Tiger's First Round U.S. Open 69 Round-Up: "Beautiful . . . Awesome . . . Impressive."

Alan Shipnuck declares the tournament over after Tiger Woods' opening 69.

There may be 54 holes left to play, but Tiger Woods has already won this U.S. Open. Forget the fire hydrant, the swing change, the dropped-kicked 9-iron -- that's all ancient history now. Woods displayed some vintage dominance during a first round 69 at our 112th national championship. He's three shots out of the lead and no one can catch him.

The Olympic Club has a history of slaying great champions, but it's a perfect venue for Woods.

Randall Mell files a rave review, too.

How good was Woods’ start? If you saw the mighty struggle Watson and Mickelson endured trying to survive Olympic playing with Woods, you left with an even deeper appreciation of Woods’ shot-making.

Woods whipped up on Watson, the reigning Masters champ, by nine shots. He finished seven shots better than Mickelson.

Beautiful . . . Awesome . . . Impressive.

There’s only one reasonable response the rest of the field can have to those assessments by Woods’ playing partners.

Yikes!

Steve Elling went the entire 18 with Tiger and shares details from inside the ropes, including this about the driving show by Woods:

It was pretty pretty, actually. Woods was credited with hitting 10 of 14 fairways, which is accurate, but it requires an asterisk and an explanation.

On three of those holes, the ball came to rest in the first cut, which means he missed by perhaps two or three feet. On the other miss, he raked a 3-wood tee shot on the drivable seventh hole, playing about 260 yards uphill, into a greenside bunker.

Robert Lusetich was struck by Tiger's post round demeanor and I would agree that there was an old-Tiger, ho-humness to the day.

But it didn't require comparative statistics to know that, four years removed from his last major, Woods is once again a force with which to be reckoned. His demeanor told far more than any statistics could.

Despite having failed in the past 12 majors — the longest drought of his career — Woods wasn’t high-fiving anyone. In fact, he barely smiled.

"I’m hungry," he shrugged.

Ron Sirak wasn't so wild about the logistics of today's all-star pairing featuring Woods, Mickelson and Watson.

When all is said and done here, the USGA might want to reconsider such high-profile pairings and instead spread around the talent wealth. About the only folks who really benefitted from Woods, Mickelson and Watson playing together was ESPN, which has the early-round TV rights. Almost everyone other stakeholder got the short end of the stake.

The crush of gallery and media about the group made it difficult to see for those folks who paid good money to be on property. It also left other groups with embarrassingly small crowds. And clearly, the carnival atmosphere didn't help either Mickelson or Watson.

John Strege's media notes include some nice moaning about Chris Berman's announcing from Twitter and an Andy North analogy between Tiger's play today and his play at Hoylake.