Lucas Glover
IT’S 6 P.M. ON SUNDAY EVENING and the final round of the 109th U.S. Open is underway at Bethpage Black. How the grounds crew has enabled 54-plus holes of championship golf to be played the last four days is beyond me. The rains have been epic and the grounds crew’s water redistribution skills have been extraordinary.
In fact, since the grounds crew is so talented I wish they would just erect lights at Bethpage Black and we could finish this thing. Let’s play Sunday night until it’s over. We need to crown a U.S. Open champion, and Phil, Amy and family need to go on vacation, as scheduled.
Seriously, the U.S. Open will not be completed until Monday. Like everyone else, I’m wondering how the newbies at the top of the leaderboard will hold up under final-round pressure and which players back in the pack might make a move.
History tells me that Ricky Barnes will not get it done. It’s a lot of pressure on someone who hasn’t even been in contention in a regular PGA Tour event.
Lucas Glover, on the other hand, has a legitimate chance. No, Glover hasn’t been in this position before in a major, but he has a four-shot cushion on the rest of the field (other than Barnes) and has been hitting a lot of fairways and greens. That will be absolutely critical in the fourth round.
Then you have the man from oblivion, David Duval, plus Mike Weir, Ross Fisher, Phil Mickelson, Sean O’Hair, Hunter Mahan, Bubba Watson, Todd Hamilton and Retief Goosen all lurking in red numbers.
Tiger Woods is nine back and needs to go really low to have a snowball’s chance.
−The Armchair Golfer
Tiger proved that he was a good player this week but he did nothing like Tiger Woods. He should have won but I'm glad to see someone like Glover put away the field.