PITTSBURGH --- Challenge your best friend to a 300-yard race and he will look at you like you have four heads. But 300 yards means different things in different situations and when you tell a professional golfer, or even a decent amateur, that a par-4 is 300 yards long, he will begin to lick his lips in anticipation of a birdie and can't wait to get started.
In the days of the occasional 500-yard par-4 in major championships, a 300-yard par-4 seems rather benign and at first glance would seem to be a bit of a pushover. But as the best players in the world proved on Sunday, looks can be deceiving.
The seventeenth hole at Oakmont Country Club, site of the 107th U.S. Open, doglegs slightly left around several sand bunkers and on Sunday measured 313 total yards. The green is guarded by several surrounding bunkers and well with the one front and right nicknamed "Big Mouth". Since the hole is uphill, the landing area for an attempt to go directly at the green is out of sight for a player down on the tee.
But despite it's short length, only 64% of the second shots ended up on the putting surface throughout all four rounds. Players averaged 4.066 strokes on the hole. Hardly a pushover.
The eventual winner, Angel Cabrera, bogied the hole on Sunday to fall into a tie with Jim Furyk for the lead. Furyk also bogied the hole and when Tiger Woods came to the hole in the final pairing of the day, it was all he could do to earn a par, driving it into "Big Mouth", trickling his sand shot over the green, chipping back, and making a testy putt (as all putts are at Oakmont) for par.
If players and pundits were asked to predict which holes on the course would give leading players the most fits coming down the stretch on Sunday, its unlikely that anyone would have predicted seventeen. Such is the nature of this crazy game.
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Spectating Up Close and Personal
Being a spectator at a golf tournament is unlike any other sporting event. The spectator is at a bit of a disadvantage in that the action takes place over thousands of yards, so it is inevitable that you will miss a lot of events.
But at the same time, unlike any other sporting event, a professional golf tournament allows you to get quite close to the players, allowing you to see them practice their trade up close and personal.
Standing on the fourteenth tee, I saw a lot of tension and anxiety in the eyes of Angel Cabrera, something I doubt I would have sensed by watching on television. Sure enough, Cabrera pulled his iron off the tee into a fairway bunker, missing a fairway that most players routinely found (fortunately for Cabrera, he would manage to par the hole).
When Jim Furyk reached the fourteenth tee, I watched him methodically obsess over the yardage to a particular point in the fairway, and when Tiger Woods stepped in front of me, let me assure you, he looks every bit as chiseled as he does on television.
On the fourteenth tee, we had a wonderful vantage point. Not only were we able to see the last dozen or so pairings up close, but because it is situated on a high knob, we were also able to catch most of the action from a distance on the 12th and 13th holes as well.
Between the previous night's venue and the US Open on Sunday, this was truly a great weekend for this sports fan. Life is good.
