It's been a while since any tournament has drawn this much press before the first tee shot, even a major like this week's U.S. Open at Torrey Pines' South Course.
Despite every sound reason offered for why Phil Mickelson will win the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines this week, I can’t pick him. I can’t do it.
Home course. Playing well lately. Huge fan support, which he loves. Always in the mix in U.S. Opens. Long hitter on longest U.S. Open layout ever. Sight lines.
Oh, the much talked about sight lines. When did this phrase take over the golf dialogue? OK, it’s important to see the field, but enough with the sight lines. Baseball’s overused technical term of inflated importance is 'arm slot.' What did pitchers do before they knew they had an arm slot? They threw the ball, often for strikes.
I can’t pick him because I had a little chit-chat with the Lord some years ago, vis. picking Mickelson. We made a deal. No Mickelson.
It’s going to be a circus, the Mickelson-Woods pairing. Nobody cares about Adam Scott in this threesome. It’s like the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson ’81 Topps rookie card, where Dr. J occupies the middle third of the famous perforated card, as Scoring Leader. All due respect to the good doctor, but that card goes for a thousand bucks because of the greatest point guard of all time on one end and the greatest passing forward of all time on the other.
Mickelson, of course, is his own circus. He doesn’t need the extra motivation to go bonehead. In fact, I’m looking at this dream pairing and all the hype about it and thinking we could have a mild canceling-out factor, leaving the Ogilvy's and the Goosen's to quietly go about their pars. And the Scott's.
One thing seems pretty clear going into this week’s second major of ’08: the short hitters don’t stand much of a chance.
Torrey Pines is rigged for more than 7,600 yards, though officials are saying they’ll keep it in the 7,400 - 7,500 range. The sixth hole is a Par 4 at 515 yards. Corey Pavin can’t handle that. By Saturday, having missed the cut with a score of something like 15-over, he’ll be singing 'Dust in the Wind' on a beach in La Jolla.
The Par 5 13th has gone from 541 to 614. It takes a drive of 250 just to clear low-lying scrub that runs from the tee box to the start of the fairway. If a gust comes up from the wrong direction, Pavin, whose average drive is 263 yards, shortest on Tour, won’t be able to reach the fairway.
Now that’s just rude.
At this week’s U.S. Open, take Brandt Snedeker. Just kidding. But he’s intriguing. It was at the Buick last year that he broke onto the scene, finishing third but hanging with Tiger until the end. And he made it most of the way at Augusta in impressive fashion.Intriguing but I’m not going there.
Take Adam Scott (40-1), 1/6 unit: Scott’s never played a professional tournament at Torrey Pines (and I don’t know if he’s ever played there at all prior to this week’s practice rounds). That may be to his advantage.
It’s a home course for Tiger and Phil and they own the place, with nine wins in the Buick Invitational between them. But sight line advantage or not, this is going to be a different course than the soggy one in January.
Scott has missed more cuts than he’s made in his U.S. Opens. Like I said, though, I like him slotted between the Mickelson and Woods on Thursday and Friday. I also have to figure the laid back Aussie will dig San Diego. He’s done well in So Cal in the past, with an unofficial win at the Nissan Open a few years back.
Take Vijay Singh (33-1), 1/6 unit: It’s like he died. I don’t understand it – he’s made $2.3 million this year with a bunch of strong tournaments and he’s eighth in FedEx Cup points. For a guy who struggles with accuracy off the tee, he’s done very well in U.S.Opens over the years. Talk about flying under the radar this week.
Take Stephen Ames (50-1), 1/6 unit: Ames suffers in the distance department and he also has a mediocre record at Torrey Pines. But you have to like the way he’s playing lately (5, 4 and T13 in his last three tourneys, the fifth place coming at The Players which played especially tough this year).
And a mid-range driver (in terms of distance – he hits it about 280) might not suffer a case of the run-outs this week, depending on how fast the fairways are.