The 2012 US Open at Olympic Club.
This week we have the second major of the season and in my opinion
the most difficult to win. Narrow fairways and lightning fast greens are the
norm on US Open week and this week at Olympic Club is no different. Olympic
Club is situated in San Francisco and this week hosts the US Open for the fifth
time; first time since 1998.
When Lee Janzen won in ’98 I hadn’t even held a golf club,
probably hadn’t watched a tournament...but neither had Andy Zhang. This week
Zhang becomes the youngest player to participate at the US Open in the post war
era. At 14 he was born the same year that Tiger won the Masters for the first
time and only six months before Janzen won at Olympic Club, which of course was
the last time it was held here. Madness! Now, 14 years later I’m sat here
writing a golf blog, counting down the days until the 21st of this month to I
get back to Ireland for a few snap hooks and shanks and this kid is teeing it
up at the US Open!
I haven’t seen any golf around Olympic Club so I took the
course guide on the PGA Tour website to see what the set up was like this week.
It’s a strong Par 70 with an absolute monster Par 5 16th which stretches to 670
yards, the longest hole in the 112 year history of the US Open, the bloody
thing doglegs twice! The first thing I noticed was how narrow the fairways
were, bottle neck entrances to greens and a few tricky doglegs from the tee.
Graeme McDowell ‘tweeted’ a few pictures of the course in practise and implied
through a few comments that driving will be key this week. Ben Crane also
“tweeted’ saying that from all the players he had spoken to about the setup at
Olympic Club they all said it was difficult, but fair. My favourite stat about
the course is the fact that it only has one fairway bunker!
The infamous 16th at Olympic Club
Dustin Johnson won the
St Jude Classic last week at TPC Southwind and now has the task of trying to
become the first player in US Open history to win the week before and go on to
claim the second major the following week. That’s quite a stat! Players have
won the week before a major, ten in total, most notably, Tiger won a WGC event
before the PGA Championship (’07) and Mickelson won the BellSouth Classic the
week before the Masters (’06), but no one has managed to do the double with the
US Open, Dustin will be hoping to change that this week.
To be honest I’ve had an idea of who I was going to select for
the US Open for quite a while, nothing that’s happened in the last few weeks
has changed that. I would love to see a Tiger Woods victory and he has a great
chance, his driving has improved no end and his scrambling is nearly back to
its best, but at the price I won’t have any financial interest in him!
McIlroy’s driver could cost him any chance of defending his title, he missed 30
of the 56 fairways last week and still nearly won, Olympic Club won’t be as
forgiving as TPC Southwind though! Donald and Westwood have obvious chances on
current form though the former doesn’t have a good record around US Open
courses and the latter... well he just can’t seem to get the job done in the
majors, like everyone else I would love to see him get the W on Sunday but at
his price he’s not a viable each way alternative this week.
So let’s get on to who I do fancy at the prices this week. First
up is Justin Rose. Rose has already won a World Golf Championship this year and
has all the tools in the bag to challenge for a US Open title. His stats
support this, 19th in Driving Accuracy, 3rd in Greens in Regulation (GIR) and
6th in Scrambling. The last stat will be the most important this week, the
ability to avoid bogeys is the key; par golf could get the job done. My only
worry about Rose is his putting, 123rd in Strokes gained through
putting coming into this week, but as I said he might not need to ‘gain’ too
many to win, it’s all about limiting bogeys and picking up the odd birdie at
the Par 5’s (probably not the 16th)! I just hope he keeps up his trend of
playing the more difficult courses this season well (Doral (1st), Augusta
(T-8th), and Muirfield Village (8th)).
Justin Rose
My second selection is Jason Dufner. He has been the player
of the season thus far on the PGA Tour, two wins and five top 10’s is a great
return for 14 starts. His performance stats are equally as impressive, 11th
in Driving Accuracy, 6th in GIR and 17th in Scrambling.
His weakness is his putter but it hasn’t exactly held him back this season, has
it?! He got the putter going at the Zurich Classic in April and returned a nice
28/1 winner for the blog, and followed it up with his second win, this time at
the Byron Nelson. He hasn’t teed it up since his runner up finish at the Crowne
Plaza a few weeks ago. Dufner knows what the final day of a major feels like
after he and Keegan Bradley battled for the PGA last year, he didn’t win that
day but the experience will be invaluable and he will be looking to make
amends. Let’s hope he’s brought his putting boots again because there is sure
to be a lot of squeaky 5-10 footers throughout the four days.
Jason Dufner
My third selection this week is Rickie Fowler. Fowler has had a brilliant month or so on tour if you forget about his final round 84 at Memorial. Previous to that he picked up his first career win on the PGA Tour at the Wells Fargo Championship and followed that up with a runner up finish at the Players Championship. It must have been a big relief for him to finally get the victory that everyone had expected him to get a couple of years ago. Maybe when he was paired with Tiger in the final round at Memorial he piled the pressure on himself to go out and show the old master that the young pretender had his number, well he didn’t; Rickie shot 84 and Tiger shot 67 to win. But one poor round hasn’t changed my opinion of him. Stats wise Fowler’s strength is his driving, he’s 3rd in Total Driving (combines both distance and accuracy), but I think his irons have been his trump card of late, the iron he hit into 18 in the play off with McIlroy was sublime. If Fowler gets in his comfort zone early on and stays there throughout the weekend he’s got the game to pick up his first major championship only weeks after picking up his first tour win!
Rickie Fowler
My Selections this week are:
Justin Rose @ 30/1 each way (six places) with Paddy Power
Jason Dufner @ 28/1 each way (six places) with Bet365
Rickie Fowler @ 35/1 each way (six places) with Paddy Power
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