After last year’s widely criticized experiment at the newly established golf course, Chambers Bay, the United States Golf Association is moving its National Championship to a more familiar location in Oakmont Country Club.
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So, yes, the U.S. Open is rough, which has characterized the event for so many years.
Phil Mickelson last week described the Oakmont course as the toughest the professionals face on tour, but Day said he was looking forward to the test. This week he practiced Monday, took Tuesday off, returned to Oakmont late Tuesday evening, slept in Wednesday and practiced in the afternoon.
– Seventy percent of U.S. Opens have been won by American players (81 out of 115).
Mickelson noted that Oakmont’s ninth hole is among the most hard in all of major championship golf. No one that old has ever won the U.S. Open.
Penal rough, even by USGA standards, is set to offer perhaps the greatest challenge to the 156-strong field, its severity prompting reigning champion Jordan Spieth to suggest: “I think if you’re under par, you certainly win”.
But the only time Mickelson showed his age is when he flew home to San Diego for the eighth-grade graduation of daughter Sophia.
“It’s just important for me to be there for that stuff”, he said. “But the guys that are struggling, it will really magnify that weakness and you’ll see a lot of high scores as well”. Adding, “I’d sign for even-par right now for 72 holes in June”.
The winning score in the US Open 2007 – 5-over with Angel Cabrera taking the trophy. A triple bogey on No. 2 and a double bogey on the next hole sent him tumbling to an ignominious 82. And it’s hard for him to ignore the significance of winning a U.S. Open, which is all that keeps him from the career Grand Slam.
People ask me how I feel, I usually tell them how I feel, and thats just me being honest, he added a moment later.
“It’s tough, but I think it’s in great shape”, he said.
“This is the tournament I want to win most to complete the four majors”, said Mickelson. There’s no question. I have to put that out of my head and try to execute and be patient and not think about results.
Oakmont is enough to grab everyone’s attention.
The only hope was from the weather, with thunderstorms in the forecast for the first few days.
He arrives at Oakmont coming off consecutive top-five finishes at Memorial and the St. Jude Classic, though Oakmont’s notoriously quick greens will offer a far different test. The others are fellow Queenslanders Adam Scott, Cameron Smith and Steven Bowditch alongside Victoria’s Marc Leishman, South Australia’s Geoff Ogilvy and New South Wales’ Aron Price. It rained that night, and he returned for a practice round with McIlroy and found a more forgiving course.
“This is one tournament that is very stressful and I feel like I thrive under stress”, Day said.
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“The Masters this year, tee to green, I felt much worse than I did at events where I finished 25th at a Tour event, But because I just felt that we were ready and that we could do it and I could draw on past experience, especially at that event, we got into contention”. He was named in a federal complaint that accused Las Vegas gambler Billy Walters and a former board member of Dean Foods Co. of making tens of millions of dollars in illicit stock trades.
