By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
The guy with him, the Masters champ, the one who shot a — heh, heh — cool 8-over 78, said after getting up close, if not personal, “That was the old Tiger. That was beautiful to watch.”
Still an endorsement from Bubba Watson, while not unappreciated, didn’t have Tiger Woods enthralled.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
Special to The Oregonian
SAN FRANCISCO -- The description from Casey Martin was "pretty loud." The reference was to the electric green golf shirt he wore Thursday in the first round of the U.S. Open. It could have applied to the gallery response at every hole.
"I thought the galleries were great in '98," he said of the previous Open at Olympic Club, when he made history by riding his golf cart through four rounds. "And they were really wonderful today. Really supportive. So it was a special day. I'm thankful I played decently, but man it's a stress out there."
© 2012 Oregon Live LLC. All rights reserved
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
The U.S. Open is a movable feast, shifting from the old golf world to the new and then back again. It is a carnival of emotion and tradition that is both a national championship and regional reflection.
The Super Bowl and World Series are big-city spectaculars. The Masters never wanders from the red-clay country of southeast Georgia. But the Open has been played in the middle of Ohio and along the Gulf Coast of Texas, on the eastern edge of Long Island and now once more on the headlands above the Pacific, in the golden city by the Golden Gate.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
Special to The Oregonian
SAN FRANCISCO -- It's different now, but it's very much the same. Casey Martin is back at the Olympic Club, back in the Open, back playing practice rounds with Tiger Woods. Fourteen years have passed, and yet it seems time has stood still.
Another U.S. Open at Olympic, the place known as the graveyard of legends, because it is where Ben Hogan lost to Jack Fleck and Arnold Palmer lost to Billy Casper.
© 2012 Oregon Live LLC. All rights reserved
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
SAN FRANCISCO – We’ve been waiting for this, waiting for the matchup of Tiger, Phil and Bubba, waiting for golf’s great examination coming once more to America’s favorite city, waiting for birdies and bogeys by the Golden Gate.
The U.S. Open, a magical tournament, to be played starting Thursday at a course, fascinating, Olympic Club, where magic is always in the air, wafting like the afternoon breeze, engulfing like the fog off the Pacific.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
He was the kid from The City, 19 years old and confident in his golf. But when the 1966 U.S. Open was set for his home course, the Olympic Club, he was so pessimistic about his chances of qualifying he didn’t even sign up a caddy.
In the end, the only bag Johnny Miller carried was his own, from the car to the rack outside the pro shop. A BYU student at the time, Miller managed to grab the last qualifying spot for the Open during an event in Utah. The legend had started.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
There’s always someone emphasizing the negative, someone reluctant to acknowledge success, someone who looks at what Rory McIlroy did in last year’s U.S. Open, lapping the field as it were, and suggests the course wasn’t that difficult or the other golfers went about things improperly.
Who cares? Maybe Congressional Country Club outside Washington, D.C., was too wet and too wide to provide a perfect Open test. Maybe the rest of the pros ...
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
Special to PGATour.com
It is a place of mist, myth and memories, some wonderful, some not. The Olympic Club was where Ben Hogan walked away in defeat, Ty Cobb stomped off in anger and numerous people less famous but no less fortunate spend hours stacking up dominoes, knocking in putts and tossing down drinks.
Olympic, where for a fifth time America’s golfing championship, the U.S. Open, will be played June 14-17, represents San Francisco in the extreme, with plenty of history and humor compressed into a magnificent Spanish-style clubhouse and onto two wonderful courses.
©2003-2012 PGA/Turner Sports Interactive. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
SAN FRANCISCO — The word was out, drifting across Olympic Club, like the fog that was coming in off the Pacific: Tiger, Bubba and Phil in the same grouping for the U.S. Open. The huge merchandise tent had been unlocked about 10 a.m. Thursday. And now so was the secret.
They've figured it out at the U.S. Golf Association. Blind draw? Tiger Woods here, Phil Mickelson there? That was the old days, when the USGA wanted some pretense of equality and fairness.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
Fourteen years ago, Willie Brown, then the mayor, was saying, “The U.S. Open is wonderful. It’s a $150 million boon to San Francisco, and being the center of golf worldwide for a week — that can’t hurt.”
Fourteen years ago, Phil Mickelson was tying for 10th and Tiger Woods for 18th.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
SAN FRANCISCO -- James Hahn was playing on adrenaline. Michael Allen was working on a 30-year-old dream. In that all-day ordeal called U.S. Open sectional qualifying, each found success and a place in America's golf championship.
A total of 130 players competed for seven places over 36 holes, 18 apiece at Lake Merced and Harding Park, both within view of Olympic Club, up a low hill, where the 112th Open will be held next week.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
"Go ahead and say it,'' advised the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern. "Conspiracy theory."
But why? We already believe it, so we'd be preaching to the choir, ourselves, the biggest group of skeptics this side of the Facebook IPO underwriters.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
The season is far from ideal. There’s that Timmy thing, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are still in front of the division. But now the Giants have hitting and speed, and with the season still four months from conclusion, they very well could finish where everyone thought they would: in first.
Melky Cabrera breaking a record by Willie Mays — and who ever imagined those names would be linked?
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
Even as it was unfolding, even as the balance tipped and Serena Williams went from winner to loser, it seemed unbelievable. Serena Williams doesn’t fall apart. Serena Williams doesn’t lose first-round matches in Grand Slams.
Serena is a finisher, not someone who gets finished.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
OAKLAND, Calif. -- George Brett is in the rearview mirror and Cal Ripken is up ahead. Not that Derek Jeter is looking in either direction.
Jeter began Sunday's game against the A's with a line-drive single to left. It was the 3,155th hit of his career, 14th best in history, and moved him ahead of Brett. Ripken is in 13th place with 3,184.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
OAKLAND, Calif. -- He's not far away, about 90 miles up Interstate 80 in Sacramento. That doesn't seem like much, but the distance Manny Ramirez still has to cover until he's back in the majors -- if, indeed, he ever gets there -- is greater than it appears.
Ramirez is playing for the Triple-A River Cats, the top farm team of the Oakland Athletics, as he regains his timing and waits for Wednesday -- his 40th birthday, by the way -- which will represent the end of a second 50-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
OAKLAND, Calif. -- It wasn't as if the whole city was here. Vallejo's population is about 116,000. But CC Sabathia had purchased enough tickets -- 200 for family and friends from his hometown, a half-hour northeast of O.co Coliseum -- to fill an area of the rightfield stands.
His own rooting section, if you will, and once Sabathia was able to control his pitches Saturday, he gave them a show and helped the Yankees earn a 9-2 victory over the A's.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
On the front sports page of Thursday's USA Today, three headlines: "NBA Suspends Heat's Haslem for Game 6,'' "The Problem of Slow Play'' and "Players Sue NFL, Claim Collusion Over Cap."
This is the toy department of life?
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
The U.S. Open places a premium on emotion and psychology. “A lot of players,” said four-time Open champion Jack Nicklaus, “are eliminated the moment the tournament starts.” Nicklaus, certainly, wasn’t in that category. Neither were Lee Janzen or the late Payne Stewart.
The Open comes to San Francisco’s Olympic Club next month for a fifth time, and for a while now, we’ve been told how in those other four the wrong man won and Olympic, out there across the Great Highway from the Pacific, is the graveyard of champions.
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
OAKLAND — Down in Los Angeles the only thing the Lakers and Clippers lost were games, albeit important games. Up here in Greedsville-by-the-Bay, Oakland is losing its team. To San Francisco.
This is the way it works in the lawless, wild west, where you check your firearms at the turnstile but hold on to your ego: Santa Clara steals San Francisco’s pro football team, San Francisco steals Oakland’s pro basketball team, the one with an all-inclusive name, Golden State Warriors.
© RealClearSports 2012