12/21/24
June 10, 2002
The US Open : starts this week. Who do you like? (Besides Tiger. I'll pick a dark horse - Scott McCarron.) It's being held at a public golf course for the first time, and the pros seem to think it's going to be a real test. It'll be a treat to see the best field in golf play a course few of them have any real experience with ('cept for the guys from Lon Guyland, of course). Nice to watch the pros struggle for par for a change. Can Mickelson win the big one? Can Monty? Can Goosen repeat? Can anyone stop Tiger?
posted by BitterOldPunk to golf at 11:13 PM - 2 comments
I'm a little biased towards the players on my fantasy golf team: Toms, Mediate, Estes, Andrade and Weir. I think they're all solid, but I'd say only Toms and Estes and Mediate would have a shot of actually being champion. (but thanks for rooting for Weir, grum@work) Besides them: The US Open always tests fairways-and-greens, so players high on the 'ball striking' stat list (The Ball Striking statistic is computed by totalling a player's rank in the Total Driving and Greens in Regulation statistics.) should be good bets. Look for Garcia (amazingly bad recently, but rebounded last week as defending champ at Buick), Kenny Perry and Vijay Singh, as well as Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson. And, oh yeah, that Woods kid. So, my pick: put money on Tiger, but heart and head say Toms can win. Here are a few good analyses of the contenders: CNNSI/GolfOnline's Sal Johnson, PGATOUR.com/GolfWeb and ESPN.com.
posted by msacheson at 12:57 PM on June 11, 2002
I'm picking the Canadian, Mike Weir. However, he needs to be paired with anyone OTHER than Tiger Woods on the final day to have a chance. He wilts under the pressure of playing with him. Here in Canada, if you have 3 rounds of great golf and a final round of crap golf, it's called "Pulling a Weir".