Pinehurst No. 2 turns into DeChambeau’s No. 2

in

Such a cruel game, golf. Such a wonderful game, golf. A game where a two-foot putt can be as rewarding or devastating as a 300-yard drive.

As Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy know all too well.

McIlroy connected on those drives, but missed on the last few putts. And so DeChambeau – embracing the crowds’ chants of ‘USA USA’ – won a second U.S. Open. On the course named Pinehurst No. 2, but now with his repeated success in the Open, it could be called Bryson No. 2.  

The final round Sunday of this Open had all the joy and agony virtually guaranteed in a tournament where the rough is high, the bunkers are deep and the pressure unyielding.

It is, after all, considered to be America’s championship, of which several decades ago the late Sandy Tatum, after competitors complained the Open was too hard said, “We aren’t trying to embarrass the best golfers, we’re trying to identify them.”

After Saturday’s round when DeChambeau built a 3-shot lead, he was asked how he would approach the last day. 

“Fairways and greens,” he said, “and two putts.”

It didn’t exactly work out that way. But among the 71 swings he recorded in his 1 over par closing round, one was what he called “the best shot of his life.” After landing in the sand at 18, he hit his 55-yard bunker shot within 4 feet of the cup, a magnificent par saver.

McIlroy, who had the lead at times briefly, was in the scoring room watching. He came in with a one under par 70. His 275 total was one shot above deChambeau’s total of 274. Tony Finau, 67, and Patrick Cantlay, 70, tied for third.

It was Lee Trevino who said anybody can win One Open but it takes a great player to win two.  He won two, and of course, now the 30-year-old DeChambeau also has won two. For the record, Jack Nicklaus won 4, Tiger Woods 3.

This one came down to a series of short putts. DeChambeau made them. Rory did not. The late Payne Stewart, won almost the same way—beating Phil Mickelson—in the same place, Pinehurst, in 2019. 

After DeChambeau made the putt at 18, he yelled out “That’s Payne right there, baby.” 

And it was.

DeChambeau has had a great month. He was a shot behind winner Zander Schauffle at the PGA in Louisville and now gets the victory in the U.S. Open.

“As much as it is heartbreaking for some people, it was heartbreak for me at the PGA,” said DeChambeau, who a month ago made a dramatic birdie on the 18th hole at Valhalla, only for Xander Schauffele to match with a birdie to win the PGA Championship in May.

It’s one of the older cliches and truths of golf that “you drive for show and putt for dough,” as we found out again at this tremendous U.S. Open.

U.S. Ryder Cuppers get along — and get ball into cup

in ,

KOHLER, Wis.— So the first day of the Ryder Cup, American golfers disproved the idea they can’t get along, or more importantly can’t get the ball into the cup.

Maybe our culture isn’t all that bad at that. It’s obvious our golfers are quite good.

Not only did the U.S. build up a 6-2 lead — you need 14½ points to claim the Cup when play finishes
Sunday — but in the process, American players scored wins over a couple of nemeses from the European team who once were unbeatable, Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter.

In the foursomes matches on Friday morning, team rookies Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele combined to win each of the first five holes and overwhelmed McIlroy and Poulter, 5 and 3.

“I don't know if anyone could have beat Xander and Patrick today,” said Poulter. ”They played really good, four birdies in a row. Geeze, yeah, they played great.”

Geeze, yeah, so did every American playing in what could be described as a home game, on the Whistling Straits course along Lake Michigan, north of Milwaukee and south of Green Bay.

U.S. golfers — meaning golfers who have U.S. passports and not those who just live and play in the U.S. — have been spoiling for a day like this.

Team Europe had won the Cup four of the last five times, the American failures blamed on everything from a lack of team chemistry to a reliance on power over finesse.

Euros, we’re told, are better at communication, although how this helps when you’re alone on the tee is a mystery.

The way Bryson DeChambeau hits a ball is no mystery, however. On the 581-yard, par-5 fifth hole, teamed with Scottie Scheffler in the afternoon better ball, DeChambeau smashed a 417-yard drive. Seventy-two yards from the pin, he wedged close enough for an eagle 3.

DeChambeau and Scheffler halved that match with Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton. Rahm, the Spaniard who won the U.S. Open — and went to Arizona State — was responsible for half of the Euros’ two total points.

The American players were, well, pleased and wary. Things can turn quickly, although it’s doubtful they will. This U.S. team is young but experienced.

Asked about the inability of he and DeChambeau to close out a match in which they were 1-up with a hole to play, Scheffler said, “Yeah, especially in best-ball you have to hit good shots and make birdies down the stretch.

“Bryson made a good par on 15, which was more like a birdie. Made a nice birdie on 16. Got out of position on 18. Overall I’m pleased with how we played. I think we played really solid. A few mistakes here and there, but other than that, a really solid day.”

Emotions were pouring out as the pro-American crowd chanted. DeChambeau was asked how he could keep calm.

“It's going back to your bubble when you're about to hit a shot,” DeChambeau said, “doing your best to control your emotions in that way. I learned from Phil (Mickelson) in that, and I have a great partner and loved every minute of it and hope we can do it again soon. We are a good team, and we're going to dominate.”

Which for a day the U.S. squad also did. Criticism be damned.

DeChambeau: Big hitter with a big chance in the Cup

in ,

KOHLER, Wis. — There’s a saying in baseball: any manager who can’t get along with a .340 hitter is in the wrong business.

Let’s modify that opinion: any golfer who can’t get along with a 380-yard driver is on the wrong Ryder Cup team.

Yes, Bryson DeChambeau, the not-so-incredible bulk, is occasionally a problem, perhaps a trifle egotistical and apparently feuding with Brooks Koepka.

But if he seems a disruption for the American team, the way he hits the ball DeChambeau should be a major disruption for the opposition, Europe.

Of the five matches in the Cup, four are team competition — either better ball, when scores of each player count, or alternate shot. Who wouldn’t want the chance to hit the approach after Bryson hits the tee ball out there around 400 yards?

We’re told one reason America has done so poorly in recent Ryder Cup play is that we’re a nation of individualists, each preferring to go his own way. Yet how important is it to love your teammate if you love the way he putts?

Besides, there’s no open hostility among the U.S. Cup players. They aren’t the Oakland Athletics of the 1970s — or the San Diego Padres of 2021.

When they swing at something, it is white with dimples, and Titleist or TaylorMade printed on its cover.

DeChambeau is as intriguing as he can be bewildering. He grew up in Clovis, Calif., near Fresno, also the home of quarterback Daryle Lamonica. And while Lamonica went to Notre Dame (understood for a football player) before the Raiders, DeChambeau went to Southern Methodist (surprising for a golfer) before the PGA Tour.

There was no question DeChambeau could play. In 2015, he became the fifth golfer to win the NCAA and U.S. Amateur in the same year. Five years later, after adding muscle and thus hitting to the outer limits, DeChambeau won the U.S. Open — which observers said with his style, emphasizing distance over accuracy, could never be accomplished.

So who’s to say anything is impossible for the 28-year-old DeChambeau? No matter with whom he might be paired in team play, even Koepka. Both of the men involved in the mini-antagonism insist they will be supportive teammates during the Ryder Cup.

“I'd say first off I feel like I'm a player that can adapt to anything if I have to,” said DeChambeau, “and I feel like there are certain players on our team that can mesh really, really well with my game, and you guys could probably figure that out.”

One guy who has to figure it out before play begins Friday is Steve Stricker, the U.S. team captain. In his more effective younger days, Stricker became a willing and able partner of Tiger Woods.

DeChambeau played in the Cup three years ago in France and lost all of his three matches. But, hey, Tiger never had much success when he played in the Ryder Cup.

“Leading into this event,” said DeChambeau, “I think part of hitting it far is some of why I am so successful and how I could utilize my length on this golf course to potential advantage.

“As well as I've been working on my wedging and putting nonstop. Thinking about how to roll it better, thinking about how to control my distances better with this new speed. It's definitely a delicate balance, but one that I am strictly advised pretty well on to do my absolute best in the Ryder Cup.”

Which certainly is all you could want of DeChambeau. Or anybody else.

”As we look at it, we have an amazing team that has an opportunity to do something special here this week,” said DeChambeau.

Big talk from a big hitter who has the opportunity to be a big man in the biggest of international matches in golf, the Ryder Cup.

Sports off the edge: tennis bathroom breaks, golf harassment

in , ,

No, it’s not your imagination. The sports world has gone off the edge.

Tennis players are unable either to control their bladder or their manners.

Golf, which didn’t have spectators for a year, may ban some of the ones now allowed.

And a few baseball players are acting like the spoiled rich kids some observers have long accused them of being.

This didn’t happen in the days of wooden racquets and iron men (and women), but sometime in the last few years the most important part of a major tennis tournament became something called the bathroom break.

You know, you’re out there on the main court at Arthur Ashe Stadium, just you and your opponent and 23,000 impatient spectators, when suddenly you need to go.

The problem isn’t an issue of when nature calls. It’s when out of sight, you possibly do the calling, on a cell phone, to your coach in the stands for advice or when you simply stall away — no double entendre implied.

Please don’t (ha-ha) mention the location of the U.S. Open Billie Jean King tennis complex, Flushing Meadows, N.Y.

Maybe, the way accusations flew, it should be Sing-Sing.

After he was beaten Monday night by the young Greek star Stefanos Tsitsipas in a first-round match that lasted nearly five hours, Andy Murray complained about Tsitsipas’ several and lengthy breaks.

The rule is that players are permitted a “reasonable” amount of time, obviously a subjective view.

Commenting for ESPN, Chris Evert, winner of 18 Grand Slam tournaments, had a valid point about the maneuvers that perhaps helped Tsitsipas get some of his points.

“It’s so vague. Another vague rule in tennis. And I think that’s what Andy was complaining about,” said Evert on Tuesday,

"Let me tell you, eight to 10 minutes, that gives the player time to sit with himself, to figure out what he needs to do, to reset if he needs to, to reach into his bag and get a phone call. Or reach into his bag and read a text. It opens the door to a lot of things that maybe aren’t fair in tennis.”  

There are no secrets in golf. And almost no restrictions on spectators, who because of the game’s nature literally can stand next to a player to cheer him. Or harass him.

This supposed feud between Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau became so worrisome to Steve Stricker, captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team for which both will play, that a detente was reached.

Among the players, if not the fans.

That was great competition between DeChambeau and Patrick Cantlay, who went six extra holes Sunday in the BMW Championship. DeChambeau had his chances, but Cantlay finally won with a birdie when DeChambeau missed his.

Then, as DeChambeau headed up a hill to the clubhouse, a fan shouted, "Great job, Brooksie!"

DeChambeau made a move toward the fan and angrily shouted, “You know what? Get the f--- out.”

A day later, the PGA Tour announced it might eject fans who taunt the players by acting disrespectfully. “Fans who breach our code of conduct are subject to expulsion from the tournament and loss of their credential or ticket,” said the Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan.

That sort of regulation has long been in effect in baseball, where fans traditionally are loud and nasty. It’s understood by the guys on the diamond they must suffer the slings and arrows of the people in the stands.

This realization finally came to Francisco Lindor and Javier Baez, two members of a New York Mets team that several weeks ago went into the tank and, in fine East Coast fashion, was booed loud and long.

The heartbroken young players responded by offering a thumbs down sign when the Mets finally won a game. Management put a stop to such nonsense.

The players apologized, and everyone lived happily ever after. Didn’t they?

Koepka’s as tough as Torrey Pines

in ,

SAN DIEGO — Brooks Koepka is the sort of guy you want on your side. Or on the first tee. He’s as tough as the courses he plays, never making an excuse and as likely to get irritated by an interviewer’s question as he is by his own missed putts.

He wanted to be a ballplayer but was limited to golf when, as a 10-year-old, his face was crushed in a car accident and he had to give up rough and tumble sports. If his game changed, his attitude did not.

Somehow, maybe intentionally, maybe accidentally, Brooks and Bryson DeChambeau got involved in a very ungentlemanly feud, the sort you’d never expect in golf but the sort that has developed.

What makes it more interesting is that both have won major championships — and this week, among shots both verbal and literal, are trying to win another, the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

The course is a bitch, stretched out more than 7,800 yards on a bluff above the Pacific. The rough, poa annua grass, is gnarly. The wind blows. And for good measure, jets from the Marine air base at nearby Miramar roar above with unnerving consistency.

In other words, give us a golfer who can be as nasty and unrelenting as Torrey Pines. A golfer like Brooks Koepka.

He shot a 2-under-par 71 Thursday in the first round, and if that wasn’t the lead it was close enough. Asked if it were important to get off to a good start, Koepka offered a response that was both repetitive and accurate.

“You can’t win it today,” he said, “but you can definitely lose it. Pretty pleased. Not the best, but I’ll definitely take it.”

Not that he has another choice.

Koepka is 6 feet, 205 pounds. He looks like a linebacker, or a major league catcher — in other words, an athlete. After leaving Florida State, he missed qualifying for the PGA Tour, then he went to Europe, played where conditions are difficult and the living is different. Toughening up, you might say.

When Koepka returned to America after winning in Europe and Britain, he was ready. He won the U.S. Open in 2017 and then again in 2018, becoming the first to repeat since Curtis Strange in 1988-89 (and only the second since Ben Hogan in the 1950s).

He followed that double with another double, victories in the 2018 and 2019 PGA Championship. Some players never win a single major. Koepka won four major majors in two years.

Then there was knee surgery and rehabilitation, which kept him from entering the 2020 Open at Winged Foot (won by DeChambeau). “Didn’t even watch it,” he said.

Now we’re all watching — and listening

“I’ve got a good game plan,” he said of success at the majors. “Focused. I know what I’m doing.”

That would seem an understatement.

“And I don’t try to do anything I can’t. It’s just all about discipline in a U.S. Open. That’s the gist of it.”

What some wonder about is the gist of the apparent disagreement between Koepka and DeChambeau — personality, philosophy, just plain dislike. Brooks looks away.

“As far as perception, I'm not really too concerned,” Koepka said of the public guesses. “I’m worried about what I've got to do and what I'm doing. I'm not concerned about what other people think. If I was concerned about what everybody else thought, I'd have been in a world of pain.”

He means the mental agony, as opposed to the physical, the knee.

“I've got more mobility right now than I ever have,” he said, “so that's a solid thing where I can start building some strength again and just keep the progress going.”

No nonsense, no pretense, good sense.