2008 U.S. Open

[CitricAcid]

Not sure if there already was a thread about this, but now that the tournament is over I can take a step back and breathe. What a tournament, Tiger tying it up to send it to overtime with a birdie on the 18th. TWICE! I am a big Tiger fanatic, but at the end I could have seen myself being happy for Rocco if he had pulled it out, but, alas, it wasn't in the cards for him .

I also found Johnny Miller extremely annoying. Everytime Tiger would hit a great shot, he'd be playing through the intense pain (notably with no limp), and if he hit a poor shot, his shot was blamed on his knee problems. I don't blame the media though, without the Big Cat in the world, golf wouldn't have the same appeal that it does. Another discrepancy I found with the media's treatment of Tiger is with regards to how they treat someone like Phil Mickelson. Personally, I don't think Phil Mickelson is that good, weak on some of his irons and not even close to as skilled as Tiger on the greens. The big discrepancy, however, is a hole on Sunday (I think it was the 15th), where Westwood hit his drive into the jungle right before him and then he STILL went out and shot his driver (with unsatisfactory results). IF Phil or any other golfer had done that, they would have been torn apart for being reckless and too aggressive. When Tiger does it, though, it is something only he can pull off and was a smart, calculated move. Not a big deal anyway, and Tiger is still my favorite golfer.

Any other golf fans out there?

 

[Coach]

Hi CitricAcid, another fan here. You're right, what an exciting tournament! My respect for those two gentlemen is boundless. It would have pleased me greatly if Mediate had won -- but going head-to-head with Woods for an 18 hole playoff was an extraordinary accomplishment.

Coach

 

[CitricAcid]

Edit to above: 19 hole playoff

 

[Achiever51]

I think this tourney really is one for the history book and it was very enjoyable to watch every day. Rocco's enthusiasm throughout was simply joyful to experience, and I do wish he had won, although the result again proves you can never count out Tiger. (Although Rocco came darn close to proving that Tiger is not invincible!)

BTW, I just heard on the radio that Tiger will not be playing "for the foreseeable future", so he is out of the Buick Open and likely will not play until the PGA in August. That said, we can still expect to see lots of TW's footage at every tournament even if he doesn't play -- which I think is a bit unfair to the other golfers at times.

As for Johnny Miller, I agree! He often gets on my nerves with his commentary, but if he said once, he said a bazillion times that he had the same knee surgery as Tiger two days before. Yeah, we got it already!

 

[frayne]

Big Tiger fan here as well and have seen him play in person. The guy is unreal and a real gentleman in person as well, a class act.

 

[Marquette]

> Any other golf fans out there?

I thought the US Open was a tennis thing until I read your post and realized you were talking about golf.

I'm not that out of touch, though. I already knew that Tiger is a golfer.

 

[aaronc879]

I think he'll play the British in just over 4 weeks. It's a major, he'll be there.

 

[FinanceDude]

So, Tiger risked his career by playing the US Open? Sounds like he should have waited until it healed, maybe no British or PGA..........

It could have been a stupid move, but will make his legacy that much more surreal...........

 

[Westernskies]

Can you imagine what Rocco Mediate must have been thinking when he went to bed on Sunday night- "all I have to do tomorrow is beat Tiger Woods one- on-one..."

 

[Bestwifeever]

I love watching Tiger play. I love that there's no referee or umpire needed in golf, so the winner is very clearcut. I would have been happy if Mediate had won. Commentators are funny--if Mickelson hesitates, they say, "He's too hesitant, that's a problem"; if Tiger hesitates, they say, "Tiger wisely holds back."

Worst thing about watching golf on TV, even worse than Johnny Miller? Listening to the morons in the gallery yell "in the hole!" after every single stroke.

 

[jambo101]

I'm starting to enjoy watching golf thanks to Tiger, for the first time i actally taped parts of the action when i was away.
As an ex golf course employee i can also really appreciate the efforts of ground crew to get the course looking great.
One pet peeve i have about watching golf is the bunch of morons who feel it necessary to bellow out "IN THE HOLE"after every shot if it was my decision any one who yelled "in the hole" would be immediately escorted from the course and banned for life from attending any future event, this weekend i saw the birth of a new peeve the whistlers

 

[Danny]

Yes, glad I got to see it...I must be in the minority here but I think Miller is the best golf commentator - I find his insights informative and very inside golf...I don't have much use for Jim Nance and the course announcers...If I had me druthers I would just have Miller, Azinger and Faldo in the booth...

My big pet peeve - the bozos that yell "in the hole!!!" - something terrible should be done to them - tasering comes to mind...

I had the sound muted most of the time

 

[VaCollector]

Yes, glad I got to see it...I must be in the minority here but I think Miller is the best golf commentator - I find his insights informative and very inside golf...I don't have much use for Jim Nance and the course announcers...If I had me druthers I would just have Miller, Azinger and Faldo in the booth...

My big pet peeve - the bozos that yell "in the hole!!!" - something terrible should be done to them - tasering comes to mind...

I had the sound muted most of the time

Ahhhhh, but you've gotta admit that it was MUCH better than the normal Monday TV offerings!!

 

[Dawg52]

Yes, glad I got to see it...I must be in the minority here but I think Miller is the best golf commentator - I find his insights informative and very inside golf...I don't have much use for Jim Nance and the course announcers...If I had me druthers I would just have Miller, Azinger and Faldo in the booth...

My big pet peeve - the bozos that yell "in the hole!!!" - something terrible should be done to them - tasering comes to mind...

I had the sound muted most of the time

You the man!!! Sorry, couldn't help myself. I'm with you, I like Johnny Miller. One commentator I can't stand is Gary McCord. He is just plain silly.

It was a great Open. I'm always for an underdog so I was pulling for Rocco. But Tiger is just hard to beat.

 

[FinanceDude]

Yes, glad I got to see it...I must be in the minority here but I think Miller is the best golf commentator - I find his insights informative and very inside golf...I don't have much use for Jim Nance and the course announcers...If I had me druthers I would just have Miller, Azinger and Faldo in the booth...

My big pet peeve - the bozos that yell "in the hole!!!" - something terrible should be done to them - tasering comes to mind...

I had the sound muted most of the time

There was only one thing missing from the US Open, the Scottish accent of one David Feherty...........

 

[FinanceDude]

You the man!!! Sorry, couldn't help myself. I'm with you, I like Johnny Miller. One commentator I can't stand is Gary McCord. He is just plain silly.

Johnny Miller is THE MAN!! I remember once a fair number of years ago, Nick Faldo hit a shot in the British Open. Johnny must have heard the shot over the big mike they carry near the players and said this:

"It sounded a groove low, it will probably be 8-10 yards short of the green"........

I'll be darned if that ball didn't end up 8 yards short of the green, with Faldo staring at the club in amazement..........

 

[lightwaves]

It was a great Open. I don't even watch golf unless Tiger is in the tournament. I will turn the tube on when it's Sunday and Tiger is in the hunt or at the lead. The mental toughness he has is unreal. No one else comes close. Rocco is an appealing guy and in a way it was his turn to shine after all of the years he has played but you just can't count Tiger out.

 

[Danny]

Ahhhhh, but you've gotta admit that it was MUCH better than the normal Monday TV offerings!!

this is true...i tuned in early and ended up watching some day time soap opera

You the man!!! Sorry, couldn't help myself. I'm with you, I like Johnny Miller. One commentator I can't stand is Gary McCord. He is just plain silly.

It was a great Open. I'm always for an underdog so I was pulling for Rocco. But Tiger is just hard to beat.

.... McCord should be tasered also...

......i was in Rocco's corner...lot of pressure and he handled it well...wish that almost hole-in-one had holed and that putt on 9!...

I just thought of another guy in the booth ..how about Sean Connery after a couple whiskeys...

 

[Coach]

I really enjoyed watching Monday's round. To follow two players from hole to hole was a treat. Normal golf coverage on TV drives me nuts because of all the bouncing around from hole to hole, group to group.

Coach

 

[frayne]

Phil needs to take a HARD look at his game and try and figure out why a half crippled Tiger ate his lunch at his home course.

 

[Midpack]

Phil needs to take a HARD look at his game and try and figure out why a half crippled Tiger ate his lunch at his home course.

It's pretty straightforward, when it counts Tiger steps up like few can and Phil folds like most of us would. The greats always have a mental edge that no amount of technical ability (by others) can overcome very often. Watching Tiger finish on Sat, Sun and Mon was more history in the making. The eagles and chip on Sat and having to make a 15 footer on Sun to stay in - it's unbelievable that Tiger is even able to do it so often. It seems clear he will hold all the records if he stays healthy for at least 10 more years...and I hope he does.

 

[laurence]

Greatest tournament I ever watched, we all took a long lunch Monday to hit the local pub here in San Diego to watch the playoff. Had a coworker who volunteers as a PGA official, and was there in person, lucky #$%! I wished they could have both won.

I think it's true they lavish the praise a little heavy on Tiger, and give him a lot of the coverage, but hey, as long as he's winning and is what the viewer wants to see, it's the right move. You don't hear the other golfers grumble too much because he is raising the total purse size every year as viewership and sponsorship keeps going up and up and up...what was Rocco's take, $800k?

 

[Dawg52]

You don't hear the other golfers grumble too much because he is raising the total purse size every year as viewership and sponsorship keeps going up and up and up...what was Rocco's take, $800k?

When Tiger first became a pro, some of the players resented the large contracts he signed. Phil was one. But things certainly have changed. The purses have sky rocketed and all the players have benefited by Tiger's stardom. Phil has even said as much. I read not long ago that Phil made around 40 mil a year on endorsements. Way behind Tiger, but he can't be too unhappy with that.

 

[frayne]

From The NY Times
Op-Ed Columnist
The Frozen Gaze
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: June 17, 2008
Rocco Mediate's head swiveled about as he walked up the fairway of the sudden-death hole of the U.S. Open on Monday. Somebody would catch his attention, and his eyes would dart over and he'd wave or make a crack. Tiger Woods's gaze, on the other hand, remained fixed on the ground, a few feet ahead of his steps. He was, as always, locked in, focused and self-contained.
The fans greeted Mediate with fraternal affection and Woods with reverence. Most were probably rooting for Rocco, but only because Woods, the inevitable victor, has risen above mere human status and become an embodiment of immortal excellence. That frozen gaze of his looks out from airport billboards, TV commercials and the ad pages. And its ubiquity is proof that every age finds the heroes it needs.
In a period that has brought us instant messaging, multitasking, wireless distractions and attention deficit disorder, Woods has become the exemplar of mental discipline. After watching Woods walk stone-faced through a roaring crowd, the science writer Steven Johnson, in a typical comment, wrote: "I have never in my life seen a wider chasm between the look in someone's eye and the surrounding environment."
The coverage of him often centers upon this question: How did this creature come about? The articles inevitably mention his precocity (at age 3, he shot a 48 on the front nine of a regulation course) and provide examples of his athletic prowess: Once Woods tried out four drivers that Nike was experimenting with and told the lab guys that he preferred the heavier one. The researchers thought the clubs were the same weight, but they measured and Woods was right. The club he'd selected was heavier by the equivalent of two cotton balls.
But inevitably, it is his ability to enter the cocoon of concentration that is written about and admired most. Writers describe the way Earl Woods, his lieutenant colonel father, dropped his golf bag while Tiger was swinging to toughen his mind. They describe his mother's iron discipline at home. "Old man is soft," Kultida Woods once said of her husband. "?He cry. He forgive people. Not me. I don't forgive anybody."
Tiger was the one dragging them out on the course to practice. At age 6 months, he was put in a baby chair and had the ability, his father claimed, to watch golf for two hours without losing focus.
As an adult, he is famously self-controlled. His press conferences are a string of carefully modulated banalities. His lifestyle is meticulously tidy. His style of play is actuarial. He calculates odds and avoids unnecessary risks like the accounting major he once planned on being. "I am, by nature, a control freak" he once told John Garrity of Sports Illustrated, as Garrity resisted the temptation to reply, "You think?"
And for that, in this day and age, he stands out. As I've been trying to write this column, I've toggled over to check my e-mail a few times. I've looked out the window. I've jotted down random thoughts for the paragraphs ahead. But Woods seems able to mute the chatter that normal people have in their heads and build a tunnel of focused attention.
Writers get rhapsodic over this facility."Woods's concentration often seems to be made of the same stuff as the liquid-metal cyborg in Terminator 2: If you break it, it reforms," David Owen wrote in Men's Vogue.
Then they get spiritual. In Slate, Robert Wright only semi-facetiously compared Woods to Gandhi, for his ability to live in the present and achieve transcendent awareness. Analysts inevitably bring up his mother's Buddhism, his experiments in meditation. They describe his match-mentality in the phrases one might use to describe a guru achieving nirvana. He achieves, they say, perfect clarity, tranquility and flow. We're talking about somebody who is the primary spokesman for Buick, and much of the commentary about him is on the subject of his elevated spiritual capacities.
And here we're getting to the nub of what's so remarkable about the "Be A Tiger" phenomenon: He's become the beau ideal for golf-loving corporate America, the personification of mental fortitude.
The ancients were familiar with physical courage and the priests with moral courage, but in this over-communicated age when mortals feel perpetually addled, Woods is the symbol of mental willpower. He is, in addition, competitive, ruthless, unsatisfied by success and honest about his own failings. (Twice, he risked his career to retool his swing.)
During the broadcast of Monday's playoff round, Nike ran an ad that had Earl Woods's voice running over images of his son: 'I'd say, "Tiger, I promise you that you'll never meet another person as mentally tough as you in your entire life. And he hasn't. And he never will."
You can like this model or not. Either way, the legend grows.

 

[Boxkicker]

I worked as a volunteer Thursday thru Sunday in the Merchandise tent. One of the benefits was watching golf when I wasn't working. I had alot of fun watching and following certain groups. I met quite a few parents of the "no-name" golfers (including Justin Hicks..the 1st round leader). Very down to earth parents!

Also, I got to meet Phil Mickelson's dad, when I was working, who patented a gadget called "Sportscope" basically a telescopect machine to look over a crowd and see the golfers. It also helped that he was a Navy pilot, so I struck up a conversation about the Navy. Very nice guy!

Today was 50% off ALL merchandise in the tent, so I went and spent a couple hundred buying some tee shirts and golf shirts and got some good deals.

I won't go into the fact that I learned to play golf in 1992 at the Navy Golf Course in Cypress, CA when I was stationed in Long Beach. Can you guess who else learned to play on that course? Can you guess who I used to see playing on the course working on his game with his dad back then? Can you guess who I met on the range and chatted with before he became famous. I won't give you any clues....but he has won 14 majors.