies.

They were poised for a celebration at Shinnecock Hills two years later until Mickelson took double bogey from the bunker on the 17th hole, and Retief Goosen turned in a putting performance that is tough to top.

And then came Winged Foot, where Lefty lost a one-shot lead on the final hole with a risky shot that led to double bogey.

The losses piled up but the love for him never left.

“He’s a popular guy,” former U.S. Open champion and NBC Sports analyst Johnny Miller said. “He knows how to smile, he knows how to do autographs, he gives his time better than any pro. And he does play an exciting, Arnold Palmer-type of a game. Guys that hit it in the trees all the time are popular with the gallery.”

Miller was among those stunned by the news of Amy’s cancer, and pleased to hear that Mickelson would be at Bethpage when the U.S. Open begins on Thursday.

“There’s a lot of people at the U.S. Open, and there will be a lot of good vibes,” Miller said. “Phil winning would be the biggest story. There’s so much sympathy, and they already love him more than anyone else.”

Mickelson was born and raised in San Diego and was an All-American at Arizona State, where he met his wife, who is from Utah. Even in the early years of their marriage, and especially later when they had three kids, they gravitated to New York.

How did that happen?

“We’ve always enjoyed going there. We’ve always taken our kids there,” Mickelson said. “We have a New York trip every year, when we take the kids to shows. It’s not even golf-related. I just love all that’s going on there. It’s a very sports-minded city, a very cultural city, and a very energetic city.”

The closest he came to winning in New York was the 2005 PGA Championship at Baltusrol across the river in New Jersey.

Might this finally be the year?

Mickelson already shares the U.S. Open record with four runner-up finishes, and most of the attention is on Woods, who is the defending champion and coming off a victory at the Memorial.

Some wonder if his wife’s health is too great of a distraction, or if the month away allowed too much rust to accumulate.

“It will be a big week for him, emotional, I’m sure,” Geoff Ogilvy said. “The crowd was behind him big-time the last time, and this will magnify now because of the love they feel. And the empathy they feel at the moment will be incredible. Everyone loves Amy. Great things sometimes happen in situations like that.”

Even without winning, Mickelson has always thrived at U.S. Opens in New York.

His first one came in 1995 at Shinnecock Hills, when he played the par-5 16th in 6-over-par for the week and finished four shots behind Corey Pavin, in a tie for fourth. That was his worst finish in a U.S. Open in the Empire State.

Goosen was in the group behind Mickelson at Shinnecock in 2004, and even that was daunting.

“It’s hard to block it out,” the South African said. “It becomes a mind game. Playing against Mickelson is tough. It’s like an extra club in his bag.”

Goosen will find out, for he and Ernie Els will be playing with Mickelson the first two rounds. The two South Africans have combined to win five majors, yet they might easily be ignored in the presence of New York golf’s adopted son.

Padraig Harrington can relate to the distraction of family battling cancer. He won his first U.S. tour event in 2005 as his father was dying of the disease. He missed the cut in three majors that year, and skipped the British Open at St. Andrews.

He found his greatest peace inside the ropes.

“You don’t have to explain yourself on the golf course,” Harrington said. “You got to remember, we’re quite proficient at dealing with that little white golf ball, not quite as good about explaining our emotions.”

As for coping with endless cheers that figure to be louder than ever?

It’s a U.S. Open in New York. Mickelson is used to that, and he loves it.

US Open tee times

(local times, BST +5hours, USA unless stated , a denotes amateur)

First Tee

7.00am: a-Rickie Fowler, Casey Wittenberg, Bo Van Pelt
7.11; a-Drew Weaver, Angelo Que (Phi), Simon Khan (Eng)
7.22: David Horsey (Eng), John Mallinger, Jose Manuel Lara (Spn)
7.33: Rory Sabbatini (Rsa), Martin Kaymer (Ger), Ryuji Imada (Jpn)
7.44: Vijay Singh (Fij), Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind), KJ Choi (Kor)
7.55: Ian Poulter (Eng), Justin Leonard, Robert Allenby (Aus)
8.06: Padraig Harrington (Irl), Angel Cabrera (Arg), Tiger Woods
8.17: Ryan Moore, Ben Crane, Eric Axley
8.28: Lee Westwood (Eng), Zach Johnson, Shingo Katayama (Jpn)
8.39: Bubba Watson, Johan Edfors (Swe), John Merrick
8.50: Francesco Molinari (Ita), George McNeill Simon Dyson (Eng)
9.01: a-Cameron Tringale, Sean Farren, Andrew Parr (Can)
9.12: a-Vaughn Snyder, Ryan Spears, Michael Miles
12.30 pm: James Nitties (Aus), Peter Tomasulo, Martin Laird (Sco)
12.41: David Smail (Nzl), Cameron Beckman, Steve Allan (Aus)
12.52: JJ Henry, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano (Spn), Briny Baird
1.03: a-Kyle Stanley, Lucas Glover, DJ Trahan
1.14: JB Holmes, Alvaro Quiros (Spn), Nick Watney (Aus)
1.25: Sergio Garcia (Spn), Camilo Villegas (Col), Adam Scott (Aus)
1.36: Justin Rose (Eng), Sean O'Hair, Ross Fisher (Eng)
1.47: Rocco Mediate, Kenny Perry, Tom Lehman
1.58: Hunter Mahan, Oliver Wilson (Eng), Brendt Snedeker
2.09: Billy Mayfair, Matt Kuchar, Ricky Barnes
2.20: Darron Stiles, Shintaro Kai (Jpn), Matt Jones (Aus)
2.31: a-Tyson Alexander, Charlie Beljan, Ryan Blaum
2.42: a-Matt Nagy, Shawn Stefani, Doug Batty (Nzl)

Tenth Tee

7.00am: JP Hayes, Greg Kraft, Jeff Brehaut
7.11: a-Drew Kittleson, Sang Moon Bae (Kor), Michael Sim (Aus)
7.22: Heath Slocum, Charlie Wi (Kor), Richard Bland (Eng)
7.33: Ben Curtis, Graeme McDowell (NIrl), Chad Campbell
7.44: Henrik Stenson (Swe), Robert Karlsson (Swe), Steve Stricker
7.55: Geoff Ogilvy (Aus), Jim Furyk, Paul Casey (Eng)
8.06: Luke Donald (Eng), Trevor Immelman (RSA), Tim Clark (RSA)
8.17: Anders Romero (Arg), Eduardo Romero (Arg), Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spn)
8.28: Michael Campbell (Nzl), Boo Weekley, Rod Pampling (Aus)
8.39: Kevin Sutherland, Dudley Hart, Ken Duke
8.50: a- Bronson Burgoon, Craig Bowden, Chris Kirk
9.01: a- Ben Martin, Josh McCumber, Kevin Silva
9.12: a-Josh Brock, Trevor Murphy, Nate Tyler
12.30pm: Matt Bettencourt, James Kamte (Rsa), Kaname Yokoo (Jpn)
12.41: a-Nick Taylor (Can), Scott Gutschewski, Gary Woodland
12.52: Carl Pettersson (Swe), Azuma Yano (Jpn), Charl Schwartzel (Rsa)
1.03: David Duval, David Toms, Darren Clarke (NIrl)
1.14: Anthony Kim, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson
1.25: Soren Kjeldsen (Den), Soren Hansen (Den), Peter Hansen (Swe)
1.36: Retief Goosen (Rsa), Ernie Els (Rsa), Phil Mickelson
1.47: Stuart Appleby (Aus), Fred Funk, Todd Hamilton
1.58: Mike Weir (Can), Stephen Ames (Can), Stewart Cink
2.09: Thomas Levet (Fra), Jean-Francois Lucquin (Fra), Raphael Jacquelin (Fra)
2.20: Andrew McLardy (Rsa), Chris Stroud, TBC
2.31: a-Clark Klaasen, Colby Beckstrom, Cameron Yancey
2.42: a-Kyle Peterman, Michael Welch, Cortland Lowe

US Open 2009 Bethpage State Park, Black Course, New York

1 - Yardage: 430 Par: 4

This hole couldn't be lengthened because the tee backs up to the infrastructure of the club. So, while it's a fairly long hole for mere mortals playing from the white tees (421 yards), it's not a demanding opener for the pros. The big hitters can try to carry the trees from the elevated tee and hit a wedge into the green. Others will play the safe route, staying left of the trees and hitting an 8-iron. The green isn't particularly challenging on approach shots or putting.

2 - Yardage: 389 Par: 4

Most players will hit a long iron or 3-wood off the tee to the narrow fairway and still have only a wedge into the green, making this a birdie opportunity. The second shot is up a steep hill. The hole locations will likely all be toward the front of the green near the bunkers, so if a player becomes too greedy or is playing from the rough, he could find the sand.

3 - Yardage: 205 Par: 3

Players will hit a mid-iron to a shallow green.that sits on an angle. The toughest hole location is back left, where the green falls away from the player and the ball could easily bounce over the green in firm conditions. It's a tough up-and-down from the rough behind the green.

4 - Yardage: 517 Par: 5

The fairway bunker on the left is in play for the tee shot, but the cross bunker is not a factor on the second even after a bad drive. Players will be tempted to go for the green in two, especially if they can get home with an iron. But it will be very difficult to hold the putting surface, since it's an uphill shot to a green that slopes away and then down to a chipping area in the back. The front bunker will catch short approaches. If they can resist the lure of a possible eagle, the pros can make a birdie fairly easily by playing safely to the part of the fairway that bends to the right of the green and pitching close.

5 - Yardage: 452 Par: 5

Players will want to favor the right side of the fairway for a better approach; from the left of the fairway you have to hit over the trees. The huge fairway bunker isn't a major factor with the distance the players hit it off the tee these days, though they could catch the far end of it if they push their drive. The approach to the elevated green, with a 7-iron or less, will be difficult on a shot from the rough. The bunker behind the green is a deep one.

6 - Yardage: 408 Par: 4

The USGA has ensured that players will lay up off the tee by eliminating the fairway where the hole turns downhill some 250 yards out. Without that rough, a player could have hit a driver down to the bottom, leaving a sand wedge into the green, if he dared thread the needle between two fairway bunkers or tried to blast over the left one. Now it will be an iron off the tee and an 8-iron or so to a narrow green that is closely flanked by sand.

7 - Yardage: 489 Par: 4

The trees to the right keep players from cutting the corner, making the hole play its full length and blocking them if they stray to the right. Players need to fade the ball off the tee or possibly hit a 3-wood to avoid going through the fairway into the left fairway bunker. It will be a tough par if a player doesn't hit the fairway. The hole's most striking visual feature, a vast waste bunker, doesn't come into play for the pros from the front tee. It's the only bunker on the course that was left alone in the redesign.

8 - Yardage: 210 Par: 3

There's some room to move the tee back, so the hole could play 230 yards to a back hole location. The USGA says the hole will be toward the back all four days, close to the bunkers but not the water. This green has more contour than most at Bethpage, with a terrace in the back.

9 - Yardage: 418 Par: 4

Before the most recent tee addition, pros were able to cut the corner of the dogleg and hit a half wedge to the green. Now, not only will they not be able to cut the corner, they will have to contend with an upslope in the landing area. If they fail to carry it, they can roll back down toward the tee, leaving a blind shot with a mid-iron. The fairway was moved to the right so players on that side will have a view of the flagstick. Long hitters have an edge: They should carry the hill and have a wedge to the green.

10 - Yardage: 492 Par: 4

The tougher back nine begins with a brawny challenge. It's a demanding driving hole, with bunkers on both sides outlined by fescue rough. With the length of the hole and an elevated green with rough and bunkers in front, it will be hard -- if not impossible -- to reach the green if you miss the fairway.

11 - Yardage: 435 Par: 4

With bunkers on both sides, the drive is similar to the parallel 10th hole. Since they head in opposite directions, the 11th will be into the wind if the 10th is downwind, and vice versa. In normal conditions, the 11th is easier, because it's shorter and the green is easier to hit. This is one of the few holes where Rees Jones added a greenside bunker rather than just redesigning existing ones. Sloped from back to front, the green is tougher to putt than most at Bethpage.

12 - Yardage: 499 Par: 4

Tom Meeks, the USGA official in charge of course set-up, spent a day at the New York State Open last summer, and he didn't like what he saw on this hole. Players were hitting it farther around the corner than he thought they would, catching a downslope, and hitting 7-irons into the green. He decided the tee should be extended back 10 yards, stretching it to 499. If the tee is set all the way back -- which Meeks says isn't a certainty -- the carry over the fairway bunker is still not intimidating for the pros at 243 yards, but they will have to aim farther to the right to catch the angled fairway. This should keep them from having a short iron into the green. The putting surface has some contour.

13 - Yardage: 554 Par: 5

If they drive it in the fairway, many players will be able to go for the green in two. The large fairway bunker to the left isn't in play for the pros. The next bunker well short of the green isn't a big factor, either, but the angle of the green makes it difficult to run a second shot onto the putting surface. Jones considered adding greenside bunkers to the left in addition to reestablishing the one to the right, but decided that rough would be just as much of a penalty.

14 - Yardage: 161 Par: 3

This is a chance for a birdie before the tough finishing stretch. The green is fairly shallow and it's a difficult recovery from either the deep bunker to the front and right or down the slope behind the green. With a short iron, though, there won't be many players missing the green. Lengthening the hole by moving the tee back across a road was considered, but it would have required lowering the existing tee, so the idea was rejected. The plan might be revived in the future.

15 - Yardage: 459 Par: 4

A new tee was built about 15 yards farther back after the redesign, but the USGA has elected not to use it for the Open. This is partly to aid gallery movement, mostly because the hole is plenty tough anyway. The green is very elevated, with the fairway ending some 40 yards short of the putting surface and bunkers built into the hill. It's a difficult approach from the fairway, even with a mid-iron, and an impossible one from the rough unless you catch a good lie. The green is the most sloping one on the course, mostly back to front. The front part of the putting surface is so severe that there are no hole locations there at U.S. Open green speed. It's a tough up-and-down from any direction.

16 - Yardage: 479 Par: 4

The tee shot is downhill, so the hole doesn't play as long as the scorecard indicates. Players will have about a 7-iron into the green -- less for long hitters unless they hit a 3-wood off the tee. The hole will be located close to the large bunker on the right for at least three days, possibly all four. That's a tough spot because the green slopes away from the player, making it a challenge to get close.

17 - Yardage: 207 Par: 3

This is another par three with a shallow green, and it's well bunkered. The front middle bunker has a high lip that hides the putting surface from the tee, guarding the shallowest part of the oddly shaped green, the center (it's only 13 yards front to back at that point). The new portion of the green on the right side adds another difficult hole location.

18 - Yardage: 411 Par: 4

This hole, originally a mere 370 yards to a bland green, has been totally redone. It's still a fairly short par four by modern standards and not the brutish finishing hole many expect at the U.S. Open, but Jones added some character and a touch of difficulty. The most noticeable feature is the fairway bunkering, with 10 bunkers pinching both sides of the fairway from the 260- to 315-yard mark from the tee and the fairway narrowing to a small neck at about 290 yards. This takes the driver out of play. The choices are to stay short of the bunkers entirely, leaving an uphill, 170-yard shot to the green, or to challenge the first bunkers and shorten the approach. The smaller green doesn't offer an easy target and the hole will be located near the right bunker three days.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

No choke this time for Mickelson

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- It would have been nice if at last Phil Mickelson could have planted a kiss on the silver U.S. Open trophy. The two have been dating for years, but the Open always plays hard to get. There's always an excuse: It has to do its hair … It has a headache … Its dad won't let it date left-handers.

So Mickelson finished second again. And if this were any other Open under any other circumstances, you could argue that Mickelson gagged another one away. He was tied for the lead deep into the back nine of the final round -- and then he wasn't.

But this wasn't any other Open. This was a five-day, 72-hole car wash played on a muscle beach of a golf course. But that wasn't the hardest part for Mickelson. The hardest part was playing it with a lump in his throat, a hole in his heart and a pink ribbon embroidered on the side of his cap.

[+] EnlargePhil Mickelson
Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesPhil Mickelson had plenty on his mind this week with his wife, Amy, facing cancer surgery. Despite all the distractions, Lefty managed to card rounds of 69-70-69-70 to finish tied for second at the U.S. Open behind champion Lucas Glover.

Choke? Mickelson didn't choke. There were no Open oxygen-flow problems like there were three years ago at Winged Foot's 18th hole. That was the Open he buried his head in his hands in disbelief. On Monday at Bethpage Black, he left here with his head held high.

Lucas Glover won the 109th U.S. Open fair and square. But if the golf gods knew a happy ending when they saw one, Mickelson would have been the guy hoisting the trophy. Didn't they know he had promised to win the Open for his wife, Amy, who begins treatment for breast cancer in July?

"I think maybe it's more in perspective for me because I don't feel -- I feel different this time," Mickelson said afterward.

I don't know how he made the cut, much less finished tied for second place. He began the morning 5 strokes out of the lead. But he began the tournament with his mind on Amy.

"Kind of an emotional four days or five days," he said. "I thought the grounds crew and USGA did a great job getting it in."

See that? Mickelson did his best to keep the deflector shields up at all times. Ask him to reflect on what had to be one of the most difficult tournaments of his professional life and he yammers away about the grounds crew. Or how Bethpage Black would make a wonderful Ryder Cup venue. Blah, blah, blah.

And I don't blame him a bit.

But there was no hiding his disappointment. Nobody wants to hold the world record for most U.S. Open second-place finishes (five).

"Yeah, it will be a quiet ride home," said Steve Loy, Mickelson's agent. "But the way he is -- and the way [Amy] will make it -- they'll be up and happy and glad to be together as soon as he gets off that airplane. This will be over and in the history books very soon."

Loy paused for a moment. "Yeah, that's quite a family." Then a longer pause. "Wow."

Mickelson moved into a tie with Glover after eagling the par-5 13th hole. (Question: How can someone named Glover not wear a glove?) But then Mickelson bogeyed the par-4 15th and then the par-3 17th to drop to 2-under. All Glover had to do was not 4-putt on the final hole. He didn't.

"Certainly I'm disappointed," Mickelson said, "but now that it's over, I've got more important things going on. Oh, well."

Make no mistake: This latest second-place finish will leave a bruise mark on Mickelson. But nobody left Bethpage Black with more admirers than Mickelson. He'll have to ice down his shoulder blades after all the backslaps from New Yorkers.

Even his playing partner, Hunter Mahan, who finished tied for sixth, couldn't help himself. When Mickelson was done on No. 18, Mahan joined the rest of the huge gallery and started clapping.

"Clapping for Phil, man," Mahan said. "Can't imagine what he's going through, what he's thinking right now. He played so hard."

Mickelson could have phoned it in during the Open and nobody would have said a peep. But he didn't.

"He was really digging deep out there this week," said his caddie, Jim MacKay. "Really digging deep -- he's a tough guy. He's got guts."

Mickelson and MacKay shared a rental house during tournament week. They returned to the house Sunday evening after a long day at the course and there was a line of kids from the neighborhood waiting on the sidewalk.

"So he signed 30-40 autographs in the yard," MacKay said.

Mickelson killed time by going to the movies, by shopping for books and DVDs, by eating breakfast at a local diner, by watching his alma mater, Arizona State, in the College World Series on TV. But always in the back and front of his mind was Amy.

Before the tournament began she had left notes, e-mails and text messages for Mickelson. Bottom line: She wouldn't mind if Phil left Bethpage with that U.S. Open trophy under his arm.

He tried. You've got to give him that much. But the conditions and the course weren't built for birdies Monday. Nobody was going to go low, not with the breezes, the condition of the greens and the U.S. Open pressure. Mickelson shot even-par 70. The other two second-place finishers -- David Duval and Ricky Barnes -- shot 71 and 76, respectively. Glover ended up with a 73.

Mickelson did his post-round media interviews and then peeled off and signed autographs. Other players made a beeline for the courtesy car lot; Mickelson signed autographs.

A security detail of state troopers and local police finally escorted him to the silver Volvo. Mickelson signed pin flags and stuffed dolls (don't ask) for them. Just before he got into the front passenger's seat, a dozen or so fans began chanting his name.

Mickelson nodded toward them. "Thanks for a great week, guys," he said.

Thank them? You've got it all wrong, Phil. Thank you.

Gene Wojciechowski is the senior national columnist for ESPN.com. You can contact him at gene.wojciechowski@espn3.com. Hear Gene's podcasts and ESPN Radio appearances by clicking here.

----------------------------