U.S. Open Reads: Early Monday Edition

Don't forget, if you want to send Geoff Ogilvy your congratulations, check out this post where you can do so. And if for some reason you need relive this site's live blog of the final round, the here's the link.

From Lawrence Donegan's game story: The tall, rangy Australian has been the best kept secret in the game for some time. No longer.

Mike Aiken focuses on Monty.

Doug Ferguson files the first of many Phil collapse stories, with a comparison of Phil's finish to Jean Van de Velde at Carnoustie.

David Ginsburg says Ogilvy was a bit lucky but also says that he deserves credit for positioning himself to be the beneficiary of some good fortune.

David Normoyle's behind the scenes journal at USOpen.com offers some great stuff about NBC's effort to interview Phil, a smooth last moment question by Bob Costas courtesy of an earpiece assist, and other great inside the ropes stuff you won't read elsewhere.

Mark Soltau has some insider tidbits from the locker room on the Golf Digest blog.

Golfonline has a nice slideshow of pictures, including a priceless shot of Vijay looking at Ian Poulter's all pink outfit.

If there was any doubt the media let us down this week, check out Seth Davis's report on the Ogilvy press conference.

Just sat in on Geoff Ogilvy's sparsely-attended winner's press conference. In fact, if you removed the Australian writers from the room, you would have probably had as many people in attendance if Tadd Fujikawa, the 15-year-old amateur from Hawaii, was the one holding forth.

I certainly don't say that to disparage Ogilvy. Not at all. He is the champion of the United States Open, and his name will be engraved on that trophy alongside the greatest who ever played the game. He is also no fluke. Ogilvy is ranked 17th in the world, he has won twice on the PGA Tour (including the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship earlier this year) and he was 5th on the PGA Tour's money list coming into the Open.

Matthew Rudy scores big points for taking on the USGA setup and questions the point of trainwreck golf. My Lord, someone in Wilton isn't afraid to tell it like it is!

But something is fundamentally wrong here. Players aren't encouraged to make decisions at a U.S. Open venue. They're encouraged to thread it down 25-yard-wide fairways, hit it to the middle of the green and hope that one of those 20-footers snakes in for birdie every once in awhile. Maybe you'll catch a lie in the rough. Maybe your ball will bury in the bunker. Maybe you'll make one more double than the guy in your pairing and you'll blow it all.

And finally, round 4's eye-opening stats:

Cost of rough on the 17th hole Sunday: -.086

Field's fairways hit Sunday: 46.1%

Cost of rough on the non-tiered rough holes: .507 (5), 943 (6), .356(11)

Fairway hit % on 15 Sunday: 23.8%