Golf fans can watch the 2016 U.S. Open live online and see who can emerge atop the field in one of the nation’s toughest courses.
Advertisement
Mickelson was much more expansive about the heartbreak of six second-place finishes-some of them excruciating – at the U.S. Open, the only major he has failed to win.
What the club’s founder, Henry Clay Fownes, would have made of such scoring is hard to fathom.
Certainly Miller’s extraordinary feat dramatically bucked the trend at the Pennsylvania layout. The British Open has a small rotation of links courses.
Three hours and 45 minutes of play was lost at Oakmont due to thunderstorms, but the two delays turned out to be perfectly timed for watching England and Northern Ireland in action in the European Championships.
The numbers would suggest otherwise, at least for an opening round. “I don’t really have to do that again”, Mickelson said.
But they were gone by 2007, removing a parkland feel and recreating a more exposed environment.
However, the four-time major victor missed the fairway on each of the first three holes, despite taking an iron off the tee, and bogeyed the second and third after being forced to play out sideways from deep fairway bunkers. His eagle attempt slid 4 feet past the hole. They include the famous “church pews” to the left of the 3rd and right of the 4th fairways. Even par looked out of reach during practice rounds on a course that was firm and fiery.
Landry had a short day – one putt.
“But here all the greens fall in different directions and to try and get it below the hole, generally you’re going to end up running off the green, so you’re going to have cross-green putts, downhill, triple breakers”.
All these years later, Mickelson is still chasing the one major he thought he would have won by now. That was the last time Mickelson missed a cut in a U.S. Open.
“Are you kidding me!” the two-time major victor fumed after watching his golf ball hit above the cup and spin all the way off the green. So which of the world’s top players will it suit best?
It is the major he doesn’t have, the one that keeps him from becoming the only the sixth player in history to complete golf’s Grand Slam. The course played 6,300 yards and has since closed down.
Australian Jason Day is the leading putter but ranks 44th in driving.
“Rain or no rain on this golf course, it’s still a very, very hard test of golf”, Rory McIlroy said.
More than the long ball, Johnson has a short memory.
McIlroy will also need plenty of patience and can not afford the unforced errors that have undermined him too frequently this year.
Even with all the rain, only seven players from the early starters managed to break par.
Far more impressive was his accuracy.
It happened for all the wrong reasons at Chambers Bay past year, which appeared artificially tough with bad greens.
“Some of the craziest greens I’ve ever played, and most penal fairway bunkers I’ve entered”, Rickie Fowler said.
Andrew Landry reacts after his birdie putt on the ninth hole during the rain delayed first round of the U.S. Open golf championship at Oakmont Country Club on Friday, June 17, 2016, in Oakmont, Pa. “You start thinking about results, you’ll never play your best golf”.
Shinnecock, 2004 – After finally ending his drought in major championships with a victory at the Masters two months earlier, Mickelson used the momentum to start strong with rounds of 66 and 68 to tie for the 36-hole lead. That helps explain why he is No. 624 in the world ranking.
The incoming junior at the University of Texas got the day off Friday, after shooting a 1 under 69 to get on the Open leaderboard.
It is often the case that the more penal the set-up, the more random are the winners.
Advertisement
Indeed, it will be the player who maintains the mental fortitude to hold together their game and emerge last man standing against the relentless pressure of this brute of a course who will lift the trophy.
