It was a beautiful thing to behold

The US Open Golf Tournament lived up to its hype this year. No easy romp for the winner like Rory McIlroy had last year. No, the course played so tough that Rory failed to make the cut and posted 10 over par after 2 rounds (77,73). Tiger Woods showed promise in the first 2 rounds but went all blooey on the third day to wreck his chances of winning a 4th US Open crown.

I wrote earlier that the US Open is a tournament that makes the guys who make the rest of us duffers feel like idiots look like (and often feel like) idiots. We sit on our sofas, or become one with our recliners, and stare in wonder as Lee Westwood hits a ball into the treetops... where it remains. We shake our heads when Jim Furyk blows the tournament on the 16th hole by duck-hooking his tee shot into the woods and then failing to recover. I won't even comment on that ugly attempt to get a birdie from the left green bunker on #18... a shot so similar to my own miserable bunker play that I cringed along with him.

We already know what it is like to have a ball nestled down in deep rough and be able to advance it only 20 or 30 yards (if at all) but we engage in a bit of Shadenfreude and show no pity for the pros who are experiencing it for the first time since they were 12 year olds and were already able to kick our collective butts on any course at any time.

They play a game each week that is nothing like my (and my peers') game on courses so beautifully manicured as to make us drool with envy. We'd three putt (at least) every one of the super fast greens, of course, but we'd still like to play them. The Olympic Club's (where the Open was played) Lake Course had perfect fairways and slick greens but the rough was the ugliest I had seen outside of the local courses I play on each week. And our rough is not 6" deep (fortunately). And the rough around the greens looked unkempt, almost like an abandoned course.

So, yes, I enjoyed watching the tournament. I am not above laughing at the masters of the game looking like Joe Schlub hacking away.


And then there was this: