TOUR Insider: Not your normal Torrey Pines
That Phil Mickelson and Pat Perez grew up playing golf at Torrey Pines is worth noting -- up to a point. Likewise, the fact that Masters champion Trevor Immelman is returning this week to the site of his U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship should be kept in perspective.
Local knowledge should never be dismissed, but it might need to be discounted a bit when the 108th U.S. Open begins Thursday on the South Course at Torrey Pines. The aforementioned players have a measure of intimacy with the municipal course spread along the bluffs overlooking the Pacific, but many PGA TOUR players are by varying, though perhaps lesser, degrees also familiar with Torrey Pines.
That would be the South Course that is damp and soft with scarce rough and tepid greens. That would be the South Course that plays to roughly 7,500 yards, par 72, with wide fairways.
That South Course they won't be seeing this week. Instead, the players competing in the year's second major will encounter the full challenge that Rees Jones infused into the layout when he renovated Torrey South in 2001 and which the U.S. Golf Association has buttressed with its usual setup parameters.
Torrey South, the second municipal course to host the Open and the first course not ranked among the top 100 in the U.S. by any of several ranking sources, could play up to 7,643 yards, nearly 400 yards more than any previous U.S. Open examination. It's been altered to a par-71 track with the conversion of the sixth hole from a par-5 to a 515-yard par-4. The Kikuyu grass fairways, which should be drier and yield more roll, will be pinched in to as little as 24 yards across and lined by steely rough measuring from 1 ¾ inches to more than 3 ½ inches. Finally, greens that crawled at 11 on the Stimpmeter will approach speeds of 13 or more.
"Torrey Pines already is a solid golf course; it's already pretty hard," Stewart Cink, who tied for third at this year's Buick Invitational, said. "But I think we better be ready for a really difficult week of golf. It's a scenic place, but I won't be looking around a whole lot. I'm going to need to have total focus on what I'm doing. There won't be an easy shot anywhere."
Mickelson, who lately has been schooling himself on the course he probably knows better than any other, said that a score of about 5 over par, which was good enough to win the last two U.S. Opens, might be handsome enough to do the trick again.
"It's going to be hard in ways we've seen at a U.S. Open, but just not at Torrey Pines," he said. "But I'm looking forward to the challenge."
Woods, whose health status is not known after knee surgery following the Masters, won this year's Buick Invitational at 19 under par (with the help of 7-under 65 on the cupcake North Course). That means he averaged 4 under on his three days on the South.
He, and everyone else, won't likely sniff such numbers this week. To paraphrase Bobby Jones, they'll all be playing a course with which they are not familiar.
FEDEXCUP POINTERS
• The pairing of the top three players in the world rankings -- Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott -- for the opening two rounds of the U.S. Open will bring together Woods and Mickelson for just the 22nd and 23rd rounds in their professional careers. Of those, only three rounds have been in major championships: the third round of the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 and the opening two rounds of the 2006 PGA when Woods won the British Open and Mickelson won the Masters.
• If you're wondering who has the edge at Torrey Pines between the top two players, one has to look beyond the six Buick Invitational titles Woods has compared to three for Mickelson. First, five of Woods' victories have come after the Rees Jones renovation in 2001. The last of Mickelson's came in '01. Here's a more telling statistic: Starting in 2002, Woods has a 69.19 scoring average on the South Course, while Mickelson's is 71.68.
• Woods might have six Buick Invitational titles, but his victory in the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links may have been his one national title in California, if history is a guide. In the other eight most recent U.S. Open tournaments played in the state of California, eight different men emerged with the victory.
• There are eight former U.S. Open champions in the field, including multiple winners Woods, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Lee Janzen, who is the last year of his exemption run following his 1998 victory at Olympic Club in San Francisco. Sixteen other entrants join those eight men as former winners of USGA events.
• Angel Cabrera has quit smoking as he prepares to defend his U.S. Open title. Jack Nicklaus, who was an avid smoker in his early professional days, and still smoked recreationally for a number of years after, applauded the decision. "His nerves will be better. It will help him," the Golden Bear said.
• Justin Rose has switched drivers in preparation for the U.S. Open, replacing his TaylorMade R7 with the R7 SuperQuad that he said immediately added a few yards to his driving distance average. "I'm getting some out there around 300 yards," he marveled.
• Geoff Ogilvy has moved out to Del Mar, Calif., with his family for the next few months to escape the hot Arizona summer, and he has been practicing regularly at Torrey Pines the last week. The 2006 U.S. Open champion should be among the most prepared for the year's second major, which can only help given that his four appearances at the Buick Invitational at Torrey has yielded three missed cuts.
• Of all the players to make it through 36-hole sectional qualifying, two to watch for came out of the Columbus, Ohio, qualifier -- Pat Perez and Davis Love III. Perez grew up playing at Torrey Pines and so did his caddie, Mike Hartford, who actually won the San Diego City Amateur played on the North and South Courses. Love said he's closer to returning to form than at any time this year after making the cut at the Memorial and then shooting a 5-under-par 66 on the tough Ohio State Scarlet Course in his second 18 holes at the sectional. Love won the Buick Invitational in 1996 and has finished in the top five on four occasions.
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