It is one of the five founding clubs of the U.S. Golf
Association. Its first U.S. Open in 1913 is what first put golf on the front
pages of American newspapers when 20-year-old amateur Francis Ouimet took down
a pair of British titans.
Beyond the ropes, it’s worth nothing the Boston area was the
birthplace of the Revolutionary War, only fitting for these times.
That’s what it feels like golf is going through at the
moment.
More than a dozen PGA Tour players, a few big names that
include a trio of U.S. Open champions, are defecting to a Saudi-funded rival
league and the PGA Tour is telling them they are no longer welcome. The battle
lines are unlike anything this genteel game has experienced in its 162-year
history.
And it’s enough to steal some of the attention away from the
U.S. Open, the second-oldest championship known as the toughest test in golf.
“It’s a weird time in professional golf,” Rory McIlroy said.
“And I said it a couple weeks ago, we’re just going to see how this season
plays out.”
The U.S. Open is in Brookline, Massachusetts, for the fourth
time on June 16-19, and it already features a few subplots that could be
considered surprising.
Tiger Woods will be sitting this one out.
After making the cut in the Masters and the PGA
Championship, Woods decided his right leg that was battered from a February
2021 car crash needs more time to heal and strengthen. He wants to be ready for
the British Open next month at St. Andrews.
Phil Mickelson will be playing a major for the first time
this year.
Lefty was recovering from a foot-in-mouth injury from
published comments about the Saudi league that managed to offend both sides. He
said he wasn’t ready to play the Masters or the PGA Championship, making his
return at the LIV Golf Invitational outside London.
The USGA takes the name of its championship —“Open” —
seriously enough to honor any player who earned his way into the field.
“Should a player who had earned his way into the 2022 U.S.
Open, via our published field criteria, be pulled out of the field as a result
of his decision to play in another event? And we ultimately decided that they
should not,” the USGA said in a statement.
Fourteen players who qualified for the U.S. Open were in the
first LIV Golf event, a group that includes past champions Dustin Johnson and
Martin Kaymer. Another U.S. Open champion, Bryson DeChambeau, joined the Saudi
league on Friday.
Mickelson, most famously, never has won the U.S. Open.
Imagine if he were to finally win the major that has haunted him throughout his
career, those record six runner-up finishes keeping him from the career Grand
Slam.
“I don’t know how others will receive it but I would be
quite favorable with it,” Mickelson said.
How others would perceive it is to be determined. For years
among the most popular figures in golf, Mickelson has been viewed as the chief
recruiter for Greg Norman and his LIV Golf series that has paid enormous sums
just for players to sign up.
Mickelson would know from experience how passionate a Boston
crowd can be.
He is among three players in the U.S. Open — Sergio Garcia
and Jim Furyk are the others — who were part of the Ryder Cup in 1999 known as
the “Battle at Brookline.” The Americans rallied from a 10-6 deficit before a
crowd that gave Europe an earful. Colin Montgomerie was called either “Mrs.
Doubtfire” or “Tuna” because of his vague resemblance to former New England
Patriots coach Bill Parcells.
It will be Mickelson’s first time playing on American soil
since Jan. 28 when he missed the cut at Torrey Pines, and the reception could
be far different from 2007 when he won the Deutsche Bank Championship at the
TPC Boston.
“Northeast fans are passionate and vocal,” Justin Thomas
said. “Stuff you wouldn’t hear at Memphis or Greensboro, you’re going to hear
it in Boston. I remember playing with Tiger at Shinnecock and people were
yelling at him about his yacht.”
As for that pursuit of the career slam, Mickelson has had
seven cracks at the U.S. Open since he picked up the third leg at Muirfield in
the 2013 British Open. He has yet to finish among the top 25 in any of them,
and turning 52 on the day of the opening round isn’t making it any easier.
Golf has been moving toward youth for some time now, and the
recent majors are an example. The last four major champions are in their 20s,
dating to defending U.S. Open champion Jon Rahm, who was 26 when he won at
Torrey Pines last year.
Eight of the top 10 players in the world ranking are under
30, with the exceptions 30-year-old Patrick Cantlay (No. 3) and 33-year-old
McIlroy (No. 7).
Young and old, major champions and amateur qualifiers, all
face a test that is expected to be a traditional U.S. Open with thick, dense
rough, narrow fairways, firm greens and no shortage of aggravation.
“A war of attrition,” McIlroy said.
He won his U.S. Open on a rain-softened course at
Congressional, setting the 72-hole scoring record at 268 for an eight-shot
victory. He has missed four U.S. Open cuts since then, but has three straight
finishes in the top 10.
“I feel I’ve become better over the years,” McIlroy said of
the U.S. Open grind. “It was something I hated earlier on in my career. My
first real U.S. Open was Pebble Beach (2010) and I missed the cut by miles. The
U.S. Open more times than not doesn’t let you be creative because it doesn’t
give you a chance.”
The last U.S. Open at Brookline was in 1988, won by Curtis
Strange. Only two players from the top 20 in the world (Billy Horschel and
Johnson) were even born then. But if they don’t know The Country Club, most are
plenty familiar with the test that awaits.
“A U.S. Open golf course not only tests you physically but
mentally,” said Furyk, who will be playing it for the 26th time and won in
2003. “It’s real easy to break in that event.”
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