Me and my trophy - I let him hold it!
Wednesday...last day of practice...twice as many on site. The weekend will be over the top with people and noise. Let's hope the rain comes and goes quickly.
Bethpage is quite hilly...TV and I cannot possibly do it justice. It and its sister courses are beautiful and perfect. New Yorkers are pretty darn lucky to have five such amazing courses. One day I want to bring my clubs and play a couple of rounds. Just so you know, word is you have to prove you are a 15 or under to play the Black. Not bad reasoning I'm thinking. Carts are not allowed. I have a long way to go to be able to tee off on Black.
So, here's the deal. Good weather - long with scary greens. Bad weather - stupid long...not sure about how the greens will hold. They might be able to shoot for the pins but it might be with their third shots on par fours. Balls will likely die in the fairways if it really rains tonight/tomorrow. Some par fours - #7 - 525 yards, #10 - 508 yards, #12 - 504 yards. Three of the four par 3s are over 200 yards. #13 - 605 yard par 5...today it was into the wind. Second shots were about 360. Needless to say - no one went for it. 7,426 yards is a long walk and if you get into the long grass - see the picture - you will be very lucky to find the ball. Today Quiros hit into the grass next to the green right where the marshall was standing - never found it. Okay, enough depressing stuff :)
Tiger and Phil both were in view today. Tiger did not play but practiced where were caught him on the driving range. If you see way more people than normal it is either Tiger or Phil. No question. Phil played 18 and we followed him for a few holes. He looks good, the crowd is 100% in his corner. New Yorkers love the man and with Amy's health issues, they are even more vocal with support. It is pretty cool for him. He obviously appreciates it.
As I write about Tiger and Phil it occurs to me that I along with pretty much everyone else put too much emphasis on them. One would think they are the only golfers in the world and that is so far from the truth. There are 140 other men playing this weekend and on any given four days most of them have the talent to win. Will they? Probably not. As usual with US Opens one of two things will happen...one of the usual suspects with the proper credentials will walk away with the trophy - Woods, Mickelson, Furyk, Ogilvie, Cabrera, Singh, Els. Or, someone will pull an Orville Moody or Andy North and come out of the ether to steal the prize not to be really heard from again. Only time will tell how the story will be told but I'm excited to find out how it ends.
Trivia - what letter of the alphabet has the most players (last names)? Not surprisingly - 'S' with 19. Next is 'M' with 16. Letters not represented - 'U', 'X' and 'Z."
So it is late and time to go. Lots more to come - look at all I've said and nothing has really happened as yet. Unfortunately, no more cameras and that's a bummer. But have a few more good photos in the next day or so. Thanks, as always for checking in with me.
PS - here's shout out to my new best friends, Jimmy and Marty from tailgating yesterday. Ran into them again today which is really amazing. They and their friends really appreciated yesterday's blog with their picture. Hope to see you two again - we'll yell up to UBS this weekend to see if you are there.
PPS - Joy pointed out to me that yesterday's post about our tailgating party perhaps made it sound like we were driving disabled people around right after...not the case - we worked the late shift which was hours later...no US Open DUIs for us...thanks Joy for letting me know.
Good on ya, babe .... you do such a great job every year with your descriptive narrative. Thanks for all your time and effort in sharing with us!
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