Open facing weekend washout

ATROCIOUS weather conditions have thrown the 109th US Open into turmoil with the likelihood now the championship will run over into Monday and possibly even Tuesday.

USGA tournament director Jim Hyler was forced to call a halt to proceedings at 10.15am yesterday as the anticipated rain storm poured down with increasing intensity until the hope for any further play was abandoned shortly before 2pm.

First round play will recommence at 7.30 this morning, weather permitting, but even Hyler admitted the forecast is so bad over the coming days the future of the championship is in the lap of the gods. Fairways, bunkers and greens flooded as squeegees were pressed into service and players even had the line of their putts “mopped” up without any breach of the rules of golf. But the intensity of the torrent brooked no argument.

“We’ll stay here until we get a champion,” Hyler declared yesterday. On the “mud ball” issue, he was again flirting with logic and reality yesterday when stating “the tours will play lift, clean and place. And we just don’t play lift, clean and place”.

All 78 of the morning contingent started their rounds but, sadly, there’s still no sign of salvation for Pádraig Harrington for whom things are simply going from bad to worse.

Hopes he could re-energise his ailing season in the company of Tiger Woods and Masters champion Angel Cabrera proved unfounded. Unusually for a man who has won three major titles in the past two years, his body language betrayed an air of nervousness and tension which in turn was transferred to his swing and ball striking.

He displayed the first signs of poor distance control when leaving his nine iron second 50 feet short of the first hole and three subsequent putts set the tone. On top of that, all too often his drives were finding the thick, drenched rough from which the only refuge was to chip out sideways.

At the 517 yards par five 4th, one of the few birdie opportunities at Bethpage, his tee shot came to rest between a cluster of bunkers and he actually had to stand in one to get club on ball. He put his third through the green, chipped back to six feet and missed for a bogey six.

Worse was to follow at the 5th where his drive landed behind trees and after chipping out, he put the next in thick rough on the right of the green and took three more to get down for the kind of double bogey that has been a scourge of his game even when things were going well.

Harrington was again in the thick stuff after his drive to the 7th and after the hooter sounded for the suspension of play, he was left to contemplate overnight a 25 footer for par.

Harrington is too honest to blame the weather for his poor showing. After all, it was the same for all the other early starters and the little-known Californian Jeff Brehaut played the back nine in 34 and was still one under through 11. Furthermore, it could be that the Irishman finds himself on the wrong end of the draw.

“I don’t think there’s a guy who hasn’t teed off today that is not sitting happy in their hotel room or maybe at the cinema watching a movie,” he said. “But that’s the nature of the game. You’re going to get bad breaks. You’re going to get the wrong side of the draw. Who knows what the next three or four days are going to bring.’’

He is trying to see the bright side as things stand, claiming “if you’ve started badly, you’re delighted to get off the golf course. I’m starting a new round of golf tomorrow and it doesn’t look like this round was going in a very nice direction for me. As I said earlier, it’s all about momentum in the bad weather, but starting with a 3-putt and then dropping a shot from nowhere, all of a sudden I’m 2-over par. I haven’t played well and I’m trying to figure out, how am I going to get back in this. How am I going to make some birdies and recover?”

Considering his very disappointing form of recent times, it’s not easy to see a way back but Harrington isn’t one to throw in the towel.

“I’m on the back foot so the best thing for me is to come back fresh tomorrow,” he reasoned. “I know it’s going to be early. It’s a new start but for me, I’ve still got 66 holes of this tournament to go. So if I can get it into my head in some shape or form that with 66 holes to go, two bogeys and a double-bogey shouldn’t really cost me at the end of the day.”

Graeme McDowell wasn’t relishing the prospect of getting his championship under way at the 508 yards par four 10th, one of the most difficult holes on the course, but he negotiated it safely with a solid par. However, bogeys followed at the 11th, where he was bunkered, and at the 12th, where he tangled with the fearsome rough. To his credit, though, he got a stroke back at the short 14th where his 25 foot putt dropped into the cup with its last dying roll. The Ulsterman was reasonably satisfied to be one over after seven when play ceased.

In stark contrast, however, were a couple of Englishmen, Luke Donald, many peoples’ dark horse, five over after five, and David Horsey, 10 over after 10. Along with Brehaut, those one under par are Sweden’s Johan Edfors after four, and Canadian Andrew Parr and American Ryan Spears after three.

Tiger Woods was one over through six, a situation largely resulting from a double bogey six at the 5th where he was another to fall foul of the heavy stuff. Typically, though, he hit back with a birdie at the 6th with the retention of his title still very much on the cards.