AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > June > 15
Friday, June 15, 2007
Tiger steals ink; Bubba grabs glory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Oakmont, Pa. — Call the cops! Oakmont has stolen Tiger Woods’ game.
You know how it is when Tiger is in any tournament. All things revolve around him. The first round of the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, Tiger was one among 16 players who checked in at 1 over the par 70. A nice young Englishman, 25-year-old Nick Dougherty from Liverpool, took the lead with a 68. But whose picture was on the front page of the paper dropped at my door? Tiger Woods.
There was a small print of what we used to call a half-column cut of Dougherty on the inside, so since there’s no one else to tell you about Nick, I’ll fill you in briefly: He is tall and slender, is playing his sixth season on the European Tour, and has won one time, the Singapore Masters, which has a pretty impressive ring in our environs.
Nick didn’t have a very good day Friday, but another Brit stepped up to fill the void, Paul Casey, who has made a few headlines in the United States. Came over here to school at Arizona State, then went back to tell the homefolks all the things he didn’t like about Americans. He has won eight times on the EuroTour, plus another, the WGC-World Cup in 2004, shared with Luke Donald. Then he stuck it to Our Side again when he delivered a hole-in-one in the Ryder Cup matches the USA lost so ingloriously in Ireland.
Casey went out early Friday, 7:33 in fact, in the company of Stewart Cink, and when the day was done, put a round of 66 on the board. Now, memories are hard to shake off around here, so this week there has been a lot of talk about the round of 63 that Johnny Miller posted and won the Open here in 1973, especially since Miller is around doing his own memories on television.
Some able historians right away said Casey’s 66 was stronger than Miller’s 63. Both played on the same course, and yet not. Rain had softened the course the night before Miller’s final round. Arnold Palmer said he might have turned the juice on Johnny, but his putter failed him, and it wound up that Miller only had to beat the less-than-renowed John Schlee home. Besides, par then was 284. Par today is 280. A different world and a different course, but what does that matter. It’s only Friday.
Meanwhile, somewhere out on this cruel acreage, Tiger Woods was still slashing away, in the new furrowed hazards, the “Church Pew” bunkers, just trying to gain some ground on all those ahead of him. Casey was one of them, but his 66 still left him 3-over par, but only six guys were ahead of him. It hasn’t been easy to hold a lead on this daunting course, whose main intention is to intimidate. If you want a definition of “tough,” Oakmont is it. It was built to be tough, and the members like it that way. Twenty is a good handicap around here.
One of those hovering around the lead was Bubba Watson, the left-handed swinger who played at the University of Georgia, then headed for bigger game. Bubba comes from that hotbed of golf in the Florida Panhandle, Milton High School, which has produced Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum. The improbability of Bubba Watson contending at a U.S. Open is almost too much to digest, everywhere but in Bagdad — the Florida one — his hometown.
Sadly, Bubba made five bogeys and finished the day in second place at 1-over par. Oops, word just in. Woods bogeyed No. 7 — his 16th hole — and his name came off the leaderboard. I tell you, it’s tough out there on the hostile grasses of Oakmont.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Furman Bisher
