This is the way it’s supposed to be. Find a tough course and let the players play. The natural rough isn’t as tough as some thought it would be, but it is so much better than shaving the fairways down to bowling alley width and growing the rough to 6" deep so any ball hit into it has to be hacked out sideways.
Yes, one guy is Tiger Woodsing it, but the rest of the leaderboard is at -2 and -3 after 36 holes. I have no idea if Kaymer is going to keep doing what he is doing, but with the tougher pin placements on the weekend, it seems unlikely that anyone else is going to finish better than -5.
This kind of golf is so much better to watch than what the USGA has been offering up in recent years. With the exception of Brooks Koepka (who?) that quality of the golfers at the top of the leaderboard is very high.
Not terrible exciting, were it? Still, hell of an impressive performance by Kaymer. Three rounds under par, first back-to-back outright lowest rounds first two rounds, lowest two round score ever. He was definitely playing a different game. Everyone else was playing for second (and then seemed not to want it).
The U.S. Open is my favorite sporting event of the year. I fell asleep for a while during the back nine on Sunday.
I did appreciate the more natural design of the course, but watching a guy with a substantial lead work his way around it was not my idea of a good time. At least we had three-heart guy to provide a little human interest.
Martin Kaymer has been at or near the top of the world rankings for some time now, but I’d never seen him do anything to earn that high spot, until this past weekend.
At the U.S. Open, everybody else was struggling the way you’re SUPPOSED to struggle at a typical U.S. Open. But Kaymer was sensational.
THis week, at least, he was every bit as good as advertised. Tiger in his prime couldn’t have done better.
He did win the PGA in 2010. You probably haven’t heard much about him because he played the Euro Tour until 2013. He also won at Abu Dhabi that year, which has one of the best fields of any tournament every year.