As Oakmont stiffens, patience among players vanishes
The U.S. Open cranked up the challenge at Oakmont Friday, sending scores soaring and frazzling the nerves of virtually everyone in the field. The players continue to preach patience, but practicing it is harder with each passing hole.
By Melanie Hauser, PGATOUR.com Correspondent
OAKMONT, Pa. -- About Paul Casey's 66 ...
What hole did he skip?
If you heard it once, you heard it a dozen times Friday morning as players walked off the course wondering what Oakmonster had in store for U.S. Open weekend. As if the second round wasn't enough.
And, if, of course, they managed to be among those still hanging around for the last two rounds.
The examination took it up a few notches Friday morning. The wind whipped up, the sun beat down and what passed for a pleasant morning underneath a shade tree turned into one fabulous round for Casey and one frustrating day for the rest of the field.
"I saw some really good shots not get rewarded," Lucas Glover said. "They weren't mine."
His, he swears, were worse. And, yes, his 80 felt every bit as bad as it looked.
For every good round -- see Casey's 66, Stephen Ames' 69, Aaron Baddeley's 70 or Justin Rose's 71 -- there were nearly three dozen 80somethings. And 28 high-70somethings.
Par? By the time the afternoon gang had teed off, it was 76.995. By the end of the day, it had come back to 76.933 -- almost seven shots over what the USGA calls par.
The cut was 10 over. It would have been 11 over had leader Angel Cabrera run in a short birdie putt at the ninth -- his final hole -- to send 19 hopefuls packing.
By mid-afternoon, no one in the field was under par. And it stayed that way.
Leader at even par, 62 players chasing him.
"It's about as tough," Paul Goydos said, "as you can get it."
Added Ian Poulter, who shot 77, "There's no point bitching and moaning. It's a tough golf course. I've hit four bad shots and I've been punished for it."
The examination, as the USGA calls its National Open, has just cranked it up a notch. Maybe six. And the course that prides itself on being tough just may have pushed itself to the limit.
Players were putting off the green at the ninth hole. And the 10th. Greens were firmer; rough thicker. Margins of error? Dream on.
Casey's 66 only magnified the harsh reality of this course where -- on a normal day -- members are punished and guests are destroyed. Of a course the club president calls rugged, baffling and hard to conquer -- the other 356 days of the year.
The blue blazers did a little tinkering Thursday night. They put the pins in trickier spots and moved up the tee at the par-4 17th so it played 308 yards.
"They move the tee up just to get in your head," said Goydos, who shot 73 and had to wait to see if 11 over par made the cut. "I'm waiting for the day when (the 288-yard par-3, No. ) 8 plays longer than 17."
It's the U.S. Open. Be careful what you wish for.
Lee Janzen, who's won two of these and is sitting in a great spot for the weekend with a pair of 73s, calls the course a monster. The 12th hole, he said, is the "toughest par 5 I've seen without a re-tee."
The best pin placement for holing putts -- most all of which need to be made from uphill lies -- may be on the fringe, one player offered. And what did Phil Mickelson say Thursday? Four pars are like a birdie?
Players heard it all. As they filed off the course and out of the scoring tent, they shook their heads. They grimaced. They bit their tongues. They ran end-arounds past reporters so they didn't have to say something they'd regret.
For some, like Adam Scott, it was downright embarrassing. He shot 82 -- his highest round on the PGA TOUR -- to go with an opening 76. And he WAS hitting it great on the range. Then he lost his rhythm.
"You can't do it with smoke and mirrors out here," he said. "It's disgraceful. It's embarrassing."
But all you can do is forget about it and move on. He did a few months ago, backing up a closing 80 at the World Golf Championships-CA Championship at Doral with a win at the Shell Houston Open.
Here at Oakmont, Shaun Micheel said, you can play smart and still mess up a hole. Just ask anyone who teed it up.
How about, someone said, throwing par out the window. Just tee it up, play the course and give it to the guy with the low score. No par, just score.
This isn't close to Olympic Club or Shinnecock proportions. Not yet, anyway, but the course is definitely winning.
Two players managed to birdie three holes in a row -- Lee Westwood and amateur Trip Kuehne. Westwood, at 7 over, gets another shot this weekend. Kuehne, who shot 79-80, is heading home.
And that patience everyone was talking about early in the week? The mindset you have to have at an Open? It was beginning to wear thin.
"Everyone comes in with patience, patience, patience," Glover said. "The tough thing is keeping it."
Charl Schwartzel, who's in at 8 over, said it's easy. At least after a bad hole.
"Count to 10," he said. "I just try and forget about it as quickly as possible. If you want to get crushed, you're going to get crushed. But then you must forget about it on the next shot. You can't carry it over on this golf course."
Neither can you think too much about Casey's 66, other than, yes, if you play well, another one could be out there.
Somewhere. Maybe. But don't look for it. Just avoid the double bogeys and think par.
Which led Micheel to one last thought about this brutal course: "You know, they have Birdies for Charity on the TOUR. I think they need Pars for Charities out here."