{"id":3388,"date":"2021-06-21T23:21:26","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T23:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/?p=3388"},"modified":"2021-06-21T23:21:26","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T23:21:26","slug":"remote-observations-on-the-us-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/golf\/personalities\/3388\/remote-observations-on-the-us-open","title":{"rendered":"Remote Observations on the U.S. Open"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jon<\/a>

Jon Rahm punches his way to the U.S. Open<\/p><\/div>\n

Father\u2019s Day, to many, offers the ultimate Get-Out-of-Jail card. It\u2019s the only day where a dad may play a round in the morning and then watch championship golf all afternoon and early evening. Without any guilt and complaint\u2014at least in my household.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With a crowded leaderboard chock full of marquee names on Sunday, I was attached to the screen like a mesmerized moth. And as a bonus the tournament was being held on the West coast three hours behind viewers in Michigan.<\/p>\n

The final round with Jon Rahm making dramatic birdies on the last two holes was as exciting as one could hope. He won<\/i> the U.S. Open although some may wrongly argue Louis Oosthuizen lost it. The newest member of the Slam runner-up club, Oosthuizen badly stumbled with his costly drive on 17 leading to a bogey and again on 18 where he missed the fairway ruining his chances by going for the green and a tying eagle putt. Yet, he still only lost by a single shot.<\/p>\n

It was poetic justice (or \u201ckarma\u201d as explained afterwards by the champion) for the 26-year-old Spaniard. The Arizona State alum claimed the trophy after the PGA Tour\u2019s Covid-19 protocols forced his painful withdrawal, while leading by six shots after three rounds, at the Memorial Tournament. To his credit, Rahm handled that harsh misfortune with aplomb and grace as demonstrated in his early press conference at Torrey Pines.<\/p>\n

Due to a strong tee-to-green game, a rock-solid putting stroke and a tenacious mindset, Jon Rahm is now the no.1 Player in the World. I won\u2019t be surprised a bit if it remains in his hands for quite awhile. To me, he seems driven to remain a dominant player. In any event, it\u2019ll be fun to watch.<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * ********************************************************************<\/p>\n

\u2014Kudos to the USGA for expertly setting up Torrey Pines (South Course.) Wasn\u2019t it enjoyable to watch good driving and accurate iron play properly rewarded? Making pars is not boring to watch when it comes to a major championship. Deep rough posed a risk to the bomb and gouge mentality. (Although Bryson DeChambleau\u2019s distance off the tee and in the trodden down rough areas almost worked for 63 holes.) Most weeks on the PGA Tour it\u2019s basically a putting contest. But not last week at Torrey Pines.<\/p>\n

Heck, Phil Mickelson\u2014long known as highly critical of the Rees Jones re-do at Torrey Pines\u2014even praised the set-up. On Sunday, he said: \u201cIn the 30 years that I\u2019ve played the U.S. Open, this is the best I\u2019ve seen. I thought (the USGA) did a remarkable job, and I\u2019m really proud and happy that it\u2019s here at Torrey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ever the diplomat, Rees Jones never took the bait when Mickelson threw barbs at his re-design work at Torrey Pines over a decade ago and again at Cog Hill in Chicago. In Michigan, Jones is known for his designs of Thousand Oaks in Grand Rapids and Black Lake in Onaway. Long known as the \u201cOpen Doctor,\u201d he\u2019s built an admirable career by deftly adapting courses to the changes of the modern game.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Rees<\/a>

Rees Jones<\/p><\/div>\n

Golf Digest<\/i> caught up with Jones on Sunday night and he commented on the rough at Torrey:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rough was substantial,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThis was the old U.S. Open setup that I think they\u2019re going to be using moving forward.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Amen to that!<\/p>\n

By the way, the 79-year-old Jones was not viewing the action last week from the comforts of the clubhouse or a skybox. I saw him outside the ropes following DeChambleau during his final round. Most days he was on foot following the players. For sure, he was making mental notes.<\/p>\n

\u2014NBC-TV, Golf Channel, Peacock (Comcast) and the USGA\u2019s live streaming service all provided hours of solid entertainment last week. Like many of my golf buddies, I\u2019m gradually leaning toward the NBC announcers as my preferred cup of coffee. I\u00a0 <\/span>particularly like how Paul Azinger has settled into Johnny Miller\u2019s shoes with his savvy comments about players, pressure and shot-making.\u00a0 <\/span>And like Miller he does his homework. He did repeat a line over the weekend when he described two different players\u2019 drives as \u201cstraighter than train smoke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veterans like Dan Hicks, Roger Maltbie, Gary Koch and David Feherty all covered the action with a steady hand and a unobtrusive presence. Ex-caddies Jim \u201cBones\u201d MacKay and John Wood have proven their worth with their on-course insight and occasional humor. I also enjoyed listening to Notah Begay. He possesses a near perfect tone, volume and clarity when describing the action. It\u2019s as if he\u2019s within a few feet of the players.<\/p>\n

Steve Sands handled the post-round interviews very well. I especially liked Sands\u2019 interview with DeChambleau on Saturday where he patiently asked the brawny belter about his round and then posed the question in many a viewer\u2019s mind: How was he managing the gallery comments (heckles?) about \u201cBrooksie\u201d referring to the social media-fed controversy between DeChambleau and Brooks Kepka? When DeChambleau replied that he took it in stride and even took it \u201cas a compliment.\u201d Hicks later sheepishly described that reply as \u201can interesting spin on the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was worried that NBC wasn\u2019t using TopTracer technology enough early in the broadcast on Sunday. Several opening tee shots by the contenders lacked the TopTracer feature to see the line of flight.\u00a0 <\/span>But as the telecast went on and particularly in the final hour, the technology was readily employed.<\/p>\n

All in all, it was a winning production and broadcast of the U.S Open by NBC Golf. How Fox Sports once covered this major is now a bad and fading dream.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Images courtesy of Callaway Golf and Rees Jones, Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Father\u2019s Day, to many, offers the ultimate Get-Out-of-Jail card. It\u2019s the only day where a dad may play a round… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":3389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17,7],"tags":[52407,1199,64,1013112,1034044,370961,83,2832,1154,8877],"class_list":["post-3388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-courses-and-travel","category-personalities","tag-torreypines","tag-paul-azinger","tag-us-open","tag-jon-rahm","tag-nbc-tv-golf","tag-dan-hicks","tag-usga","tag-terry-moore","tag-phil-mickelson","tag-reesjones"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2021\/06\/EB4C1C82-E64C-487E-8F5D-4D7DC2AF2B3F.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3388"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3396,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3388\/revisions\/3396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}