The past few days, I was able to watch a good portion of The US Open which just finished. I thought it was a great tournament, but wasn’t overly pleased with the results. If my pick Dustin Johnson wasn’t going to show up, I would have really like to see Phil Mickelson win. I’ve been a fan of Phil’s since watching him at ASU. I was at Winged Foot for the US Open when he hit the tent on the 72nd hole. This, record 6th, 2nd place finish at the US Open was equally tough to watch, but in an entirely different way. At Winged Foot, Phil made a terrible swing on the last hole, and followed it up with a bad decision and the 6 he took cost him the victory.
This year, Phil just played poorly (for him or a US Open Champion) on Sunday. He 3 putted a couple of greens early and ended the round with 36 putts; even with 0 putts on the 10th. Hitting 54 greens, Phil lead the field in Greens hit in regulation. This was impressive since he was only 22nd in fairways hit. That brings us back to putting; Phil’s 2013 putting average is 1.703 putts/hole or 30.65 putts/round, which is first on tour. Of course the greens are tougher at the US Open than on the average weekend on tour, but those 5.35 strokes proved very costly. There has been a lot of talk regarding a couple of poor wedge shots he hit on the back 9, but I believe the true cause of the loss were the putts. Simply don’t 3 putt for double bogey on 3 and 5 and it is a different finish.
Oh, and I’ll have to do better on my KJR Ketel One pick at The Open next month…
