The heat is on for Vijay
The Fijian has been exchanging top spot in the world rankings with Tiger Woods for the first part of the season and sees victory in the US Open as essential if he is to be installed in the pantheon of the game’s greatest players. At 42, Singh fears time may be running out for him to add to his previous major wins in the US PGA Championship in 1998 and 2004 and the 2000 Masters. What he doesn’t need is a course where ball control becomes virtually impossible, as happened on several holes during last year’s final round at Shinnecock Hills.
Singh yesterday conveyed his concerns to championship director Tom Meeks of the USGA. He subsequently suggested that he didn’t believe the essence of Meeks’s response.
“I had a few words with him and he said they’re going to leave it as it is but that never happens,” Vijay said. “He insisted he likes the course just the way it is now and I agreed with that. It’s the way it should be played. If it doesn’t rain, we won’t be able to stop the ball on those greens. I’ve been hitting wedges and the ball is not spinning back. It is taking one big hop and stopping. I told Tom Meeks that if he lost the golf course, he’d better hide and there will be no place to go because we’ll find you.”
In many ways, it’s difficult to know where your sympathy starts and ends with these rich and spoiled superstars. So what if they have to manoeuvre some tricky shots and put up with a few bad bounces? On the other hand, nobody wants a spectacle such as the 7th green at Shinnecock last year when a panicking USGA decided to water the putting surface after the first four groups had played through. They were admitting in effect that the green had become unplayable.
“I don’t think the greens are going to get as fast as Shinnecock but I think they’re going to be as firm and the fall-offs are a lot sharper,” Singh claimed. And he was only warming up. The perspiration pouring off like him a waterfall in the steamy near 100 degrees heat, he moved on to the pin positions: “You just know they’re going to be on the edge so I hope they learn that it’s not going to rain and will get really fast. You can have some really impossible pin placements and we know they’re going to do that. Hopefully they’ve learned from last year, that they’re not going to make it anywhere as impossible.”
Singh doesn’t seem able to cope with the heat and humidity as well as many of his keenest rivals. He walks the place drenched in sweat and with a mean, distracted demeanour.
He is second favourite at 11/1, behind Woods, who’s on offer at rather prohibitive odds of 5/1. Yet Woods looks more at ease with himself, an observation that applies even more to Phil Mickelson, who loves Pinehurst and hopes and suspects that his magical short game will give him a decided edge over all his rivals.
“With so many guys sure to miss the greens, it’s going to be a chipping contest and my man is better than anybody at that game,” said TR Reinman, Mickelson’s publicity man at Gaylord Sports and a friend of the Mickelsons from their earliest years. Of course, he is biased on the subject but there is still a lot to what he says.
“Lefty” is arguably the game’s greatest ever with a wedge in his hand and he will have numerous opportunities to make that point over the next four days.
Mickelson has also been letting the USGA know his fears about the state of the golf course as the temperatures continued to soar. Indeed, he went so far as to provoke course superintendent Paul Jett into claiming that his concerns were “silly.”
Perhaps it’s the heat and the overwhelming nature of the occasion that has people on edge but some players are intent on using the elements to their advantage.
“I like it hot,” said 2003 champion Jim Furyk and a good bet at 22/1.
Chris DiMarco chased Tiger Woods home in the Masters last April and is confident the weather won’t get to him: “You just have to stay hydrated. I think I drank a bottle of water a hole last week and I didn’t go to the bathroom once. It was sweating out of you. I like it better than the cold because I’m loose.”
The good news is that the temperatures are expected to drop as the week goes on, with a high of 89 today dipping to the low 80s by tomorrow and Saturday and perhaps as low as 78 by Sunday.
Tiger Woods, Mickelson, Singh and Ernie Els (“leave the course as it is now, it is in perfect shape”) or the “Fab Four” as they are now called, dominate the betting followed by holder and two-times winner Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott and Furyk.
Only a fool would dismiss the chances of any of them while there must be another 20 players who could also figure, patient golfers such as David Toms, Luke Donald, Padraig Harrington and DiMarco to name but a few.
It will certainly be a great and fascinating four days and at the end of it all, my feeling is that Phil Mickelson will emerge a worthy and very popular champion.
Watch that wedge perform miracles whenever danger threatens and chances present themselves.
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