Luck of the Irish!

What a weekend ! I'll tell you what, the US Open is a golf tournament like no other.

A big congratulations to Graeme McDowell, who showed some true grit. Irish golfers have made a habit of this lately, especially in Major championships. For all the talk about Australia punching above their wait on the US Tour, we seem to go missing in the big ones, only pulling off a victory about once every 10 years. McDowell, who has always been quite a nuggety player, stayed composed despite some serious big guns trying to chase him down.

Did Dustin Johnson choke? In any other tournament you would have to say probably yes. However, I'm not so sure about this one. At Majors like Augusta and British Opens at St Andrews in particular, the fairways are big wide open targets, and it's mostly the approach shots that hold all the fear. Consequently, if your tee shots are just a little off, you can mostly get by with a solid iron game and a hot putter. Not so at the the US Opens, where fairways are about effectively 20 yards wide (even though Pebbles fairways are wider than usual US Open setups, remember that they are heavily cambered, much like Long Reef's 16th, meaning that they play much narrower than they look). This means that if your swing just goes slightly out of whack, you are going to miss the fairway. And you can't win US Opens trying to make pars out of that rough all day long. There is no Major tougher on a golfer than the US Open, save maybe for Carnoustie every so often in the British. So here, I'm going to give Dustin Johnson a get out of jail free card. I hope it doesn't hurt him too much as he is a fine player, and seems to be the perfect gentleman.

And how about Tiger Woods. His game is up the shit (by his standards), he's coachless, his wife and family gone, and he still makes the top 5 in both Majors this year. He has never driven the ball well ever since he was with Hank Haney. Period. That's a fact Jack. But he has still managed to win tournaments despite this. When he works out how to hit the driver again, and he will, he is going to be just about unbeatable again. Will he sort things out in time for St Andrews. I say yes. Not that it matters because most of St Andrews is wider than Mamma Cass's arse.

It was also great to see not only Phil Mickelson adding interest, but also Ernie Els back to contending in Majors. And congrats to the USGA. Pebble is proof that major setups don't need to be 7500+ yards long. If the hazards are in the right spots then the Bomb & Gouge brigade are fucked, and shotmaking and intelligence come back into the frame.

Congrats also to Rooster Fucker, who won the Spring Leg. You win a Leg of Lamb for that, you Boy George fuckin', Brian Gay lovin' Gay Lord Poofter Boy! Just joking mate. Actually, I'm not joking. You suck !!

Nobody had Graeme McDowell (shame on you Gordy), so the skinny moves to $72, the overall to $152 and we all owe $125.

After the excitement of Major number 2, we move to Cromwell Connecticut for the Travelers Championship, previously known as the Greater Hartford Open. As you can expect, the field this year is not strong, mostly due to now being played directly after the US Open, where most of the pampered pro's need weeks to mentally get over the Open course setups.

The Greater Hartford Open or Travelers Championship is a grand old tournament, dating back to 1952. It was once associated with Sammy Davis Jr, but this ceased following his death after 1988. It is played at  TPC River Highlands, which is only a very short 6820 yards long. As a result, Big Hitters such as Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Kenny Perry, Phil Mickelson and Hunter Mahan have had much success here, taking advantage of very reachable par 5's and drive & pitch par 4s.

Any way fellow Long Reefers, good luck !

The LRFG !