US Open Thoughts After Three Rounds

There is nothing like a US Open on the west coast to assure that golf fans in the eastern time zone will be glued to their couches and TV sets for four straight days of prime time.  Add the fact that this year's Open is being played at Pebble Beach, probably the most photogenic and beautiful golf course in the world, and, well, that makes for great viewing.

Some random thoughts.....

The coverage on Fox has been outstanding.  Great shots  by the camera folks and, for the most part, pretty good announcing  by the team led by Joe Buck, even though once in awhile he thinks he's doing an NFL game.  The shot track feature is fabulous as are those lines that they superimpose on the greens that tell you how the putts will break.  Wish I could have that on the greens when I'm lining up putts.

One quibble with the announcers.  Advanced metrics statistics, you know, like the ones that are so stultifyingly boring on baseball broadcasts, are beginning to creep into golf telecasts.  When they tell me that Pete McDuffer has 6.57 "Strokes gained putting"....just what in the hell does that mean?  

On the bright side, we don't have to listen to Peter Kostis drone on about this-or-that guy's degree of shoulder turn while looking at the Konika Minolta BizHub Swing Analyzer.

********

Speaking of the announcers, it was cool when CBS' Jim Nantz turned up for a brief segment in the Fox booth yesterday with Buck and Paul Azinger.  Nantz lives in Carmel near Pebble Beach, so it was a good thought to allow for a network crossover and have him on.  I was disappointed, though that he didn't greet us with an "Hello, friends."  I also found it interesting that he said that Pebble Beach and St. Andrews are the best and most iconic courses in all of  golf.  That's it, that's the list.  I wonder what the green jacketed Poo-Bahs at Augusta National thought when they heard that little bon mot from CBS' "Voice of The Masters"?  Those dudes have been known to ban announcers from their little tournament for similar sacrileges.

********

Maybe the Fox on course microphones are more sensitive or maybe there are just more of them, but from what I am hearing, the galleries at Pebble consist of the biggest bunch of yay-hoos around.  Barely two or three minutes of any portion of the telecasts pass with out hearing some jerk scream out "GET IN THE HOLE" (even on approach shots from 240 yards out).  There are especially hot rooms in Hell reserved for the idiots who scream that out at golf events.

********

Speaking of idiots, how do you like that Jordan Speith?  He came upon the scene in 2015 when he won the Masters and the US Open at the age of 22, and was hailed as the future face of golf.  Since then, he has been seen acting out with some of his fellow tour players like a bunch drunken frat boys on a ritzy golf resort, taking forever to line up his shots and hit the ball, regularly rinsing balls on Number 12 at Augusta, and, this week at the Open, for petulantly blaming his caddy when he, Speith, hit back-to-back God-awful shots in the first round.

Swell headed, over-entitled jocks in the NFL and NBA have nothing on Jordan Speith.

********

Okay, time for a prediction, but before that, take a look at my long shot bet that I made two weeks ago:

A victory by Tony Finau would have had me me playing on "house money" down at The Rivers Casino for the entire upcoming NFL season, but, alas and alack, Tony failed to make the cut.

As for those that are still playing, here is the top of the leader board going into the fourth round:

Gary Woodland    -11

Justin Rose          -10

Brooks Koepka     -7

Chez Reavie         -7

Louis Oosthuizen  -7

Rory McIlroy          -6

It is from among those final three pairings that the winner will emerge, and, realistically, I believe that only Woodland, Rose, and Koepka will still be in it until the end.  I suppose that a guy from back in the pack, say, Dustin Johnson would be capable of putting up a 65 today, which would get him to  eight under and reasonably close to contention, but that would assume that twenty-two other golfers tied or ahead of him would all stumble and fall back.  Not going to happen.

Who am I rooting for?  That would be Brooks Koepka because in addition to that wager above on Finau, I also dropped a ten spot on Koepka, albeit at much shorter odds, so a third straight Open for Koepka would net me eighty bucks. So there's that.

However, my official prediction for today?  Justin Rose to overtake Woodland and all others and win his second US Open title.

The Masters 2017

As Jim Nantz would say, "Hello, Friends", and here are some thoughts from The Grandstand on the 2017 Masters.....

• It is amazing how, more often than not, The Masters is able to produce tremendous sporting drama on a regular basis.  In 2017, the Toon-a-mint evolved into a final round shootout between Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia, and it was epic to be sure.
• It did come down to a two man battle in large part because Americans Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler, playing in the next to last pairing, managed to totally soil the bed linens as they played terribly (a combined +7 on the day) and never challenged the final Rose-Garcia pairing.
• Spieth took himself completely out of contention early, going +3 on the front, and, just to make the cheese more binding, when he dunked another one into Rae's Creek on the Par 3 twelfth hole, the one that did him in last year. Despite winning the Masters at the age of 21 in 2015, there now have to be a lot of demons in his head concerning Augusta National.  He is young and very talented, but if you made the case that he will never win another Masters, I don't think that I would argue against the point.
• When it became apparent that the winner would come from the final group, I began to put my rooting interests behind Justin Rose, as I've never been a big fan of Garcia's.  Still, with the way both played all day yesterday, you knew that you were going to be happy for whichever guy won, and feel really bad for whichever guy came in  second.
• As they came to the tee on the 72nd hole, my comment to Marilyn was that "I hope one guys wins it with a birdie, as opposed to one guy losing it by making a bogie."  Rose said pretty much the same thing after he bogied the playoff hole when he said that he was glad Sergio made his putt for a birdie, because then he'd have really felt bad if his bogie had cost him the Masters.  
• Great sportsmanship by both Garcia and Rose throughout the day.

And then there was the CBS telecast....

• We all know that the Green Jackets control the media that covers The Masters in a way that that not even the Kremlin controlled Pravda back in the day, but, honestly now, could Jim Nantz get any more reverential and obsequious?  He tops himself every year.  I honestly think he was about to begin to weep when he opened the Green Jacket ceremony in Butler Cabin last night.
• CBS came on the air at 2:00 yesterday, and by about 2:20 I was already sick and tired of the "Can Sergio win on Seve's 60th birthday?" storyline.  It made Joe Buck's bromance with Kyle Schwarber during last year's World Series pale by comparison.
• On the plus side, the camera work and coverage was excellent.  Is there sport more suited for High Def television than golf, and is there place more suited for it than Augusta National?  OMG, I'm staring to sound like Jim Nantz.  Somebody stop me.
• I hope you all got to watch the one hour special that preceded the telecast about Arnold Palmer and his lifelong relationship with the Masters and Augusta National and that included Arnie's final recorded interview, one that Nantz conducted in the Butler Cabin during the 2016 Masters.  It was terrific show.

We close with a final salute to the 2017 Champion.  He certainly earned it.

Remember, The Masters Doesn't Really Begin Until the Back Nine on Sunday

As I see it, four people have a shot at taking the green jacket tomorrow: Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose, Phil Mickelson, and Charlie Hoffman. Those are the four with a legitimate shot at winning, and, really, I believe that it will come down to the final grouping of Spieth and Rose. 

I don't think that 44 year old Phil can hang in again, and I can't see Hoffman holding up either. Rose has won a Major - the US Open a few years back -  and knows what it takes to do so, and Spieth should have learned how to withstand final round pressure from last year. After Hoffman, the next five golfers are ten shots out of the lead. If any of them comes from that far behind to win it will be almost miraculous. 

I am going to predict a win for Spieth, mainly because I have him as one of my golfers in the MOASP Fantasy Pool, but it will be a close win over Rose. It's not going to be the runaway that many thought it might become after the second round. It should be, dare I say it, a Barn Burner! 

You heard it here first, and remember, as always, watch, but don't bet.