U.S. Open at Oakmont Journal: Sunday

What follows is a transcription of my notes from the grandstands near the 18th green on Sunday at the U.S. Open.

4:30 am – I showered the night before, so I wake up, put my clothes on, deflate my bed for the week, and get in the car for the short drive to Oakmont.

5:10 am – I arrive at my destination for the day – the grandstands overlooking the 18th – and find that I’ve been beaten to my ideal spot by six people. The sun isn’t up yet, and people are in the 18th grandstands. My ideal spot was the back left corner, which offers views of the ninth/practice green, the 10th, 12th, and 15th tees, and the 11th, 14th, and 18th greens. With binoculars, you can see even more including the second, 15th, and 17th greens. I will be here for the next 14 hours.

5:20 am – The grounds crew is cutting, mowing, and blowing. The media tent is completely empty.

5:45 am – The sun rises. It’s not particularly beautiful, but it signals the start of a long, long day. We’ve been here for 30 minutes, and the first golfer doesn’t tee off for about four more hours.

6:00 am – 40-45 people are sitting in the grandstands at the 18th. By 6:30, every “ideal” seat would be taken. The pace of the arrivals would slow to a crawl (before picking up again dramatically at about 8:00). There’s a law of diminishing returns at play here: either you arrive between 4:30 and 5:30 or the seats are all generally about the same quality, so it makes little difference whether you arrive at 8:30 or 9:30.

6:30 am – The grounds crew waters the ninth and practice green as well as a few on the course. They would water a few more times before play began. Pairing sheets were made available in the press tent, so I court favor with those around me by snagging 50 and passing them out. I am assured that my seat will be defended by my fellow fans during my eventual bathroom breaks.

8:00 am – The stands are basically full behind the 18th. Right of the 18th, they’re empty, but those fans are going to be in the sun all day. Our stands have the benefit of shade from a few trees.

9:50 am – Play begins. They’re watering the ninth green again.

10:50 am – Johnny Miller is greeted with an ovation as he puts his wallet in three slightly different likely pin positions at the 18th and makes notes in his notebook. The grounds crew comes out and cuts the pin in the third spot Johnny put his wallet.

11:18 am – Fans along the top row of the 18th grandstand where I am sitting are treated to a view of their first actual golf shot. We’ve been waiting six hours. Kevin Sutherland, playing alone, hits his approach to the ninth green. It would be about half an hour before the second group would come through. Sutherland is given a huge ovation when he steps on the tenth tee.

11:18 – 1:48 – Various groups wander through. Ian Poulter receives a big cheer for his pink shoes. Fred Funk yuks it up with fans who adore the fun-loving guy. Ben Curtis, a lifelong Browns fan, must endure chants of “Go Steelers” in his Steelers visor. Defending champion Geoff Ogilvy, playing with Boo Weekley, must endure being constantly “boo”ed.

Very few players seem to be playing well, but a few arrive at 10 and 12 in good shape. Anthony Kim, for example, came through -3 and would finish with a 67 for the low round of the day.

Drives off the 12th tee are being heavily scrutinized. Fred Funk hits the fairway and gets another 50 yards of roll, then Ernie Els flies his ball. There’s a speed slot out there, 10 yards wide, and drives that carry too far or miss the speed slot right are still rolling 50 yards, but into the first cut of rough. The 12th is playing downwind and, despite measuring its full 667 yards on Sunday, was reachable by nearly anyone. After all, even Fred Funk’s drive went 330 yards.

1:48 pm – Tiger Woods steps on the practice green. He sinks about 50 four-foot putts with just his right hand, stroking his putter between two tees with very little margin for error. He makes another 50 or so with both hands, rolls a few long ones, and heads to the practice range.

2:20 pm – Eventual winner Angel Cabrera tees off. The popular opinion in the stands is that Baddeley will choke, Tiger will prevail by two, and Furyk (a Pittsburgh favorite) will finish second. No thought is given to Cabrera, Bubba, Justin, or the other contenders.

2:45 pm – Stephen Ames – yeah, that guy – is making a bit of a run.

2:50 pm – Tiger returns from the range a few minutes after Aaron, putts for about four minutes, and prepares to walk to the tee. A few minutes later, he would rip his drive down the fairway.

3:07 pm – Tiger is tied for the lead at the U.S. Open. Aaron Baddeley triples the first. The murmurs and prognostications for a Tiger win only grow louder in the grandstands.

3:23 pm – My “myLeaderboard” PDA informs me that Tiger lands the ball six feet from the hole with his drive on the second, but now faces a tough shot from the back bunker to a front right pin. A day earlier, I sat at the second hole for the first few groups. The pin was back left, and despite measuring only 342 yards (at most), we saw 19 players make ten pars, nine bogeys, one double bogey, and one triple bogey. The triple was courtesy of Zach Johnson, who drove it into the ditch left, slashed it into the back bunker, putted to a flat spot away from the back lip of the bunker, fluffed his next bunker shot, blasted out to 25 feet, and two-putted. Earlier, Camilo Villegas bogeyed after sticking his approach shot to three feet… but juicing it so hard it spun to the front of the green and rolled 30 yards off the front of the green. Learning to control spin… that’s gotta be next on the checklist for Camilo.

3:32 pm – It’s getting warm, but fortunately, a breeze is really beginning to blow. It’s not the same wind we’ve seen all week, which has been down the ninth. This wind is essentially backwards – the ninth hole is playing into the wind today.

3:45 pm – Tiger’s double bogey at the third is posted. The murmurs in the stands grow louder, but the predictions are still the same: a Tiger win. People begin disparaging Stephen Ames’ chances – I would be among them if not for his final round to win the Players Tournament a few years ago. Almost nobody gives Cabrera a chance; his bogey at six help to ensure that. Steve Stricker is one back.

4:15 pm – A roar comes from across the turnpike. Cabrera – the man nobody is considering – is the sole leader after birdieing the 288-yard par-3 eighth. We’ve been sitting in the stands for 11 hours now. Soon we’ll get to see some golf that actually matters!

4:30 pm – We see Cabrera hit to the ninth green after what we assume was his drive. After all, he hit a sand wedge in on Friday. His first putt goes well past, and he holes what we think is a long par putt. As he walks to ten, we realize it was a bogey as the scoreboards update.

4:41 pm – myLeaderboard tells me Ames has made a mess on the seventh and falls well back, thankfully. I did not want to applaud Stephen Ames as the leader of the U.S. Open coming off the ninth green.

4:57 pm – Cabrera birdies the 11th from short range after talking to Eddie from the Big Break for a long time. Even still, Cabrera has played two holes in half an hour. Tiger, four groups back, won’t be through nine for another twenty minutes.

5:15 pm – Cabrera is forced to wait for play off the tenth tee, players in the fairway at 12, and putts on the 18th green. I mockingly ask in an announcer tone of voice “Angel, how much did the long wait on the 12th contribute to the massive duck-hook that led to your triple bogey?” Angel stripes one about 400 yards down the fairway. It’s downwind and downhill, but he still carried the thing about 330 on his own before getting 70 yards of roll. No duck hook, no questions about the wait for Angel.

5:31 pm – After playing what appeared to be an incredible pitch shot from the tenth (after Baddeley’s pitch from virtually the same place went off the back of the green), Tiger appears to lip out the putt from about five or six feet. It’s tough to tell through binoculars, but everyone knew it was close and that it was a putt Tiger had to – was supposed to – make.

5:40 pm – Cabrera drives into the bunker at 14 while Tiger misses the green with what had to be a pitching wedge or less on the 11th. These two greens are about 150 yards apart with no spectators between. Does Tiger glare over at Angel? Angel would get it safely on the green and two-putt easily for his par. Tiger would not get up and down.

5:53 pm – Fans in my section, through binoculars, all see the same thing: Cabrera, from the intermediate rough, sticking his approach on 15 to what appears to be kick-in range. Since the hole is about 700 yards away, it’s tough to say. myLeaderboard confirms: three feet for birdie. Tiger drives the ball in roughly the same place as Angel off 12. He’s two down – about to be three down – and needs to make a move.

6:09 pm – Furyk birdies the 15th. People in the grandstand decide that if Tiger can’t win, then local boy Jim Furyk should win. They remain confident that Angel Cabrera has plenty of bogeys left in him.

6:11 pm – We hear polite clapping about ten minutes after a roar around the thirteenth. When myLeaderboard informs me (thus informing most of the 18th grandstand) that Tiger missed a five-foot birdie putt at the par three, we knew why. Mr. Clutch is fast becoming Mr. Not So Much.

6:25 pm – Tiger hits a horrible shot to the 14th to about 25 feet. Shots that landed hole high were spinning back quite a bit all day, as Baddeley’s had done just before Tiger’s shot, but shots above the hole, as Tiger now knows, didn’t come back much at all. I predict that Tiger will not win, to the dismay and voiced displeasure of my fellow fans. Then again, we’ve passed the 13-hour mark.

6:27 pm – Word of Furyk’s birdie and Cabrera’s bogey at 17 makes its way to us.

6:30 pm – Cabrera stripes his drive on 18. His driver has been relatively good to him all week, including when he pulled it on the ninth Friday in birdieing to move the cut back to +10. Tiger’s drive on 15 goes to roughly the same spot as Cabrera’s an hour earlier.

6:41 pm – Furyk misses his par putt at the 17th. Cabrera, on the back of the green, is the sole leader and likely winner of the 107th U.S. Open.

6:42 pm – We see Tiger make a long-ish par putt at the 15th green. We see Cabrera safely two-putt the 18th.

6:50 pm – Furyk, on approach to the 18th, immediately drops the club. The ball comes in low, but somehow stays on the back of the green. Did he blade it? His birdie putt to force a tie is a weak effort all around. It doesn’t sniff the hole.

6:58 pm – myLeaderboard tells me Tiger hits 3W into the front right bunker on 17 with a three wood. He should be able to get up and down. myLeaderboard later tells me Tiger bladed his bunker shot all the way across the green and has to get up and down for par. The 17th is really wreaking havoc, just as the other short par fours at Oakmont. Pros simply don’t know how to play these kinds of holes.

7:20 pm – Tiger’s approach from the intermediate cut on the 18th flies about two yards too long to catch an upslope that would have left his ball five feet from the hole. From where he is, about 22 feet away, players have only left the ball short and right. It doesn’t feed in nearly as much as it must look like.

7:30 pm – Tiger’s putt never has a chance. He holds his head in disgust, as much for the cameras as anything, I think to myself. Angel Cabrera, the 2007 U.S. Open champ. Ho hum.

7:35 pm – Fans in the 18th grandstand say our goodbyes. We’ve been sitting or standing within the same two square feet for over 14 hours now.

7:41 pm – On the way out, I spy club members talking with the the superintendent. One asks “Are you going to go mow and roll the greens now? We’d like to get our course back to normal, none of this slow greens crap.” Two minutes later, mowers and rollers are seen headed towards all the greens.