Rain keeps falling, as do pretenders at the Open

Mike Dudurich

Posted 2009-06-21

It can be scalding hot.

Or uncharacteristically breezy.

Or it might even be a situation where a specific location might be doing a real good imitation of Seattle.

But isn’t it amazing how year after year, the longer a U.S. Open goes, the more pronounced the gap between pretenders and contenders becomes.

Like Mike Weir, for example. The little lefthanded Canadian was a major player in the early stages of the U.S. Open, firing a 64 in the first round and hung in there with an even-par 70 in the second round. As the players slogged their way through the third round at Bethpage Sunday, Weir suddenly couldn’t do what allowed him to compete with the bigger, stronger players: hit fairways.

And guess what? After missing 10 of 14 fairways, Weir’s contending ended with a 74 and he found himself tied for fifth, sixth shots behind Ricky Barnes’ lead.

While there are plenty of examples of players not being able to handle the pressure of the Open arena, how do you then explain what Barnes has done through three rounds?

Here’s a guy, the 2002 U.S. Amateur champion, who had all but disappeared from the radar as a professional? He’s 28 years old, is ranked 519th in the world, keeping company with such luminaries as the ever-popular Titch Moore and Iain Pyman.

He’s 197th on the money list this year, his rookie season on the PGA Tour. He's ranked 192nd in putting average, last on the stat list. He was basically a nobody on the Nationwide Tour and his best finish this year in a dozen starts was a tie for 47th.

Well, he started by hitting 64 percent of the fairways, averaging 284 yards on the two measured driving holes. Barnes also hit 76 percent of his greens.

He made 1 bogey in his first 36 holes, but made five bogeys in his last 12 holes on the way to a third-round 70. Barnes finished his third-round with a bad bogey, missing a four-foot par putt. He opened his fourth round with another bogey, erasing what was once a 6-shot lead.

He followed that by snap-hooking a strange looking tee shot off the second and was in the knee-deep hay as darkness approached.

I think that not only are the lugnuts coming loose, but Barnes’ wheels are definitely wobbling going into Monday’s completion of the first round.

Barnes is tied with Lucas Glover, who’s climbed back from a mid-third round implosion to get to 7-under as the fourth round resumes Monday morning. He bogeyed the sixth, doubled the seventh and bogeyed the eighth holes in that third round and seemed to be playing himself out of the tournament.

But he made three birdies on the back, while Barnes was posting a two-over 37 on the back.

Even before Sunday, however, Glover has shown incredible toughness in this Open. On his very first hole, he posted a double bogey. Glover, who has won once on Tour, didn’t make another double until the seventh hole of the third round. Glover was able to make a routine par on the first hole Sunday evening and is in relatively good shape on the second.

All of that pales in comparison to what the “People’s Choice” did on Sunday. Phil Mickelson, another player showing incredible mental toughness, had an amazing round. He made seven birdies, six pars, four bogeys and a double bogey. It may qualify as the most up and down one-under par round of 69 in the history of the Open.

And what that did was zoom him up the leaderboard to a tie for third with Hunter Mahan at 2-under par.

The only guy ranked higher than Mickelson in the field, Tiger Woods, also put together an interesting third round. Three birdies and bogey make for a 68, but the real story was what he DIDN’T do. He made virtually no putts all day, missing nearly 10 that could have fallen. Had half of those gone in, the scoreboard would have looked very different going into Monday’s maybe final round.

As it is now, of the top 11 players on the board, only one (Soren Hansen, 1-under through 5) is under par for the final round. Four others are at even par. The other six are all over par.

There’s no doubt that the boys at the top have started to feel the heat. It’s inevitable and something they’ll have to learn to deal with, if they ever expect to be major champions.

The unknown spice in today’s proceedings is what Woods and Mickelson, multiple major champion winners, might do over the course of the last round. If somehow overnight the magic returns to Woods’ putter and Mickelson comes to the conclusion that playing out of the knee-high stuff really isn’t a good idea, it could get really interesting when the field hits the back nine.

That is, of course, if they hit the back nine. Weather permitting, you know.

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About Mike...
As a sports writer for over 35 years, Mike Dudurich has seen a lot of great things, covered spectacular events, but his passion is, and has been golf. He recently ended a 29-year career at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and will now be a frequent contributor on GolfGearReview.com. Mike hosts a weekly golf radio show on 1250 ESPN in Pittsburgh from the beginning of April through the end of August. The show airs Saturdays from 8-9 a.m. and can be heard online at http://stations.espn.go.com/stations/espnradio1250/show?showId=insidepghgolf - Listen to Mike Here!.

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