Reehoorn: U.S. Open Blog, Day 3
June 13, 2007
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U.S. Open Blog, Day 3
A very powerful thunderstorm and heavy rains for about 30 minutes at 4:00 P.M. put an early end to our final practice round. We made it through 14 holes before a USGA official notified our group that they had posted a weather warning. Instead of playing the 15th and getting further away from the clubhouse, we decided to call it a day and head to the player hospitality area for a quick snack. I was actually pretty happy that we had to call it quits today, Alex has been playing and practicing a lot the last three days and today was the hottest of them all, above 90 degrees with humidity. An extra hour out of the sun might help him be a little bit fresher tomorrow.
The breakfast spread I talked about in yesterday's blog available at the caddy shack definitely does not compare to what they have for the players in the hospitality area. It was fun to hang out with the caddies for a day, but I don't know much they will be seeing of me the rest of the week.
We arrived at the course this morning at about 11:00 A.M. for our 12:30 P.M. practice round. Alex spent a lot of time on the putting green. We worked on making as many short putts as possible to build his confidence and then putting on putts from outside of 30 feet that were both downhill and uphill and up and over tiers in the practice green. The greens are so fast that lag putting is going to be crucial to everyone's success for two reasons. On a normal green players of this caliber don't have to pay too much attention to a three-foot putt, but if you hit your first putt three feet short or long this week it is going to take a very mentally strong player to withstand the challenge. It is not out of the possibility that a player might have to consider playing up to a foot of break on only a three or four foot putt with the slope and speed of these greens.
While Alex was working on his putting, I was doing a pretty bad job of "acting like I had been there before." Tiger Woods was also working on his putting just a few feet from Alex, so I had to take a few pictures. It is amazing to see the crowds when Tiger is around even when he is just on the putting green only hitting a few putts every couple of minutes. He spent most of the time on the green talking to others, but people are standing six or seven deep behind the ropes just to catch a glimpse of Tiger. But for some reason when Tiger leaves, so do the people. I don't understand why they are not as interested in watching everyone else stand around and talk.
A couple of interesting things happened to Tiger while he was on the putting green, that made me wish I could have been a fly flying a little closer to know exactly what was said. First, Rory Sabattini came up to him for a quick exchange. In the past couple of months Rory and Tiger have exchanged words in the media. While I have no idea what Rory said to Tiger, Tiger immediately went to Steve Stricker who he had previously been talking to and made a comment to Steve that got a pretty good laugh out of him.
Next, Jose Maria Olazabal came up to him and made a comment about a piece of his clothing. Olazabal said, "You have to look good out here." Tiger responded in a way that I'm sure Nike nor Tiger would rather I not repeat. But it was so funny, I felt I had to at least mention it in the blog. Watching these guys interact makes you realize that they really are no different than Alex and I. They like to have fun and joke around just as much as we do.
With the putting practice over, it was time to head to the first tee. Alex had told me that he believed we were playing with someone big, but he wasn't exactly sure. As we walked to the tee, there was Robert Allenby and shortly behind us arriving at the tee was two-time Masters Champion Jose Maria Olazabal. Our fourth was Joe Dailey. Interestingly enough, walking up the second hole Joe mentioned to Alex that he had been fishing in Washington and had great success on the Skagit River. For those of you that don't know, the Skagit River is located an hour North of Seattle and serves as the divider between Burlington and Mt. Vernon. I grew up in Burlington, what a small world! We had plenty to talk about the rest of the day. This is not the only Seattle connection we have made this week. We also met a caddy who lives in Bellingham that works for Matthew Goggin and another caddy who works for Shaun Micheel that used to live in the Magnolia area.
Playing with Allenby and Olazabal was quite a treat. Allenby was very nice and spent a lot of time talking to Alex about the course and possible hole locations. Walking up the ninth hole I asked him if he had played in the PGA Championship or NEC World Championships at Sahalee (feeling pretty confident that he had, I just wanted to see what he thought about the course). He said that he loved Sahalee and talked about how straight you have to drive it there to play well, just like you will this week. He also mentioned that he wished they would host a PGA Tour event there each year.
Olazabal on the other hand didn't have as much to say. If I could have gotten a little more out of him, I would have asked him about his exchange with Tiger on the practice green. While he was quiet, his golf game is just as advertised.
He only hit two of the seven fairways on the front nine, but the shots he hit around the green with a wedge were amazing. On the eighth green after he almost holed a 20-yard bunker shot, Allenby's instructor asked him how he got so good around the greens. He responded by saying that it started when he was younger because he was so small he did not hit the ball very far. He could not even reach some of the par 4 greens in two so he knew he had to have a great short game. Because of this, he spent all of his time practicing around the greens. I would take Alex's ball striking over Jose Maria everyday of the week, but as Alex said after a few holes, "he would take Jose Maria's short game in a contest against anyone in the world."
Playing with players like Allenby and Olazabal is something you dream of as a kid, but Alex again, as I mentioned yesterday seems unphased. He seems to be taking it all in stride and trying to just take this tournament as the same he has hundreds of times before. To give you an idea of where his head is, as we were walking down the first fairway today with his mother, he said, "this is just another golf tournament Mom. It is no different than playing in the Oregon Duck Invitational. It is just golf."
Two years ago when Alex was the first alternate and did not get into the field at the U.S. Open he was able to do everything on the grounds that he has done the last three days. He had already practiced among the likes of Tiger, Vijah Singh, and Ernie Els, and he is acting like it. I believe his experience two years ago will contribute to his success this week. He is ready for a great week. It all begins tomorrow afternoon at 12:41 P.M. off the first tee. We are going to have some fun and make sure we act just like we would if we were playing in the Duck Invitational--confident.
You can follow Alex with live scoring at www.usopen.com.
