2017 U.S. Open Is Here! Round One This And That
/Phil Mickelson is officially not joining us due to perfect, sunny, warm conditions at Erin Hills Thursday. But 156 fine players with great stories to tell are here to contend for the U.S. Open.
Your television full viewing guide is here. USOpen.com has exclusive early coverage and live featured group coverage all day.
Golfweek.com's Live Blog has social media highlights and other updates throughout the day.
For the local angle, the Journal Sentinel's Chip Shots blog will keep things up to date.
Jordan Spieth thinks the scoring could be good (Romine/Golfweek.com).
“I don’t see (even) par winning the tournament. I see closer to 5 to 10 under,” Spieth said. “Someone who has very good control of the ball off the tee will have plenty of opportunities to make birdies, given the conditions that we’re expecting. And I think the USGA is very much OK with that.”
Things may get wacky at the 18th green and certainly will at the ninth hole (D'Amato, Lewis Journal-Sentinel).
Alan Shipnuck profiles Austin and Dustin Johnson (Golf.com) and some of their on-course, uh, strategizing.
There are several college teammate player/caddie contestants (Romine/Golfweek.com).
The Love's have a lot to say about their father-son act this week (Driscoll/USOpen.com).
Kevin Na swears he wasn't trying to rip the USGA with his now infamous Instagram video (Gray/GolfChannel.com).
On the USGA front, I'm still not seeing exactly how future rules situations will be impacted by procedural changes, as I wrote in this analysis for Golfweek.com.
Jeff Babineau at Golfweek says the USGA better get it right this week and all signs suggest they are trying to do so. But on a first time venue loaded with wild and wacky holes, that's no given.
Gary Van Sickle praises the naming of Chief Referee Thomas Pagel but wonders about that decision too (MorningRead.com):
You may recall Pagel as the unfortunate fellow who was on TV trying to explain last year’s decision when Johnson was penalized for his ball moving on one green, even though he never touched the ball or grounded his club behind it. Pagel’s reasoning was that it was “more likely than not” that Johnson caused the movement.Personally, I never bought that reasoning, and neither did a lot of others, hence the controversy.
Now, the USGA seems better-poised to pounce on a problem. If we don’t hear Pagel’s name all week, it’ll mean the new changes worked to perfection. We’ll be happy, and so will Mr. Pagel.
The USGA is working hard to communicate better with players (Hoggard/Golfweek.com).
Davis said he explained to the players that the USGA, as a non-profit organization, invests over $200 million a year in golf.
“What we came to realize is that very few, if any of them, actually understood what the USGA does,” Davis said. “They don’t realize about the turf grass research, they don’t realize what we are doing with juniors, or what we’re doing for history. Once they understood that I think they had a little more appreciation for what the U.S. Open is doing for the game of golf.”
