Sometimes You're The Windshield......

Sometimes you're the bug.

That was a semi-popular country song...back in the 80's, I believe.

It also could be the theme song for the 2009 US Open Golf Championship, which is currently being played at Bethpage Black in New York.

There are always two waves of golfers in a tournament. One wave starts in the morning, the other starts in the afternoon, and then on the second day they switch positions.

In this year's US Open, Thursday's morning group is "the bug". They began play in the rain, played in the rain for three hours and sixteen minutes, and then went home for the day. On Friday, the were out early to finish their first rounds, and then they went home.

Thursday's late starters (if there had been no rain) are the windshield. They never teed off at all in Thursday's horrid conditions, and they didn't start until mid-morning on Friday, which allowed the course to get a little drier. These players played somewhere in the neighborhood of 27 holes in these calm conditions. For the first round, the late starters averaged two shots less than the early starters.

But that's just the beginning....

The real reason that the windshield/bug song popped into my head is the forecast for Saturday.

In the morning, when the late starters are finishing up their second rounds, it is supposed to be cloudy. When we get to the afternoon, and the early players from Thursday are playing their second rounds, more storms are coming. Those players will be in the rain...again.

Tiger Woods is in the early group, which means he will play most of his golf in the rain. However, don't feel too bad for him, because he was four over par for his last four holes in his first round, and that was under the same scoring conditions that many, many players were able to take advantage of and post good scores. If Tiger is going to make this US Open his 15th major victory, he will have to shoot a couple of really good scores.

Phil Mickelson should be basically done with his 2nd round before the rain hits, which should give him a chance to post a good score and set himself up with a chance to win. I am not usually a big fan of Mickelson's, but I don't think you can help but root for the guy to play well with the huge off-the-course issue he's currently having to deal with. Hopefully, Phil's wife Amy will win her fight against breast cancer so that I can go back to wishing Phil's ball into the woods!

Add mine to the millions of prayers being said for Amy Mickelson's quick recovery.

Tiger Vs. Rocco

After a grueling Sunday in San Diego, Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate will go one more round, as they prepare today for a rare US Open playoff. Woods forced the playoff with a 12-foot birdie putt on the final hole of regulation.

The story of the day, rather than the one-on-one matchup, will be Tiger's left knee. He has been battling his surgically-repaired knee for the entire tournament, and over the course of the third and fourth rounds, it seemed as though the knee was winning. Somehow, Woods managed to hold things together well enough to force a playoff.

Now, the story becomes can he be effective enough on Monday to defeat Rocco Mediate?

US Open Thoughts

The United States Open begins tomorrow morning at Torrey Pines in San Diego, California.

It promises to be an entertaining tournament, mostly because the kikuyu grass that promises to torment the players. It is a thicker, stronger grass than is normally seen on golf courses, and kikuyu rough at US Open heights could actually be dangerous. It should at least give the course some teeth.

Maybe this year all of the pre-tournament talk about "hacking it 50 yards out of the rough" will actually be true. It seems every year the players and officials talk about how tough the rough will be to hit from, but then you only see a few guys who actually have to really just hack the ball back into the fairway.

Personally, I would prefer the US Open to have thicker, more penal rough, narrower fairways, and not as much length. Torrey Pines is listed at over 7600 yards, even though the USGA says that "most likely" it will play somewhere between 7400 and 7600 (but not over 7600) all four days. The actual length will depend on what they do with a few tee boxes that can be shortened or stretched.

With the length of the course, along with the graduated rough that will be in use, a semi-accurate power hitter will just pound the driver, then take his chances out of the rough. A short hitter has no chance, really, because he has to be in the fairway, and even then he will be hitting fairway woods and long irons into the greens. With today's clubs, a 6- or 7-iron from the rough is just as controllable as a 2-iron from the fairway, so the long hitter isn't really penalized for missing the fairway.

Anyway, the USGA didn't ask my opinion, so on to my "predictions."

Tiger Woods will win. I just can't pick against him. He shouldn't win, because you shouldn't be able to win the US Open when you haven't played competitively since the Masters because of knee surgery. But, he's Tiger Woods, so I won't be surprised if he's right in the thick of things on Sunday afternoon (or night, on the East Coast).

Other than Tiger, I'd probably just use the driving distance statistics to find favorites, then add Stewart Cink and Jim Furyk. Cink and Furyk are not super-long, but they hit the ball fairly straight and putt well. Cink has contended in quite a few Opens, and Furyk has won it. Any one of the long drivers could have a good week on the greens and get lucky, which is basically why Angel Cabrera is the defending champion.

Good luck, gentlemen.

All-Encompassing Update

During the summer, there's not a lot of (ACC) football or basketball news to write about, so rather than driving myself insane trying to find topics, I will just occasionally (or more often, depending on what sparks my interest) weigh in on a few random topics.

JJ Hickson is probably staying in the draft. I don't think he should, but he didn't ask me. He chose not to play at the Orlando pre-draft camp, and wasn't invited for interviews and measurements only. Evidently, he's content with his current draft position...or he thinks he's going to blow the scouts away at his private workout that he will have soon. I believe his best chance of improving his draft stock would have been to go to Orlando and shine against other "wanna be" draftees. However, Sidney Lowe has been around the NBA quite a bit, and if JJ is following his advice, I will easily concede that he's doing the best thing for his particular situation.

The Danny Green saga is very interesting. Apparently, as long as the NBA doesn't specifically tell Mr. Green to pull out of the draft, he is going to stay in it. Tar Heel Fan has all of the UNC/NBA draft news anyone could need, including a couple of articles about Danny Green. It seems that being in prison made Danny Sr. an expert on the intricacies of the NBA draft process.

Football is only a few months away!!!

The United States Open is basically two weeks away. My early prediction: Tiger Woods wins! How's that for going out on a limb? I'll step out a little farther...Tiger will finish at -2, and will be the only golfer in red figures. Plenty of people will be predicting that someone other than Tiger will win, citing his long layoff for knee surgery. I say he will win, because he always wins at Torrey Pines. Also, in 2002, he missed quite a bit of time because of a similar knee surgery, and he won his first tournament back that year, as well. Where was that tournament played?? Yep..Torrey Pines.

Well, that's it for now. Check back soon for another all-encompassing update!