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    Tiger Woods, Forced to Miss the U.S. Open, Is Everywhere

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    Who can forget Woods’s U.S. Open win by 15 strokes at Pebble Beach in 2000, or his 19-hole playoff in 2008 at Torrey Pines? “It does feel wrong that he’s not here,” his fellow Californian Max Homa says.The U.S. Open will be played in Los Angeles this week for the first time in 75 years, and there is a predominant California theme to the event. Many of the top contenders at the tournament grew up nearby. More than a dozen in the field were raised in California or call it home.All of which makes it seem almost wrong, or cruel, that the best California golfer in history will not be competing. Tiger Woods, who grew up in Cypress, Calif., about 30 miles from the site of this year’s national golf championship, is unable to play at the Los Angeles Country Club after ankle surgery in April. It will be the ninth major championship Woods has had to skip, or leave prematurely, since the harrowing 2021 car crash that nearly led to a leg amputation and has significantly inhibited Woods’s ability to play, and walk, a golf course since.Not surprisingly, even in absentia, Woods’s presence is felt. Especially here. Especially at the U.S. Open, which Woods has won three times — usually in dramatic, unforgettable fashion.Although, as Max Homa, a California native and the world’s seventh-ranked golfer, said as he practiced his chipping on Tuesday morning: “Tiger is so transcendent that you could argue that he’s especially missed at any event anywhere. But yeah, it does feel wrong that he’s not here. That’s fair to say if you look at the history of the game.”Fans in Tiger Woods branded gear around the course at the U.S. Open.Meg Oliphant for The New York TimesCollin Morikawa, who was born in Los Angeles two months before Woods won his first major championship in 1997 and who has since won the P.G.A. Championship and British Open, said Woods’s influence on golf was so great that he wondered how many of today’s best players would even be playing the game this week if not for him.“He’s maybe not the sole reason why we got involved in the game,” Morikawa said of Woods, and then added, “But for me growing up, he’s all I cared about.”With a smile, Morikawa went on to describe how he had enjoyed getting to know major champions like Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas in recent years.“But I didn’t care about them when I was growing up — I really didn’t,” Morikawa said. “People ask me about the history of Rory winning this or certain guys winning that. I didn’t really care. I only cared about Tiger.“So, yeah, I think he’s always missed. But he’s always going to impact this game in ways that we can’t even describe, in ways that we don’t even know.”Woods, whose total of 15 major championship victories is second only to Jack Nicklaus’s 18 titles, has also seemed to save some of his most memorable performances for when the U.S. Open arrived in his home state.In 2000, at Pebble Beach Golf Links, he won by an astounding 15 strokes, which set the event record for largest margin of victory. Eight years later at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, Woods, who had not played for two months because of two stress fractures and a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left leg, managed to tie for the tournament lead with Rocco Mediate after four grueling rounds.Woods on his way to winning the 100th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in 2000.Elise Amendola/Associated PressA playoff the next day put Woods through 19 more taxing holes before he claimed the championship.Those were Woods’s U.S. Open highlights, but he has also had six other top 10 finishes. The last decade, however, has largely reflected the decline in Woods’s physical well-being. Now 47, he last played the U.S. Open in 2020, when he missed the cut. In the previous nine U.S. Opens, he was in the field only five times. He missed the cut twice, and his best result was a tie for 21st.Since his inspirational victory at the 2019 Masters, Woods has only completed four rounds at a major championship four times. Which brings to mind Woods’s plaintive comment on the eve of this year’s Masters: “I don’t know how many of these I have left.”In that way, his absence at this week’s U.S. Open is another reminder that Woods is being forced to cede the spotlight he has commanded for more than 25 years.But those following in his considerable wake are not allowing him to be forgotten.“His presence in the game of golf is always known because he’s impacted this game in ways that some of us could only dream of,” Morikawa said. “For him, it’s just about getting healthy at this point. Who knows when we’re going to see him or not? I don’t think any of us take that for granted anymore.”Late Tuesday morning, practicing with the Los Angeles skyline in the background, Homa was asked if California golfers had a sense of pride that Woods was one of them.“Maybe it goes deeper,” Homa answered. “I find a sense of pride in the fact that the best golfer of all time grew up playing on a very average municipal golf course. So did I.“I don’t know if it’s a California thing — but I do think that’s just cool.” More

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      Jon Rahm Wins the U.S. Open, His First Major Championship

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      In his first tournament back after testing positive for the coronavirus, the Spaniard, 26, birded the final two holes to overtake Louis Oosthuizen and claim his first major title.SAN DIEGO — A golf ball hit by one of the leaders lodged in the limb of a tree. A shot by another contender settled next to an open case of beer. No one seemed able to keep his footing on the 13th tee, where the surface was as unpredictable as a carnival Tilt-A-Whirl. The reigning champion missed a hole in one by an inch.The final round of the 121st U.S. Open on Sunday did not lack for tension and theatrics. But Jon Rahm, who two weeks ago was forced to withdraw from a tournament in tears because he had tested positive for the coronavirus, found the resolve to birdie the final two holes at Torrey Pines Golf Course to win America’s national golf championship by one stroke.The victory was Rahm’s first in a major championship and made him the first Spaniard to win the event. On June 5, he was leading the Memorial Tournament in Ohio by a commanding six strokes when the coronavirus test kept him out of the final round. Informed of the result as he came off the 18th green, Rahm doubled over and left the area wiping his eyes.JON. RAHM.An UNREAL finish and he leads at the #USOpen! pic.twitter.com/Bdozxfkdmb— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 20, 2021
      On Sunday night after his U.S. Open victory, Rahm, 26, said that when he was cleared last week to return to the tour and play at Torrey Pines he felt that “the stars were aligning.”“I just had a good feeling knowing I was coming to San Diego,” said Rahm, who has often visited the area and who proposed to his wife, Kelley, at Torrey Pines. “Every time we come here, we’re happy. It had to happen this way, every part of the journey.”That included, Rahm said, what transpired at the Memorial Tournament.“I was never resentful for anything for any second, and I don’t blame anybody,” he said. “Unfortunately Covid is a reality. We have lost a lot of people. People said it wasn’t fair, but it was what had to be done. And all of it led to this moment.”Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa finished second at Torrey Pines, the sixth time he has been the runner-up in a major golf championship. Oosthuizen, 38, won the 2010 British Open, then placed second at the 2012 Masters, at the 2015 U.S. and British Opens and at the P.G.A. Championship in 2017 and in 2021, when Phil Mickelson won to become the oldest major champion.Rahm’s victory ended a streak of six consecutive American winners in the event. With about two hours left in Sunday’s championship, nearly 10 players had a chance to claim the title. However, in the final 45 minutes, the chase narrowed to Rahm and Oosthuizen.Rahm, who began the final round three strokes off the lead held by Oosthuizen, Russell Henley of the United States and Mackenzie Hughes of Canada, played his opening nine holes at two under par to jump up the leaderboard. Seven consecutive pars beginning on the 10th hole kept Rahm in contention. The streak included a pivotal par putt from 20 feet that he sank on the par-3 16th hole. Rahm, a passionate player who was once best known for his fits of temper instead of for his game, closed with a flourish.At the 17th hole, trailing Oosthuizen by a stroke, he wisely flew his tee shot to the right of the fairway, where there was ample room, then knocked his approach onto the green. Sizing up a 24-foot putt with at least six feet of left-to-right break, Rahm gently tapped the downhill putt, which curled into the hole for a birdie that put him in a tie for the lead at five under par.Rahm after a birdie putt on the 17th hole during the final round of the U.S. Open on Sunday. He also birdied No. 18.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockOn the par-5 18th hole, Rahm bombed his drive and had 223 yards to the green. His four-iron shot faded a bit, and the ball skittered into a bunker to the right of the green. Rahm made a gutsy decision to play his third shot away from the hole, flipping the ball to the right of the hole above the flagstick.From 18 feet, Rahm sank another curving putt, the ball slipping into the right edge of the hole. His emotions now welcome, the popular Rahm pumped his right fist repeatedly as fans enveloped him in raucous cheers. A four-under, final-round 67 had made Rahm the leader in the clubhouse.Oosthuizen had a chance to catch Rahm, but he pulled his tee shot at the 17th hole left into a ravine. The mistake led to a devastating bogey that ruined his opportunity to force a playoff, even with a birdie on the 18th hole.“The tee shot on 17 really cost me,” Oosthuizen said. “I’m second again. No, look, it’s frustrating. It’s disappointing.”Earlier Sunday afternoon, at about 2 p.m. Pacific time, it appeared that Bryson DeChambeau might successfully defend his 2020 U.S. Open title, as his tee shot on the 175-yard, par-3 eighth hole bounced onto the putting surface and tracked toward the hole until it stopped one inch from the lip.DeChambeau followed up the tap-in birdie with two pars, but his powerful drives began to drift right and into the rough. That led to bogeys at the 11th and 12th holes. On the par-5 13th tee, like many of his competitors, DeChambeau slipped as he pushed off his right foot. The drive was short and in the thick grass, as was his next shot. A third shot ended up in a bunker and his escape from the sand flew over the green until it came to rest next to a cardboard box of beer.By the time DeChambeau putted out on the hole, he had made a double-bogey 7. He shot 44 on the back nine and 77 for his final round.Minutes after DeChambeau’s near ace, Rory McIlroy missed a seven-foot birdie putt on the seventh hole that would have tied him with DeChambeau. It was the high-water mark of the tournament for McIlroy, who was seeking his first major championship since 2014. A bogey on the 11th hole and a disastrous double bogey on the 12th derailed his hopes, and he finished five strokes back at one under par.Hughes stayed in the hunt until a shot to the 11th green lodged in a tree, a mishap that resulted in a double bogey and sent him tumbling down the leaderboard.Celebrating on the 18th green Sunday evening, Rahm held his infant son, Kepa, in his arms, smiled and looked around at his parents and other members of his extended family.“Even though Father’s Day in Spain is a different day, I’m forcing him to celebrate it today,” he said, “and we’re going to have fun because there’s three generations of Rahms on this green right now. One of them doesn’t really know what’s going on, but I am glad he’s going to get to see it in the future and enjoy it.”Rahm hugged his father, Edorta Rahm and mother, Angela, after finishing his round.Ezra Shaw/Getty Images More

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      At the U.S. Open, a 48-Year-Old Is in the Hunt

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      The 48-year-old English golfer, whose first tour victory came last month, shared the lead after two rounds of the Open at Torrey Pines.SAN DIEGO — For 25 years, Richard Bland of England wondered if he might forever view his golf career with “the disappointment of slightly underachieving.”Lacking strong results, and sometimes even mediocre ones, Bland was kicked off the European tour several times. He never considered quitting and fought his way back from the sport’s minor leagues even as he got used to being one of the oldest players in each event. Then, out of the blue last month, after 477 tries, Bland, 48, won his first tour event, a victory that qualified him for a berth in the 2021 U.S. Open.When asked what he looked forward to about playing in America’s national golf championship, he mentioned “all the add-ons,” a reference to the freebies at elite golf events — use of a luxury courtesy car, welcome gifts, a spot in a sumptuous locker room alongside the best golfers on the planet.Bland did not mention one other possible perk: A chance to win the tournament and join the exclusive club of major golf champions. And yet on Friday, at the midpoint of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines Golf Course, Bland’s name was atop the leaderboard, where he was tied with Russell Henley.In fact, Bland, who teed off early Friday morning, held the second-round lead for most of the day until Henley caught and passed him with a late charge. But on his final hole, Henley missed a five-foot par putt to finish with a one-under-par 70 that dropped him back to five under for the tournament.Matthew Wolff and Louis Oosthuizen were in third place, one stroke off the lead.While Bland’s Friday performance may have been a surprise, it was not a fluke. He shot 67 with seven birdies, and three bogeys. Coupled with a first-round 70, Bland now has two below-par rounds at the championship, heady scores in an event in which anything under par is often good enough to win.A month after Phil Mickelson won the P.G.A. Championship at 50 and four months after Tom Brady won the Super Bowl at 43, here comes the seasoned Bland, who actually has a gray beard.“This has been the year for us oldies,” Bland said with a wide grin Friday. “It’s nice to give the gym goers a run for their money.”To be clear, Bland was not mocking the modern, young golf pro who works out regularly.“It’s just a figure of speech,” he said, adding: “As we get older, everything kind of creaks in the morning and there’s a new ache to wake up to.”Bland, who is No. 115 in the men’s world rankings, conceded that Mickelson’s recent victory was an inspiration but said he was stunned to see how many viewed his May 16 win, at the British Masters, in the same way.Mickelson, whose world ranking was 115 before the P.G.A. Championship last month and who survived Friday’s cut with a 69 after a 75 in the first round, said of Bland: “To stay at it, work as long as he did and to have that breakthrough, is awesome. I’m really happy for him.”Fred Couples, the 1992 Masters champion, sent warm congratulations via Twitter. Bland’s countryman Ian Poulter wrote: “Happy to see that the flame still burns. Hard work pays off.”Bland called the few days after his victory a blur, “with as much of the first 24 hours more hangover than anything.”But then he noticed that his social media accounts had exploded.“I wasn’t ready for messages from people all over the globe — Australia, South America, China, America,” he said. “All these people saying how inspired they were by it. That’s something I wasn’t expecting. I’m just a guy who’s won a golf tournament really, when you boil it down.”Bland shot 67 with seven birdies, and three bogeys, a performance that left him at five under par for the championship after two rounds.Harry How/Getty ImagesBland was underselling his perseverance, and the more he talked about his determination through recurring setbacks, the more he seemed to understand the deeper message being sent.“I think every kind of sportsman or sportswoman, they have that never-die or that never-quit attitude, no matter whether it’s golf or it’s tennis or it’s boxing, whatever it is,” he said. “The old saying is you get knocked down seven times, you get up eight. I’ve always had that kind of attitude that you just keep going. You never know in this game, you just keep going.”Bland poked fun at the uneven and circuitous path of his golf career.“Golf is all I know, and even if things got hard there for a while, what was I going to do?” he asked. “I wasn’t going to get an office job. To be honest, I’m not that intelligent. I’ve always been someone that can put my head down and work hard. And I always felt I had the game to compete on the European tour at the highest level. It just took a while to prove that, I guess.”Bland’s only other appearance in an American golf tournament came in 2009, when he accumulated enough standing in the European rankings to qualify for the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black on Long Island. He shot a nervous 77 in the first round but came back with a par 70 in the second. The rally was not enough to make the cut, but the experience may have served Bland well.On Friday, he did not shy away from talking about contending for the championship on Sunday in the final round at Torrey Pines.“I’ve been driving the ball very well for the last six weeks or so, and on this golf course that’s what you have to do to have any success,” Bland said. “If I keep doing what I’ve been doing, I feel like I can still be there on Sunday on the back nine when we finish.”Bland laughed.“I know that sounds unbelievable to some, maybe,” he said. “But that would be a proper dream come true.”Several top golfers rallied from disappointing first rounds to get back into contention on Friday, including Collin Morikawa, whose 67 left him at even par overall. Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas shot 69s to pull even with Morikawa, while Brooks Koepka slumped to a 73 to also settle at even par for the tournament. More

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      At the U.S. Open, Matthew Wolff Is Having Fun Again

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      The promising young golfer took two months off the PGA Tour when he stopped enjoying the game and was worried about his mental health. He says he’s thrilled to be back.SAN DIEGO — For Matthew Wolff, rock bottom came in April when he was at the Masters, perhaps golf’s most cherished event, and was utterly miserable.“The entire time there my head was down and I hated it,” said Wolff, 22, who a year ago was the PGA Tour’s breakout star with a string of top finishes that vaulted him to 12th in the world rankings. “I didn’t enjoy it and it was hard for me. The Masters was pretty much the turning point.”Emboldened by other professional athletes who have talked this year about concerns for their mental health and the outsize expectations of their jobs, Wolff decided that he had to walk away from golf for nearly two months.“Seeing all these other athletes coming out and being like mental health is such an important thing and whether it’s something that’s going on personally or you’re not playing well or you’re not enjoying it,” Wolff said on Thursday after shooting a one-under par 70 in the first round of the U.S. Open at the Torrey Pines Golf Course. “I just needed to take a break.”It was Wolff’s first tournament since missing the cut at the Zurich Classic in late April.Wolff called the comments of athletes like the tennis star Naomi Osaka, who has recently discussed her issues with anxiety and depression, a primary inspiration for his decision to take time off from competition, and also for returning to the course.“Mental health is a really big problem and we play a lot of golf or we play a lot of games and any professional athlete has to deal with a lot more stress and pressure than most people,” he said. “And it just kind of got to me. But I’ve been working on it. I’ve been learning and I think that’s all I can do. It’s probably something I’ll be doing for most of my career but I’m feeling a lot better.“It’s been a help to know that others are talking about the same things I am — and I’ve gotten a ton of support from the fans out there. People were yelling, ‘It’s good to see you back, Matt.’ And that was great.”Wolff was 11-over par through two rounds at this year’s Masters then signed an incorrect scorecard and was disqualified. A few weeks before that, he had shot a first-round 83 at the World Golf Championship-Workday tournament and promptly withdrew without citing an injury, which is highly uncommon for tour players. That exit followed a first-round 78 and another withdrawal from the Farmers Insurance Open. Since late last season, Wolff has played in 10 successive tournaments without finishing in the top 25.Moreover, Wolff’s countenance had changed from 2020, when he usually seemed to enjoy interacting with fans and his colleagues. This spring, Wolff played and behaved like someone who could not wait to get off the course.“I was in a pretty bad head space,” he said.But on Thursday, Wolff smiled easily even though his round was topsy-turvy. He was tied for the lead at one point at three-under par but slumped to one under a few holes later. Overall, Wolff had eight birdies, three bogeys and two double bogeys.“A lot of good and a lot of bad,” Wolff answered with a snicker when asked to describe his play. “But that’s OK. That’s golf and I’m having fun with it. That’s what I have to focus on.“Many millions of people would trade with me in a heartbeat. And I needed to just kind of get back and be like, ‘Dude, you live an unbelievable life, like you don’t always have to play good.’ I wanted to be too perfect. I wanted to always please the fans — maybe too much sometimes.”Wolff’s 70 on Thursday had him three strokes off the championship’s early leader, Russell Henley, who shot 67. With half the field still finishing rounds, Francesco Molinari and Rafa Cabrera-Bello trailed Henley by one stroke. Brooks Koepka and Xander Schauffele, two of the pretournament favorites, were one stroke behind them. Phil Mickelson struggled throughout his round with five bogeys and shot 75. Viktor Hovland, a contemporary of Wolff’s whose impressive play this year has had made him a major championship contender, shot 74. Justin Thomas, who won this year’s Players Championship, opened with a two-over par 73.Wolff, however, was not watching the scoreboard, even though he was the third-round leader at the 2020 U.S. Open and the eventual runner-up to Bryson DeChambeau.“Like it’s awesome that I played well today, I mean, I’m thrilled,” said Wolff, adding that he did not watch golf on television during his two-month layoff. “But no matter what happened today the score that I shot I, like I said, I just have been having fun and I haven’t had fun out here in quite awhile.” More

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      At the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, Tiger Woods Still Looms Large

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      The 2008 championship would be the last major tournament victory for Woods until the 2019 Masters. Rocco Mediate, the golfer he beat in an epic 19-hole playoff, remembers every putt.SAN DIEGO — Arms folded across his chest, Rocco Mediate stared at a small, square television to see if his life was about to change forevermore.Mediate stood in a low-slung nondescript area behind the 18th hole grandstand at the Torrey Pines Golf Course, a space so cramped he ducked his head to avoid wires hanging from the ceiling. He could not see the 18th green, where minutes earlier, he had made par to take a one-stroke lead in the fourth round of the 2008 United States Open.Mediate, ranked 158th in the world at the time, was trying to become the oldest man, at 45, to win the event. He paced nervously, cleats crackling on the bare concrete floor as the image of Tiger Woods appeared on TV.Woods, playing without an anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and with stress fractures in his left tibia, had a 12-foot birdie putt to tie Mediate and send the championship to an 18-hole playoff the next day.Usually garrulous, Mediate was silent as Woods stroked his putt, the ball taking hops across the bumpy surface, traveling at a hopscotch cadence that seemed certain to send the putt offline. But the golf ball tickled the edge of the hole and toppled in.“Of course he made it,” Mediate said with a chortle, turning to two nearby reporters. “He’s Tiger Woods.”Half grinning and half sighing, he looked away adding: “He’s Tiger Woods. Of course.”Mediate on the 10th tee in his playoff against Woods.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesExcept it would not be that simple. What felt like the end of Mediate’s time in the spotlight turned out to be the beginning. And what felt like a renewal of triumphs for Woods instead was the high-water mark of his 11-year sprint to 14 major titles. Soon enough, for Woods, nothing would be the same again.As the U.S. Open returns to Torrey Pines for the first time since that tournament, when Woods eventually vanquished Mediate after 19 extra holes in a last-of-its-kind Monday playoff, the 2008 championship is a revered golf keepsake — when Woods was a shimmering Goliath at the peak of his powers and a rumpled David whose nickname was “Rock” almost overcame his fearsome rival.The memory, the last major title for Woods until he won the 2019 Masters, is particularly poignant this year because Woods can’t play in the event after sustaining severe leg injuries in a February car crash. Still in rehabilitation, Woods recently said his chief goal was to walk on his own.But 13 years ago Woods was at his best, and so was Mediate, and the two are eternally linked.“Great fight,” Woods, who looked exhausted, said to Mediate as the two hugged on the final green. “The best of my major championships.”Mediate, who was disappointed but happy, answered: “It was the most fun I’ve ever had playing golf with somebody, let alone against the greatest golfer in the world.”Five days earlier, the tournament had begun with Woods’s caddie, Steve Williams, imploring him to withdraw.Fourteen holes into his first round, Woods, whose shattered knee had prevented him from walking or playing golf for the previous six weeks, was one over par and spraying shots far and wide. “You’ve got many more years to win majors,” Williams said to Woods, who was 32. Woods cursed and said: “I’m winning the tournament.”Woods on the 18th hole during the final round where he made his legendary putt.Charles Baus/Icon Sportswire, via Getty ImagesAdam Scott and Phil Mickelson played the first two rounds of the 2008 championship with Woods and suspected there was more wrong with his knee than the “soreness” that Woods had blamed for his layoff.“Tiger looked more uncomfortable than I had ever seen him,” Scott said in an interview this month. “But I don’t know that the crowd noticed. They were going crazy with Tiger and Phil, two California kids, playing on a public golf course in their home state. It was pretty much mayhem out there.”After nine holes in the second round, Woods had slumped to three over par and was in danger of missing the cut, but he rallied to birdie five of the next nine holes, shooting a spectacular 30 on the second nine.“He flipped the switch and I remember thinking, ‘Here goes Tiger doing something special — something Tiger-esque — again,’” Scott said.Paired with Robert Karlsson in the third round, Woods often bent over in pain after tee shots and kept tumbling down the leaderboard. On the tee at the par-5 13th, his drive was so far right it came to rest near portable toilets that were far from the fairway.“Tiger was aiming way left off every tee and hitting big slices, because that’s how he kept from putting too much weight on his injured left knee on the downswing,” Karlsson said in an interview this month.Woods’s recovery flew to the back of the green, 65 feet from the hole atop a steep pitch. On the same devilish green that day, Mickelson had three-putted and spun three consecutive wedge shots off the green for a quadruple-bogey 9.Woods sank the 65-footer for an eagle. “Tiger-mania was full on at that point,” Karlsson said. “That was an impossible putt. Impossible.”The 15th hole was a dogleg left, and required a right-to-left draw off the tee, not the purposeful slice Woods had been hitting. Woods would have to put considerable weight on his damaged left knee. He told Karlsson and their caddies that after he swung they should just walk off the tee without him.“Tiger then hit this fantastic, piercing draw in the middle of the fairway, but he doubled over after it, leaning on his club to stay upright,” Karlsson said. “He was hyperventilating. He knew that swing was going to hurt like mad, but he committed to it anyway.”Woods played without an anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and with stress fractures in his left tibia.Charlie Riedel/Associated Press“We all walked off the tee quickly like he asked and when we got to the fairway, we looked back and he was still on the tee.”Consecutive pars and a lucky chip-in at the 17th hole for birdie — the ball clanged off the flagstick about a foot off the ground and fell into the hole — led to a 30-foot eagle putt on the 18th green that Woods converted for a round of 70. The surge gave him the tournament lead at three under par, two strokes ahead of Mediate, who was in third place.Walking the 18th hole, Karlsson asked Williams if he thought Woods would be able to play in Sunday’s final round. “Stevie said he thought it was 50-50,” Karlsson said.Woods made it to Sunday but was three over par for the first two holes. Mediate shot 71 to take the lead by one stroke. Woods steadily rescued par after par to stay in contention and at the par-5 final hole hit a magnificent third shot from the rough to set up the birdie attempt that would send the championship to a playoff after 72 holes.In the last 13 years, Mediate has watched a replay of the putt hundreds of times. “No one else makes that putt,” he said. “No one.”Scott has often been asked by young golfers what it was like to play with Woods in his prime. He cites the last putt of the fourth round at Torrey Pines in 2008.“The young guys can’t quite understand why we all say he was so much better than everybody else,” Scott said. “That putt, while it’s not the longest he ever made, pretty much sums what had happened for 10 years.”The following day, in the 18-hole playoff, it was Mediate who fell behind by three strokes after 10 holes, but he was buoyed by a crowd drawn to his everyman status.The massive crowd looking on during the playoff round.Chris WIlliams/Icon Sportswire, via Getty Images“Go get ’em, Rock,” fans called out after his tee shots.Mediate, a good but not great PGA Tour player for more than two decades, fought back with three consecutive birdies to take a one-stroke lead. As he did the previous day, Woods birdied the 18th hole, while Mediate made par to send the playoff to sudden death extra holes.At that moment, the PGA Tour pro Kevin Streelman was on a plane taking golfers and their families to Connecticut, where the Travelers Championship would be played that week. In the air, everyone watched the playoff on television, and the jet landed as Woods and Mediate were headed to a 19th hole. There were courtesy cars on the tarmac waiting to drive the players to their hotels. No one got off the aircraft.Every Cinderella story has a midnight and Mediate’s tee shot on par-4 No. 7 found a bunker. His approach shot missed the green, and a pitch from the rough was well short of the hole. Woods made a routine par, and Mediate missed a lengthy par putt.Woods walked toward Mediate to shake his hand, and Mediate embraced Woods in a hug.Mediate hugged Woods after he lost. “Great fight,” Woods said to Mediate.Chris WIlliams/Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesTwo days later, Woods announced he would have season-ending surgery on his left leg. He returned in 2009 and stormed to six tour event victories but failed to win a major championship for the first year since 2004. And his year would worsen. The day after Thanksgiving, Woods had a car accident that led to revelations about his serial marital infidelities. For the next nine years, Woods, who won 14 of the 50 majors he played from 1997 to 2009, entered 24 majors and won none.Mediate, who watched the last putt of Woods’s fourth round in 2008 wondering if he was about to get a life-altering victory, was himself changed by his defeat at the U.S. Open.“I still get questions about it every single day,” Mediate said. “And my wife will go, ‘What?’ And I say that’s the way it is — they’re asking me a question about something they saw that meant something to them. It wasn’t like Joe’s Open, it was the United States Open. And it was a hell of a battle.” More

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      At the U.S. Open, Public Courses Are Losing

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      This year’s event is at Torrey Pines, which is owned by San Diego, but the U.S.G.A. may create a rotation that skips such courses.The United States Open is meant to be memorable, with the best players in the world gutting it out over four days packed with all the drama that makes sports great. But almost every year, the course on which the major is played becomes a character as the Open enfolds.The course may exceed expectations, in terms of toughness; it may seem to lie down for the best players. Or, as happened last year at Winged Foot Golf Club, where Bryson DeChambeau finished at minus-6 and was the only player under par, it might stymie all but the eventual winner.Torrey Pines Golf Course, set on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean in San Diego, may have provided the most memorable finish of any U.S. Open in 2008. Tiger Woods, playing on a badly injured knee that would need surgery soon after the tournament, curled in a birdie putt on the 18th green that sent him to an improbable 18-hole playoff against an even more improbable opponent: Rocco Mediate, a journeyman 13 years his senior.And then the next day, after battling back and forth, Woods birdied the 18th again to continue the playoff, which he won on the next hole.That the site of a memorable Open was also played on a municipal course operated by the city of San Diego is a boon for regular golfers who aspire to play where the pros do. But this year’s tournament may be the last for a truly public course.As the U.S. Open moves to more of a fixed rotation of courses — known as a rota — this week’s tournament could be the end of an era when the United States Golf Association experimented with hosting Opens on truly public courses.Pebble Beach Golf Links in California and Pinehurst in North Carolina are set to host several U.S. Opens in the coming years, but neither could be considered truly public because people pay thousands of dollar a night to stay in their lodges if they want to be able to pay hundreds of dollars to play the course. Of the next six courses that the U.S.G.A. has announced through 2027, none will be truly public.But in the past two decades, public courses have increased the excitement. When Bethpage Black, in Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y., hosted the first U.S. Open played on a public course in 2002, it became known as the “people’s open,” with Woods as the only player to finish under par with raucous New York fans cheering him on.Jordan Spieth won the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay outside of Tacoma, Wash.Matt York/Associated PressChambers Bay, outside Tacoma, Wash., and Erin Hills, north of Milwaukee, were two other public courses that hosted the Open in 2015 and 2017, though both drew criticism. Chambers Bay, where Jordan Spieth won in 2015, was knocked for bumpy greens, while Erin Hills was dinged in 2017 for the low scores it produced. (Brooks Koepka was the winner at 16-under par.)The U.S.G.A. seems to be pulling back from this era of experimentation and creating a rota similar to what the R&A, which governs the sport worldwide except for the United States and Mexico, does with the courses for the British Open. The organization will lean on storied courses like Winged Foot, Oakmont, Pinehurst and Pebble Beach while adding other equally exclusive courses, including the Country Club in Boston or Los Angeles Country Club from time to time.John Bodenhamer, the association’s senior managing director of championships, said the shift was as much about history as practical matters.“In many ways returning to the same venues makes it easier,” Bodenhamer said. “We had the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in 2010. It was coming back in 2019. Having the United States Amateur there in 2018, we learned a great deal that really fueled what we did at the U.S. Open the next year — from how the golf course performed to handling the accommodations.“Two to three years ago at a U.S.G.A. championship meeting, we were talking about where we should go for the U.S. Open and the United States Women’s Open, and I asked a group question about some various courses,” Bodenhamer said. The three-time major winner “Nick Price piped up and said it’s really important where a player wins his U.S. Open.”There are practical, financial reasons for returning to the same venues regularly, but the switch may come at another cost, to the public venues and the geographic diversity that brought the national championship to new markets.“The wonderful thing about the Open when it was rotating is you got to see so many different places,” said Michael Hurzdan, who designed Erin Hills. “Different horses for different courses. There’s a lot to be said for that. When you go to the rota, something’s going to be lost.”Brook Koepka won the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills, north of Milwaukee.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesBut he does not disagree with such practical considerations of the rota.“One of the biggest costs is infrastructure, so when you’re going to the same courses you know where the cameras are going to go, the stands are going to go — they have the parking figured out,” he said.But he is less convinced by the notion that the history of a venue matters, at least for the fans. “People aren’t going to make a comparison between how Hogan played Oakmont [in 1953] and how DeChambeau will play Oakmont” in 2025, he said. “I don’t see any good reason to do it.”The desire among former host sites to be a course that gets dusted off and selected again is strong.Matthew Gorelik, chief executive of Township Capital, who is a member at Oakland Hills, the Michigan course that has hosted six U.S. Opens, remembers hitting a shot in the fairway on the sixth hole only to have his next shot blocked by a tree. After that he supported a restoration of the course. The club hired Gil Hanse, a golf course architect who is often brought in to restore major championship courses, to update the course’s Donald Ross design and bring back a U.S. Open. The last one was in 1996.“Oakland Hills hasn’t been restored in a long time, and there were certain holes that just needed to be done,” he said. “At the same time, we’ve been passed over year after year for the U.S. Open.” The five or so courses that are seen as the core of any rota — Shinnecock Hills, Winged Foot, Oakmont, Pinehurst and Pebble Beach — are all stern tests of golf with ample facilities.“They’re all a great test of golf, and they all want to give back to the game, but familiarity does help us,” said Bodenhamer of the U.S.G.A.“It’s tough to conduct a U.S. Open at a place like Merion [near Philadelphia],” he continued. “We did it in 2013, but we had parking lots in people’s backyards, and hospitality tents in people’s front yards.” More

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      Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau Are Still at It. But Is Their Spat for Real?

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      The golfers continued their playful war of words at this week’s U.S. Open, insisting it is good for the sport. One wily pro suggested that it might mostly be good for Koepka and DeChambeau themselves.SAN DIEGO — The latest episode of the Brooks Koepka-Bryson DeChambeau feud did not stray from its amusing course on Tuesday, continuing to be golf’s most entertaining sideshow in years.Koepka, with his usual grumpiness, said of his relationship with DeChambeau: “We don’t like each other.” He added, “I don’t know if I’d call it a conflict,” then suggested that some of the reporters standing next to him probably did not like each other either.About an hour later, a cheerful, almost giddy, DeChambeau was all smiles talking about the topic of Koepka at Torrey Pines Golf Course, where the 2021 U.S. Open will begin Thursday. It was a stark contrast to two weeks ago when DeChambeau seemed perturbed with Koepka and somberly said the PGA Tour should consider whether Koepka’s snarky videos and tweets trolling DeChambeau were, “how a tour player should behave.”On Tuesday, DeChambeau instead called the public back-and-forth “fun” and “great for the game of golf.”“There’s a point where it’s great banter,” he said, with a joyful grin. “I personally love it.”So, nothing has changed. The quarrel between two, brawny, 20-something professional golfers paid to wear natty golf attire and perfectly buffed shoes continued without a script — a pillow fight that stands out in a world dominated by the use of courtly pleasantries.There was, however, one bona fide disappointment revealed Tuesday: This year’s U.S. Open, where DeChambeau is the defending champion, will not give golf fans what they wanted most, which was Koepka and DeChambeau going head-to-head in the same playing group in the first and second rounds on Thursday and Friday.The duo will instead tee off many hours apart with other playing companions, which means they might not even see each other at Torrey Pines unless they happen to card similar scores early and are paired in the final rounds on the weekend. Golf fans should pray for that outcome. Shortly after the tee times for the opening rounds were announced on Tuesday morning, a report surfaced that DeChambeau, or his representatives, had contacted the United States Golf Association, which conducts the event, and requested that Koepka not be part of DeChambeau’s group.Within an hour, representatives for DeChambeau and the U.S.G.A. denied that DeChambeau had made such an appeal, something DeChambeau later confirmed.Bryson DeChambeau hit from the green bunker on No. 18 during a U.S. Open practice round on Tuesday.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press“I would be OK with that,” he said of playing with Koepka, “but there was never really anything that went through me.”Koepka said no one approached him about playing with DeChambeau, nor did he care who his partners were. With a straight face, he then dropped this heavy thought: “I’m not concerned about what other people think. If I was concerned about what everybody else thought, I’d have been in a world of pain.”Whoa.On a lighter note, there was much discussion about whether the spat between Koepka and DeChambeau is good for golf. DeChambeau and Koepka, curiously with the same thought, insisted that it was, and Koepka offered evidence.“It’s bringing new eyeballs,” Koepka said. “It’s pretty much been on every news channel. Pretty much everything you look at online, it’s got this in the headline or it’s up there as a big news story. To me, that’s growing the game.“You’re putting it in front of eyeballs, you’re putting it in front of people who probably don’t normally look at golf, don’t play it, and it might get them involved.”Not long afterward, Webb Simpson, the 2012 U.S. Open champion who has one of the most sunny personalities in golf, agreed wholeheartedly, although he also dropped a bomb of a sort-of accusation.“I think they’ve got a rivalry now, and I think it’s good,” Simpson said. “There used to be more golf rivalries that became well-known.”Simpson then lobbed this notion: What if the whole so-called Koepka-DeChambeau grudge was a ruse, a conspiracy between the two to raise their social media profiles to improve their chances of getting some of the moolah in the PGA Tour’s new $40 million Player Impact Program?The initiative will pay end-of-season bonus money to 10 players based on an amalgam of metrics, with a top measure being a golfer’s Google search popularity.“I don’t know if they texted each other on the side and possibly went in agreement,” Simpson said, with a grin. “You know, let’s play this thing up for the Player Impact Program. That was kind of one of my thoughts.”Wow. No wonder DeChambeau was smiling Tuesday. We already know Koepka has the practiced poker face. More

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      Jon Rahm Returns to the PGA Tour, Ready for the U.S. Open

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      The golfer, who was forced to withdraw from the Memorial Tournament with a six-stroke lead after a positive coronavirus test, said Tuesday, “It happened, that’s life.”SAN DIEGO — Jon Rahm was thunderstruck by the positive coronavirus test result that forced his June 5 withdrawal from the Memorial Tournament, a competition Rahm led by an almost insurmountable six strokes with only one round remaining. But afterward, he recognized the emotions that his exit, which included a nationally televised broadcast of Rahm receiving the news and leaving the 18th green in tears, elicited.“I was aware of what was going on,” Rahm said in his first public remarks about the situation on Tuesday as he prepared for the 2021 U.S. Open, which begins Thursday at the Torrey Pines Golf Course. “And to all the people criticizing the PGA Tour, they shouldn’t. We are in a pandemic, and even though this virus has very different forms of attacking people, you never know what reaction you’re going to get. So the PGA Tour did what they had to do.”He added: “I’ve heard a lot of different theories — that I should have played alone. But I shouldn’t have, that’s nonsense. The rules are there, and it’s clear. I was fully aware when I was in tracing protocol that that was a possibility. I knew that could happen. I was hoping it wouldn’t, but I support what the PGA Tour did.”Speaking at a news conference, Rahm, 26, revealed that he had been vaccinated before he tested positive.“The truth is I was vaccinated, I just wasn’t out of that 14-day period,” Rahm said, referring to the two-week period it typically takes for the body to build a strong immune response to the virus after receiving the final dose of the vaccine. “I had started the process, and unfortunately, that’s how the timing ended up being.”Rahm continued, “Looking back on it, I guess I wish I would have done it earlier, but thinking on scheduling purposes and having the P.G.A. and defending the Memorial, to be honest, it wasn’t in my mind. If I had done it in a few days earlier, probably we wouldn’t be having these conversations right now.”The amiable Rahm, alternately smiling and serious, did not ask for sympathy, but he had a message for his professional golf colleagues, who a tour official said earlier this month had been vaccinated at a rate “north of 50 percent.”“We live in a free country, so do as you please,” Rahm said. “I can tell you from experience that if something happens, you’re going to have to live with the consequences golf wise.”Had Rahm been able to complete the final round of the Memorial, which he had won in 2020, he almost certainly would have been handed the winner’s check worth roughly $1.7 million. In Rahm’s absence, Patrick Cantlay claimed it instead.“I know if you’re younger, you run less of a risk of having big problems from Covid,” Rahm said. “But truthfully we don’t know the long-term effects of this virus, so I would encourage people to actually get it done.”Since some of the public outcry about what happened to Rahm centered around the way he was informed of his positive test — he was stopped as he came off the green with TV cameras close by and thousands of spectators watching — he was asked on Tuesday if he was upset by the way tour officials gave him the news.“It could have been handled better,” he conceded with a wide grin. “I’m not going to lie, that’s the second time I get put on the spot on national TV on the same golf course on the same hole.”At the 2020 Memorial, Rahm celebrated his victory on the 18th green of the Ohio course. Then, as he was conducting a television interview, he was informed that he had been penalized two strokes for causing his ball to move slightly near the 16th green. Rahm still won by three strokes.One of the mysteries of Rahm’s sorrowful scene alongside the 18th hole this year was when he said, “Not again,” after he received the news. It turns out that it was a reference to last year’s ending.“For all those people wondering when I said, ‘Not again,’ that’s exactly what I mean — not again,” Rahm said on Tuesday. “Last year I put my heart out talking about one of my family members passing, and I get told, ‘Well, go sign your scorecard with a penalty stroke — with no warning.’“Then this year I put arguably the best performance of my life, and I get told again on live TV, ‘Hey, you’re not playing tomorrow.’ So it could have been handled a little bit better, yeah, but it still doesn’t change the fact of what really happened. Because it was the second time I got put on the spot on the same course. I was a little bit more hurt, but yeah, again, it’s tough.”At the same time, Rahm admitted there were probably other considerations being weighed by PGA Tour leaders as they decided how and when to tell him of the positive coronavirus test.“They don’t want me to go by and start shaking all the patrons’ hands and high-fiving and all that, so I understand that as well,” Rahm said.One of the more popular men’s golfers — a player who shows his emotions and competes with zesty flair — Rahm was already looking ahead to this week’s competition. He said repeatedly that he had moved on from the withdrawal.“It happened, that’s life,” Rahm said. “Luckily, everybody in my family and myself are OK. Luckily, I didn’t really have any symptoms, and within what happened, this is the best-case scenario.” More