At the Open Harman takes his major step

HOYLAKE, England — The champion golfer of the year. That’s the historical and wonderful phrase used annually to introduce the winner of the Open Championship, a phrase both of exclusivity — as if no other event matters — and confirmation.

That’s the phrase Martin Slumbers, secretary of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, called out for Brian Harman.

Not that anyone should be surprised after the last two days when he stormed into a lead any sporting realist would have agreed was insurmountable.

Ahead by — dare we say — a whopping 5 shots before a final round at Royal Liverpool that would offer constant (and occasionally heavy) rain but no drama even when briefly at the fifth hole the margin was reduced to three shots.

By the time the 151st Open came to the soggy end, Harman shooting a 1-under 70 for a 72-hole score of 13-under 271, was six shots clear from a group that changed as often as the leader didn’t. Second place at 277 was shared by Tom Kim, Sepp Straka, Jason Day and the man who shot 63 Saturday (and won the Masters in April) Jon Rahm. Predictions were that Rory McIlroy, who won the Open here in 2014 and took the Scottish Open a week ago, would come in first. However, he putted poorly and was sixth.

It is a media belief a major is not a major — especially from a television standpoint — without marquee players such as McIlroy in the mix. The 36-year-old Harman hadn’t won a Tour event since 2017. He did lead the 2017 U.S. Open, but he hardly could be called a star. In fact, the non-golf crowd, despite the spelling of their names, would confuse him with Butch Harmon, who worked with various pros including Tiger Woods.

No more. If Harman isn’t marquee, he’s at the top of the heap in his profession. Bobby Jones won the Open. Ben Hogan won the Open. Arnold Palmer won the Open. Jack Nicklaus won the Open. Now 5-foot-7 Brian Harman has won the Open.

In the second round Harman, contrary to the spirit of golf, was heckled by a few boisterous spectators who presumingly were trying to improve the chances of local favorite Tommy Fleetwood. Harman shrugged this off. He knows now. All Sunday the crowd was universally cheering.  

”I’ve always had a self-belief that I could do something like this,” said Harman. “It’s just when it takes so much time it’s hard not to let your mind falter, like maybe I’m not winning again. I’m 36 years old. The game is getting younger.  All these young guys coming out, hit it a mile, and they’re all ready to win. Like when is it going to be my turn again?”

He knows now. We all know. The man who wasn’t marquee is a major champion.

Harman has Open lead — and distance to go

HOYLAKE, England — The problem in any sport, particularly golf, where you have no control of your opponents, and often little control of yourself, is to make presumptions. 

It’s a game where a three-stroke lead can be snatched away even before you get to the first tee, a game where it’s as much a danger of planning too far as remembering the past.

At the halfway mark of this 2023 British Open, a somewhat famous guy named Brian Harman has what could be called a comfortable lead.

Harman in Friday’s second round shot a 6-under 65. That gave him a 36-hole score of 10-under 132, a record low for Opens at Royal Liverpool, where the last two champions were Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods.

It also gave him a five-shot lead over local hero Tommy Fleetwood, who had a semi-disappointing 71. That’s even par, or as they choose to say in Britain, level par.

But as delighted — a word he used — by a round highlighted and enhanced by an eagle on the par-five finishing hole, he knows so many things can happen.

And in a career prior to his hot-shot days in high school and the University of Georgia, not infrequently had happened to him.

Harman, 36, does have four wins on tour, but he also has a lost loss after carrying a one-shot lead into the fourth round of the 2017 U.S. Open.

“I have a very active mind,’ said Harman, asked about getting ahead of myself. “It's hard for me — I've always struggled with trying to predict the future and trying to forecast what's going to happen. I've just tried to get really comfortable just not knowing.”

Despite the ignorance-is-bliss attitude, Harman has to know at this 151st edition of the oldest of all championships, major or minor, he’ll never be in a better position to take a trophy — or at the Open, the claret jug.

Still 36 holes — and bewildering possibilities like Jordan Spieth shanking a ball out of the high grass on Thursday — remain in the way.

As others from the States, Harman needed to adjust to links golf after struggling his first several appearances at the Open, when he missed the cut.

“Now I like links golf,” he said. “I like the challenges, the strategies.”

He also likes the way he played.

For Fleetwood, Open is a home game

HOYLAKE, England — Tommy Fleetwood is there again, here again, closing in once more on the major championship he has come so close to winning.

Not that in today’s world close is anything other than another word for frustration.

The Open, the 151st British Open, the tournament Fleetwood, a Britisher, an Englishman, most wants. The tournament his country most wants him to win.

This is Beatles territory Twist and Shout. This is Tommy Fleetwood territory. 

He was born and raised in Southport, 21 miles north of Liverpool. It’s the site of an enormous amusement park, a downscale Disneyland. It’s also the site of a great links course with Royal Birkdale, where a kid named Tommy Fleetwood would sneak into when the opportunity arose and would play as many holes as possible until chased off the course.

Fleetwood no longer has to sneak on any course. Or sneak up on the competition.

Want to know how much Fleetwood progressed? Study the first-day leaderboard. There, tied for first with scores of 5-under 66 at Royal Liverpool are Emiliano Grillo, Christo Lambrecht and Tommy Fleetwood.

Grillo, who is from Argentina, qualified for the Tour and won his first start at Silverado in the Frys Open in 2015. Lambrecht is a 23-year-old South African who plays for Georgia Tech — and won the British Amateur a few weeks ago at Hillside, up the road from Birkdale.

Fleetwood is 32 and not so much favored as hoped for, to be the first Englishman to win the Open since Nick Faldo in 1992.

When Fleetwood merely walked to the first tee, the crowd cheered as it would for one-time Premier League winner Liverpool. Or should we say Everton, which is the team Fleetwood has long supported.

“Yeah, it was so cool,” said Fleetwood. “They were so great to me today.”

He even spoke of performing in Goodison Stadium, Everton’s home park.

“I would love to play Goodison. I would love to give that a go. But yeah, they were great, from the first tee onwards, throughout the round, the way they were down the last hole there, the reception I got.”

Lambrecht also got his own rounds of cheering. At 6-foot-8, he is believed to be the tallest of anybody who has ever played in the Open. The Daily Telegraph called him “a giant.”

That would be a figure of speech. As far as we know, he never played baseball in San Francisco.

For Tiger before the Open, apologies and memories

HOYLAKE, England — For the guests, it was a time for memories. For the man speaking, Tiger Woods, it was a time for appreciation, along with those memories.

A return to Royal Liverpool Golf Club, where 17 years ago, in 2006, Woods made his presence felt by again winning the Open Championship-the British Open.

And where Tuesday night in a video presentation, Tiger spun back the years, offering thanks and even a few apologies to journalists he had offended in his abrasive say of unequaled success.

Which made some sense because he was receiving an award from the Association of Golf Writers for Outstanding Services to Golf.

Like what wonders one cynic, winning 83 tournaments?

Sorry, Tiger or videos are always welcome everywhere in the sport that he very much helped make popular in the extreme.

We kept hearing there would be another Tiger. But as he approaches his 48th birthday and continues to recover from that rollover crash of March 2021, we realize he was one of a kind. 

Not a Unicorn, a Tiger.

The Golf Channel, the internet sites and newspaper headlines offer a wide variety of those who would fit the description of a star with Rory McIlroy, Bruce Koepka, Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler — each of whom is in the 151st Open, starting Thursday — and each of whom has won no less than one major.

Yet when the Open comes back to Royal Liverpool, the thoughts inevitably turn in Tiger’s direction. How a month after the death of his father, Earl, he plotted and played his way to a championship, and figured the way to win was to not lose.

It’s almost hard to imagine it this week, with storms forecast, but the summer of ’06 was hot and dry. The course was brown, not green, and the fairways were fast.

Tiger, battling Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia and Chris DiMarco, was adept rather than aggressive, using his driver off the tee only once, missing the fairway on the par-5 16th hole in the first round but still making the birdie. The idea was to stay out of the many, huge bunkers, and Woods did that to perfection. Not once in 72 holes did Tiger need to hit a ball from the sand.

He closed with a 67 to end up two strokes ahead of DiMarco, with Els in third. Tiger, also winning in 2005 at St. Andrews, became the first back-to-back Open winner since Tom Watson in 1982-83.

With the passing of his father, who had been his mentor, on his mind during the competition, Woods later called the Open the most difficult event mentally he ever had played.

After the last putt fell, so did tears.

The Open: Rain and Rory?

HOYLAKE, England — The Open, two magic words. They stand alone, without the designation, “British,” but with decades of history and memories of bad weather and enthralling golf.

We’re at Royal Liverpool, across the River Mersey from the city where the Beatles started so many years ago. Recent generations probably don’t know Penny Lane from Abbey Road — but probably do know the past two winners here were Tiger Woods (2006) and Rory McIlroy (2014).

Tiger will be absent from the 2023 Open, which begins Thursday, but Rory is not only present and accounted for, but after a bang-bang ending to win last week’s Genesis Scottish Open, certainly is among the favorites.

Mcllroy won the 2014 Open at Royal Liverpool, a course also known as Hoylake, the town across the River Mersey where it is located. So yes, he knows the place, American pros and he knows open weather — which can be anything any minute. 

There was a steady rain Tuesday morning, but that didn’t keep any of the golfers from getting in their shots. There’s something captivating about these famous, talented pros standing in a bunker hitting practice shots during a downpour.

Good weather, which Hoylake had in 2006 when Tiger used a driver off the tee only once and never hit out of the sand.

American pros in particular seem to enjoy poor conditions here at least, if not in the States. It’s part of the appeal, sort of. Hey, who says we’re softies? 

During one Open at Royal St. Georges down on the English Channel, Phil Mickelson kept saying he wanted rain and wind if only to show that he, a southern Californian, was as tough as anyone anywhere. He never got the chance, but a few years later at Muirfield in Scotland, where the days ranged from nice to nasty, Mickelson got his Open win.

Basically, when you cross the Atlantic, you take on the whims and wildness of ol’ Ma Nature, who can turn a 300-yard hole into an unreachable par-5 or turn a seemingly easy hole into a disaster.

McIlroy, now 34, grew up playing in that stuff in Northern Ireland. He understands the days are not all sunny and bright, but he also understands how to win Opens. He has four of them, including in 2014 at Royal Liverpool.

That is part of the reason he’s a tournament pick, along with people such as Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler.

“I think regardless of whether I won or not,” said McIlroy, referring to the victory a few days ago. “I would have come in here confident with the way I've played overhand the last sort of month and a half.”

“My game feels like it's in good shape, but I think seeing the way I played last week and being able to control my ball in pretty difficult conditions… and I feel good about that coming into this week.”

OK, but keep that rain jacket handy.

Women’s Open: Great golf (Corpuz) on a great course (Pebble)

It was about the timing, and the place, as much as it was about the person. Great sporting achievements require great venues as much as they require a great performance.

Allisen Corpuz gave us and her sport all three.

Is there a more important event in women’s golf than the U.S. Open? Is there a more magnificent course on which to hold it than Pebble Beach?

Especially since in 77 previous years it never ever had been until this historic week at Pebble.

Corpuz, a 25-year-old from Hawaii who Sunday became the first American in seven years to take the Open, played as consistently as possible and as impressively as imagined. In winning her first pro victory of any kind, she closed with a 2-under par 69 and was the only person in the field to break par every day.

Her 72-hole total of 9-under 279 was three shots in front of England’s Charley Hull (66) and Korea’s Jiyai Shin ( 68). And worth a $2 million prize, the richest prize ever for an LPGA major champion.

“Just a totally awesome experience,” she said, and if the words sounded like those of a college kid, it was not that long ago Corpuz was in classes at USC. That is when she wasn’t on the practice tee.

Michelle Wie West, also from Hawaii, also went to Punahou High in Honolulu and, of course, also won a Women’s Open. Wie West announced before this Open that she was stepping away to raise her family and unfortunately, at age 37, missed the cut.

But the golfing gods, those astute individuals, were not about to leave the American women’s game without a new heroine.

Enter Allisen Corpuz, who while others said her goal was to win numerous, including a major, now they seemed taken back by her success.

One moment she was struggling to make birdies and save pars, the next moment they were handing her a trophy practically as tall as she is, 5-foot 9 inches.

There have been comparisons between the first US Open at Pebble in 1972, and this first Women’s Open at Pebble, which is understandable. But that was taken by Jack Nicklaus who at the time not only was he the most famous golfer on the globe but he also had won a few times at Pebble.

There were differences, certainly women’s golf not receiving the same attention as the men’s, but both were groundbreaking. And to coin a phrase the ground where the breaking occurred is in a forest guarded in part by the breakers of Carmel Bay.

There’s only one Pebble Beach and right now there’s only one woman who won a U.S. Open there.

Golf’s Nasa is trying to head to the stars

PEBBLE BEACH — Yes, she’s Japanese, perhaps not a surprise in women’s golf. But her first name is, well not quite American, but something out of the U.S. space program. 

Nasa Hataoka’s mother, according to the story, wanted her to aim for the stars. A location seemingly not too far from Pebble Beach, where Saturday  Hataoka (sorry) rocketed into first place at the third round of the U.S. Women’s Open.

You talk about your near-perfect situations, first after days of fog and low clouds (yes the classic marine layer) the sun came out, then Hataoka went around one of the world’s most famous courses without a bogey — shooting a 6-under par 66.  

“It was a bit windier,” was Hataoka’s opening observation. To which anyone who’s ever spent more than a moment at Pebble would have said, “Of course.”
For the clouds to roll by as the lyrics go in an old song, you’ve got to have something to push them, like a breeze.

Not that the 24-year-old Hataoka had any truly harsh words about California’s traditional summer conditions or much else.

“The temperatures were higher today, thank goodness,” she said. “So I think my body participated with the higher temperatures.”

 No, Sam Snead might not have phrased it so delicately, but who cares.

Hataoka was at 7-under par 16 for 54 holes, one shot ahead of Allison Corpuz, the Hawaii resident who, as the words on her golf bag advise, represents a Saudi firm.

Tied for third at 212 are Hyo Joo Kim and Bailey Tardy, the Georgian who was ahead after two rounds but Saturday shot a 1-over 73.  This coming after telling us how Pebble was a golfing version of heaven on earth.

But everyone, female or male, understands how quickly things can go wrong in golf. One errant swing, one irregular bounce or one unexpended gust of wind can change dreams and fortunes.

Especially at Pebble, with those small greens, big bunkers and memories of past agonies.

It isn’t so much what you deserve in golf, it’s what you can achieve. Annika Sorenstam should have had better luck in her first — and only — opportunity to play an Open at Pebble.

When after the dreariness of the early rounds at last the sky was blue on Saturday morning you thought how sad it was that Sörenstam, after missing the Friday cut, would be no more than a spectator.

 Still, all class, she was delightful.

 “I just want to thank everybody,” she said, “it was a great week.”

 Nasa Hataoka, the space lady, very well could have a better one.

At Women’s Open, Bailey Tardy has a Tiger day

PEBBLE BEACH — So again there’s an unrequested but not unneeded reference to Tiger Woods during the U.S. Women’s Open. What else should you expect about a spectacular shot on the 6th hole at Pebble Beach? 

Only the other day Shannon Rouillard, the U.S. Golf Association executive, in telling us how thrilled she was to have the ladies match their games against Pebble, alluded to that Woods gem in 2000.

He drove wildly into the right rough but then, as he could do in those wonderful rounds when he — and we — were younger, Woods powered it out the long grass against long odds, landed onto the green in the next shot from the long grass and made birdie four as he was marching into victory.  

This is not to equate Bailey Tardy with Woods, but Friday, in the second round of the U.S. Women’s Open, on the same sixth hole where Tiger made jaws drop in the process of making history, Tardy hit a Woodsian type of ball.

It came on the second of that sixth hole, listed at 490 yards, led to an eagle 3 for a second straight day, and when play finally concluded, for the lead for the first day.

Tardy was called “The Bomber” when she played at the school in her home state, Georgia, and since graduation several years ago, she’s lost none of her distance — or confidence.

“I’ve always believed in myself to win any tournament that I enter,” said Bailey, and yes another Woods comparison.

Remember Tiger repeatedly telling us he didn’t enter any tournament, major or minor, unless he thought he would win? And, of course, he has won 82, second all-time to Sam Snead.

Tardy, 26, doesn’t have victories on the LPGA Tour, and going into Saturday’s third round of an Open for which she qualified when another competitor three-putted the last hole, is only one shot ahead. 

Still, Tardy says she’s playing relaxed on a Pebble Beach course which elicited these comments, which had emotional meaning.

“I love this place,” she said. “It’s heaven on earth. I think every hole is incredible. The views are incredible.”

Hard to disagree with that last observation. Pebble is a gift of nature, with the surf and the hills. Yet a missed putt or two can alter an opinion. Bogeys under pressure have a way of distorting what we see.

Tardy, however, is young enough and seems as strong mentally as any golfer nicknamed “The Bomber” might hope to be.

"It feels great. I haven't performed great in the previous majors this year,” said Tardy. "So it's finally coming together and meshing well, and it just happens at the right time."

It usually does when you play well enough to win.

For Michelle and Annika, first Open at Pebble will be too short

PEBBLE BEACH — Years ago when a certain sports columnist (hmm) would point out that Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus were not in the field of a tournament, some golf officials were distressed.

“Why don’t you write about the other players, the ones who are here,” he was told. “Then they would become as popular as Arnie and Jack.”

The story came to mind Thursday during the opening round of the first U.S. Women’s Open to be held at glorious Pebble Beach.

The probability is of the dozens of skilled entrants who teed off Thursday, only two, Michelle Wie West and Annika Sörenstam, could be listed as prime attractions.

And unfortunately for the Open, not to mention Wie West and Sörenstam, both seem destined to miss the 36-hole cut, leaving to decide who might be the choice among the seven golfers with the last name of Lee. All are from Korea where, no surprise, the game is both wildly popular and well-played.

Wie West, who at 33 with children and in the rear-view mirror an Open champion, said this Open will be her last event. She shot a 7-over 79, and while there may be better ways to precede a farewell, she almost knew what would happen.

Golf gives no favors.

When you don’t spend hours hitting practice shots the response will appear on the scorecard. 

“I felt like I played great,” said Michelle, without a trace of sarcasm. “Just made a lot of really stupid, rusty bogeys.”

Including several missed short putts, the type when you’re playing for fun and are conceded, meaning, “Never mind, just pick it up.”

Annika Sörenstam is a treasure. She’s won numerous majors, Opens included, and competed with the men in a PGA Tour tournament. But she’s also 52, so shooting 80, 8-over, was more a sign of the times than of any sort of failure.

She was all about precedent and all about history. It’s one thing to measure yourself against pros 20 years or 25 years younger than you. It’s another to measure yourself against a golf course where Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer played.

As is the situation with Juli Simpson Inkster, also a U.S. Open winner, too many years had gone by before the Women’s Open came to Pebble.

And just to make it an authentic Pebble Beach morning, as well as a memorable one, the marine layer arrived with dampness and gloom.

“It was great to be on the first tee,” said Sörenstam, sounding like a golfer whose life dream was a round at Pebble. “It was a little misty, a little cool because it was an early start. Like I said, it’s great to be here and soak up the atmosphere. Lots of friends, lots of support. I was excited to play.”

As we were excited to watch you and Michelle, if for too short a time and too late in your great careers.

Women finally get an Open Test at Pebble

PEBBLE BEACH — The women finally get their shots at Pebble Beach, yet the first name mentioned in a discussion was that of a man, Jack Nicklaus — understandably. And maybe realistically. And probably sadly.

In many ways, women were second-class citizens in golf (and did you say so much else?) In Great Britain, women are restricted in some places to their own 18. Other locations allow them only on “ladies day.”

Now at a course of fame, the ladies have the opportunity to be noticed. 

The 78th U.S. Women’s Open, which began Thursday, may be the game changer if only because of the location and what through the years has happened there

Shannon Rouillard is the senior director of women’s open championships for the U.S. Golf Association and is well aware of Pebble’s crashing surf and inspiring history. 

 “What do we think about when we think about Pebble Beach?,” asked Rouillard. “I know I think about Jack Nicklaus and the 1-iron he hit on 17; Tom Watson's chip on 17, as well; Tiger Woods' second shot on 6 and winning by 15 shots; and Gary Woodland's long birdie putt on 18. While he didn't need it to win the championship, boy, did the crowd go wild.”

The ladies don’t yet have any Tigers or Nicklaus’s, although, maybe Rose Zhang, the Stanford grad, someday may win the role. For certain if the timing were better, Juli Simpson Inkster would have done it.  

Juli had it all, if in an era before women’s golf had it all. She was born and raised in Santa Cruz, literally across Monterey Bay from Pebble; was a star at San Jose State, won a couple of Opens herself (and lost another in a playoff), and was as adept at using a microphone as she was with a 5-iron. Her dad pitched in the minors, and one of her great joys was throwing out the first ball before a Giants game as a reward for her success.

Juli (if you prefer, Mrs. Inkster) was one of the former U.S. Open winners who appeared Wednesday and she was as full of opinions as always, also remembering her time had slipped before a Women’s Open came to a course she relishes.

“I think this is what's great about Pebble, is from the first tee to the 18th tee you can get a lot of different weather changes,” said Juli, a — get out in the ocean and the wind is blowing and then you come in and it's not blowing.

“I think it challenges you, all aspects of your game, chipping, putting driving. You use all the clubs in your bag, which I think is a great representation of a championship. You're going to have a lot of 3- and 4- and 5-footers on these poa greens that can grow rapidly. I think a good iron player — and I do think, once again, you've got to play the par-5s — you've got to get to No. 2 and No. 6. Those are birdie holes.”

“You've got to be ready to play when you start on 1, because 1 through 4 you need to make some birdies because you've got to just hang on that backside.”

There you are ladies, a great course for a great tournament.

Salty words on a rock which tell A’s story

It’s a large rock, a boulder really, near the base of a steep hill in Oakland’s Montclair District, layered with dozens of painted messages, for a birthday or maybe a graduation — feel good stuff.

Feel good stuff, congratulatory. Now the congratulatory has become accusatory.

Or worse, downright vicious.

Oakland is about to have its last major league sporting franchise hijacked off to Las Vegas, and some of the people who are incensed feel helpless and have resorted to angry words in green and yellow on the boulder.

“Liar. Cheater. Fraud,” the list reads. “Manfred. Kaval. Fisher. The 3 stooges.”

The references, as if anyone in sports or the East Bay isn’t aware, are to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, A’s president Dave Kaval and A’s owner John Fisher.  

Unless one of those three or their operatives stop by the boulder with buckets of enamel from Kelly-Moore in the wee small hours — the rock usually is painted after midnight — the unpleasant descriptions may last longer in Oakland than the Athletics.

Maybe the only problem with the naming of people responsible for the seemingly inevitable departure of the A’s is that not all the guilty were included.  

The former and current mayors of Oakland, while giving lip service to the Hey-our-little-town-can’t-compete-against-the-casinos, didn’t show many initiatives.

And as we warned the reason Fisher reportedly is worth a couple billion dollars is because he has no interest in using any of that fortune to finance a new baseball stadium.

Not that the majority of those wealthy enough to list a sports team among their assets are any different. 

We keep hearing from those in charge that the teams belong to the fans, and those in charge are merely caretakers. The rest of us should take care not to fall for so much nonsense.

For the owners, sports are constructed on finance, which is acceptable if, as in the case of Los Angels Rams owner Stan Kroenke, you are willing to bankroll a stadium.  

Often all a fan can offer is loyalty, without which our games wouldn’t exist. There was no more loyal a fan base than that of the Oakland Raiders who stuck out their tongues and took off for Las Vegas.

Just as the A’s are in the process of doing.

The entire Athletics situation appears conspiratorial, a plot borrowed from the 1989 film “Major League,” in which a former showgirl out of — where else? — Las Vegas inherits the Cleveland Indians, purposely allows them to lose games and fans then move to another city.

Well, the A’s started reducing their roster by trading or failing to re-sign the stars who brought the spectators and won games. They are en route to the worst record in a century. The only item, or person, they lack is the inimitable Bob Uecker, whose portrayal — “Just a little bit outside” — was worthy of an Oscar if not the Hall of Fame.

All this doesn’t keep the Athletics in Oakland, however. Neither do the salty words about the three individuals painted on the boulder in the Montclair district. 

Unfortunately.

Thoughts of Venus and Wembanyama

The comparison is about time.  Also about talent and courage.  But isn't that always the situation in sport, where the world seems to turn at a speed that leaves us perplexed?

There she was, Venus Willams, all forehands and courage, reaching deep into her game and soul trying to preserve a career of greatness.

There he was, Victor Wembanyama, all smiles and potential, preparing to meet the media and expectations as he readied for a career in professional basketball where so many say he is destined for greatness.

Two athletes in two different sports and one thought. The future keeps challenging the past.

Venus just turned 43, an age when most tennis stars have left the courts and left us with memories of when they were young.

But part of what made Venus a champion, as with her younger sister Serena, is a relentless determination. Give her a racquet and let her slam her way to the Grand Slams.

She will be the one to decide when to retire, and why not?

It was an afternoon in Birmingham, England, where the Rothesay Classic, one of the many grass court preludes to Wimbledon was underway. The Tennis Channel was on the scene. And Venus was on a roll, ahead, 2-0 in the third set.

You're thinking, maybe it's the year 2000 once more. Maybe Venus' persistence — and our hopes — will be rewarded. But hopes are no match for youth. Williams suddenly seemed ancient, a relic.

Ostapenko, 26, a former French Open champion, won 10 straight points and eventually the match 6-3,5-7, 6-3. Inevitability, probably?  Dreams and drop shots die hard.

Still, Venus will not back off, and that is fine. She's earned her position and it shows. 

She can't hurt anyone except maybe her long-time fans, who are stung by the decline. Her competitors are more understanding.  

"She's a great champion, and that hasn't gone anywhere," Ostapenko said of Williams. "That's always going to be with her. She's an idol to a lot of people, so it was very special (to play her). That's why I got a little bit tight in the second set.”

Whether Wembanyama, the 7-foot-Frenchman who's had NBA executives in a frenzy, attains idol status is yet to be learned, but at 19 supposedly he's the man to dominate the NBA.

That the league draft came on television only a short time after the end of Venus Williams’ loss was ironic, the new kid taking his place shortly after the champion relegated hers.

Venus was only 14, her hair in white beads, when she made her professional debut at Oakland in October 1994.

Tennis was never the same.

We someday might say the same thing about the NBA because of Victor Wembanyama.

An Open of ups and downs — and a suriprise champion

LOS ANGELES — It was exactly the type of U.S. Open that could have been predicted in Southern California, full of wonderful play, grumbling golfers and an emotional champion who proved his skill but perhaps still has to prove himself to the public.

No question Wyndham Clark has game  — you don’t win any major, much less the nation’s championship, without one. But does he have a name?

Is he about to get the recognition of, well not Tiger Woods, because neither he nor anyone else in the sport could do that. But of Rory McIlroy, whom he beat down the stretch, or Brooks Koepka?

Clark came in with an even-par 70 Sunday to close the first Open ever at the long-exclusive Los Angeles Country Club and finished at 10-under par 270, one shot better than McIlroy. Scottie Scheffler was third at 273.

Rickie Fowler, who led all or part of the previous rounds after starting with an open single round low of 62, ended up at 275 after a faltering 75.

We’re only a few miles from Hollywood, not that century-old LACC wanted anything to do with the entertainment business, and Clark’s story is right off a tear-jerker script.

When Clark was growing up, and learning golf in Denver, his mother, Lisa, stuffed his pockets with notes reminding him never to take the easy way out

“When my mom was sick,” Clark, 29, told the New York Times about Lisa Clark, who died awhile ago. “I was in college and she told me: ‘Hey, play big. Play for something bigger than yourself. You have a platform to either witness, or help, or be a role model for so many people.’ And I’ve taken that to heart. When I’m out there playing, I want to do that for her.”

At the trophy presentation Sunday Rickie Fowler told Clark in the scoring area, “I think your mom would be proud.”

Clark happily agreed.     

“Yeah,” said Clark, “she’s always been proud of me, regardless of how I’m doing.”

As part of a week that was both successful and irritating — for him briefly, for others extensively — Clark complained about Saturday’s third round lasting until darkness because of late starting times — forced play until dark.

Koepka, who last month’s win the PGA Championship, didn’t like the set up at LACC, narrow greens, deep bunkers. Last year’s U.S. Open champion, Matt Fitzgerald, was concerned by a lack of cheering fans and because of the way tickets were sold, it didn’t feel it was an Open atmosphere.

Yet the Open made it through its ups and downs and provided Wyndham Clark, a fine champion if yet to have to prove himself to the public.

After three rounds it’s very much the Wide Open

LOS ANGELES — So players such as Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth missed the cut, while someone named Wyndham Clark is chasing the win.

What do you expect? It’s the U.S. Open isn’t it? Less a golf tournament than an exercise in confusion.

It doesn’t matter if the Open’s held in Massachusetts as last year or right here on the other side of the country, California as this year. The Open is utterly unpredictable.

That is, unless Tiger Woods is playing, and because of his physical problems that couldn’t be. 

The Open is, well, very open, chockablock full of great golfers and great stories and just enough double bogies to keep us both attentive and bewildered. The late Dan Jenkins called the Open a movable feast, shifting from course to course with historic venues as Merion and Pebble Beach to this year for the first time, the ultra-private Los Angeles Country Club.

LACC is tucked amongst modern high rises and old-line pretention where L.A. and Beverly Hills meet. No one was quite sure what to expect, especially the pros, and through the third round Saturday they’ve had everything — including on opening day 1 record low rounds of 62.

One of those was by the man they say is the best golfer never to win a major, Rickie Fowler.

After 54 holes, Fowler, up and down, in and out, and showing plenty of courage and almost enough touch, 3-putted the final hole to end up with an even par 70 and tied for first with Clark at 200 10-under. One shot back was Rory McIlroy, who had a 69. 

Wide open, indeed.

The sun was setting on what was close to the longest day of the year, but the round still was going — just as NBC, which televises the tournament.

TV networks are less concerned with competition than ratings, and a dusk finish along the Pacific Coast means a night-time finish back in the population centers of New York, Philly and Boston.

Bryson DeChambeau, who won the Open in 2020, had a 2-under 68.

“It’s just diabolical,” DeChambeau said of the course. “It’s more links-sy, like Britain, that’s the best way I can describe it. I feel like I’m playing a British Open right now.”

That comes in a month. Right now it’s the U.S. Open, the wide open. But isn’t it always.

That’s why it’s so difficult to win and so very important, no matter where it’s held.

For Dustin, Open 2nd hole troubles a 2nd time

LOS ANGELES — Another U.S. Open in California. Another second-hole meltdown for Dustin Johnson. Please refrain from any references to a golden state.

Thirteen years ago, in 2010, the Open was at Pebble Beach, and going into the final round Johnson was in first. Then he was in a funk, taking a seven on hole No. 2, normally a par-5 but played as a par-4 for the Open. 

You could say his game figuratively went south. He ended up with an 82 and tied for eighth.

Now the Open literally has gone south, to Los Angeles Country Club. In the intervening years, Johnson won a U.S. Open and a Masters. He’s a major champion--and still tormented by a second hole at a U.S. Open.

This time it was Friday in the June gloom of a southern Cal summer. This time he took an 8, a snowman, and a dreaded quadruple bogey on a 497-yard par-4.

This time, despite instantly dropping from a cumulative 6-under to 2-under, he didn’t blow a U.S. Open. Not with 36 holes to play and the course toughened after those record-low 62s Thursday. Not with potential disasters awaiting in the fiendishly prepared rough or the barranca that is the course landmark.

“To battle back,” said Johnson, whose birdie at the 18th enabled him to shoot an even-par 70. “I’m proud of that.”

Open courses are supposed to be difficult. The USGA probably had a few apoplectic officials after round one of the tournament, when not just one person broke the single-round scoring record, but two.

Usually, even the winner has one round of his four that requires a fortunate putt or a holed bunker shot. The idea at the majors is to play as well as you are able to for as long as you are able to. 

There’s an off-handed comment that growing old is not for sissies. Well, even though the issue certainly is different, neither are major golf championships.

The reluctant need not try. The conditions are testing, and the results are frequently frustrating, if not downright disappointing. It’s a work of persistence. You’re up against players as good as you. Rickie Fowler might do it at last. Or might never do it.

We used to say the same about Dustin Johnson. Now he’s one of the very best. And yet once again in California there he was at a U.S. Open making a mess of things.

“I was just trying to make a five,” said Johnson. “Didn’t hit that bad of a drive. I just hit it a little on the top so it didn’t quite cut enough. Caught the corner of the bunker and then chunked my bunker shot. Everything that you could do wrong I did wrong.”

Not really. He had a rotten hole, but at the halfway point he was only four shots behind.

“It could have gone the other way after the second hole,” said Johnson.

But it went the right way. Unlike after the second hole in the other Open in California.

U.S. Open — or a garden party?

LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Open used to be less of a golf tournament than a torture test, where birdies were rare, golfers were eternally frustrated and even the great Ben Hogan felt compelled to speak of a win by “bringing a monster to its knees.”

But the first round of the 2023 Open seemed more like a garden party at one of those estates near Los Angeles Country Club.

There were no monsters, just records.

The all-time low for a single round in an Open was broken twice in 15 minutes. After going unbroken for 50 years.

First Rickie Fowler shot 62, then almost before we blinked, so did Xander Schauffele.

“It’s not really what you expect playing in a U.S. Open,” said Schauffele.

Who knows what to expect in golf, a sport where even the best players seem bewildered by the new direction and what was known as the Royal and Ancient pastime now has been mortgaged to Saudi Arabia.

Well, we still know that the fewer strokes a golfer takes the better off he is, whatever the course  — Oakland Hills near Detroit, Hogan’s kneed monster or the previously untapped beauty of LACC’s North Course.

Collin Morikawa, who grew up in the L.A. Area before going to Cal, said earlier in the week, that the grass at the course might bother contestants, who are used to the kikuyu fairways at nearby Riviera, which they play every February in the event now called the Genesis.

Not so much.

Two 62s, eight-under par, and a spate of other low scores, including a 67 from Bryson DeChambeau who you wouldn’t figure had the accuracy needed at LACC — even though he did win a U.S. Open in 2020.

If very private LACC, amidst mansions, shopping centers and high price restaurants close to Beverly Hills, is unfamiliar to most in golf, the names on the leaderboard are the exact opposite.

Fowler has been touted ever since he turned pro years ago. Schauffele was the Tokyo Olympics champion. Both grew up in Southern California.

Dustin Johnson was up there. Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler as well. And even for a while love-him, despise-him, Phil Mickelson. If not the best in golf — and they certainly seem to be — then among the most recognized.

One way to judge the quality of a golf course is from the names of those in contention. LACC certainly eliminated any possible doubts on day one.

Which is something Fowler has a chance to do, finally winning the major that has eluded him since turning pro after a brilliant amateur career. In 2014, there were seconds in the U.S. and British Opens and a third in the PGA. After that Fowler lost his way.

“It’s been long and tough,” he conceded about the struggles. “But it makes it worth it being back to where we are now.”

Which is sharing the lead.

Schauffele spent time talking about the weather, classic California coastal June Gloom, which was interesting for a guy who grew up in San Diego.

“I’d say the sun didn’t come out, and it was misting in the morning,” said Schauffele, “so the greens held a little more moisture than anticipated for myself at least.”

And the record 62?

 “II mean, I don’t know, It’s just Thursday.”

 You can’t fool those golfers.

Johnny Miller: No fear holding a 5 Iron or a microphone

LOS ANGELES — He never was afraid to go for the flagstick or the jugular.  When Johnny Miller was holding a 5 iron you knew he would be on target. As he could be holding a microphone.

It’s mid-June, the start of another U.S. Open, the tournament that meant everything to Miller.   

The tournament he thought he could win as an amateur. The tournament he did win as a young pro.

How quickly the years pass. How slowly the memories fade.

How wonderful Miller’s contributions have been to the sport where he gained fame as a hell-bent champion and later recognition as a forthright TV commentator has given him a prestigious honor.  

Miller on Tuesday night, in a ceremony that caused him to tear up, was presented the Bobby Jones Award for sportsmanship, character and integrity.

Miller is 76, many years and shots distant from that 1966 Open on his home course, the Olympic Club in San Francisco.  

It’s the US. Open that was best known for Arnold Palmer squandering a 7-shot lead with nine holes to play and then losing an 18-hole playoff to Billy Casper.  

It’s also the Open a novice golf writer for the San Francisco Chronicle was assigned to cover Miller, a hometown kid, 19 and attending (and playing for) BYU.   

Miller had learned the game by hitting balls into a canvas backstop his father, Larry, hung in the garage of their home in the Sunset District.

Seems old-fashioned decades later. Seems brilliant. 

Johnny won the U.S. Junior. Johnny won on Tour. Johnny won the 1974 U.S. Open at Oakmont, closing with a 63 that for so long was the single-round low in an Open.

What I recall about that final round was how John’s wife, Linda, figuring he had no chance after three rounds, stayed with their young children at the motel. It was Birdies in his first four holes that brought her to the course.

Miller never was one for excuses. One year being locked-in competition at the Crosby with Jack Nicklaus at Pebble Beach, Miller whacked his approach into the bushes on 16.

“A perfect shank,” he affirmed later in the press room. 

Nor was he one for false modesty.

Consider his words about that ’73 Open, the one Sports Illustrated headlined as “Miller’s Miracle.”

“It sort of made…,” he began, then halted. “It was one of those finishes that you just almost don't forget. Every guy that was any good at all from Palmer, Nicklaus, Player, Trevino, all the guys who were in front of me. It wasn't like it was a bunch of guys you didn't know who they were. It was just all the who's who in golf were vying for that U.S. Open at Oakmont. I had to go through all those guys to win it outright.”

“I knew after four holes — I was six strokes back and I birdied the first four holes and I knew that I was in the running. The hair on the back of my neck sort of stood up when I said that to myself: You've got a chance to win. That made the adrenaline just start pumping.” 

He had been preparing to win a U.S. Open virtually from the first time he banged a shot against that canvas in the garage. His time had come.

“In my career, I didn't let pressure affect me tee to green. Tee to green I was sort of bulletproof. But it affected my putting, and I left a couple of short putts short of the hole.”

No matter. He wasn’t short of his goal. He was a U.S. Open champion.

Koepka, the man who wins majors

LOS ANGELES — Brooks Koepka is the most famous golfer we don’t know, a champion content in his achievements — and to heck with everything else.

He talks like the baseball player he once wanted to be, candidly, unpretentiously. If that isn’t good enough to get him into a television commercial, well his play has put him into the winner’s circle.

Especially at the majors, the tournaments Koepka himself admits are the only ones that matter.

A month ago he won the PGA Championship for the third time and starting Thursday at Los Angeles Country Club, he has the chance to win the U.S. Open for a third time

No song and dance routines. No appearances on late-night TV. Just comments that reflect reassuring confidence.

“I'm pretty sure I know what it takes to compete in majors,” he said Tuesday. “I've won five of them and been second four times. And just over my track record of how to prepare when you're here, how to prepare when you're home, I've got that, I guess, on lock.”

Would Tiger Woods have said something like that, even if he believed it? Would Arnold Palmer? 

But they weren’t 34-year-old Brooks Koepka, whose image never matched his results.

 It would be appropriate if that changed here at LACC, whose image of obsessive restriction may be altered with the playing of a tournament whose very name, Open, means it is available to those eligible.

 Now the oil sheik wealth of the LIV has overwhelmed the PGA Tour (Don’t call it a merger, it’s a partnership), was the PGA Tour explanation — and so we may soon see more of Koepka.

Whether he will apply for readmittance to the PGA Tour which banned him when he accepted the enormous cash payoff to join LIV is unknown at present.

Sure, we can ask Koepka, but surely he will give us that repetitive answer that he is concentrating on, yes, winning the Open. As if talking about something other than the blind shot to LACC’s seventh green would throw off his game plan.

 “It’s a tough golf course,” Koepka said about LACC North. 

Not quite a surprise, certainly. You think they’re going to hold what amounts to America’s golfing championship at someplace easy? Or simple.

An Open Curse and the way it is prepared is meant to challenge every shot in your bag, from tee to green, from fairway to rough, from bunker to putting surface. 

Open entrants get frustrated, defeated almost from the moment their opening tee shot creeps into the rough. Koepka understood not to get discouraged, which is an acquired quality. 

Koepka said chaos prevails in the majors, particularly at the US Open. Asked for an example to be referred to the 2018 Open at Shinnecock Hills on Long Island.

“Everybody was… complaining,” he said. “I just felt like it was — they were all so focused on the golf course they kind of forgot about what was going on, that they were there to play a major championship. Okay, the greens are pretty fast. But if you leave yourself with an uphill putt, it's not too bad.”

 Neither was Koepka’s finish, he won.

LA Country Club (US) Opens up

LOS ANGELES — What, you didn’t know there was a Los Angeles Country Club? The members would be pleased. Ecstatic really. The place is so private it makes Cypress Point seem like the local muni.

The name isn’t even posted at the vehicle entrance. Just the address. It’s on Wilshire Boulevard in a neighborhood where no one is likely to stop by to borrow a cup of sugar.

Or a pencil to keep score on the back nine.

But this is all about to change. The U.S Open will be played at LACC starting Thursday — specifically on the mysterious North Course — and the masses will be swarming over a hunk of the property said to be worth between $6 and $9 billion.

A hunk of land that seems as much rumor as reality.

In an area that, in addition to sunshine and orange trees, owes its existence to the art of promotion as well as the development of cinematography.

The movie business.

But you wouldn’t have found anyone in the entertainment biz on the LACC membership roster. Until recently no Jews, no producers, no actors.

Randolph Scott, who appeared in numerous Hollywood westerns in the 1950s was rejected when he applied for membership because of his profession. 

“Anyone who’s seen my movies knows I can’t act," protested Scott.

There are dozens of apocryphal stories about people seeking to get into LACC and failing despite seemingly impeccable credentials.

A wealthy Texas Oilman who had everything in his favor except his name, Rosenberg, which made him appear to be Jewish even though he wasn’t.

It was then suggested he apply at nearby Hillcrest, which in turn passed him off (remember this is apocryphal from Hollywood folk), and told him sorry, it didn’t accept Gentiles.

“I’m an SOB,” gasped Rosenberg. Then tried Riviera he was informed.

Which has nothing to do with the fact the only time the Open was held in Los Angeles. It was at Riviera, in 1948, and the winner was Ben Hogan. A long time ago, 75 years. The Open has been held in San Francisco (Olympic), Pebble Beach, San Diego (Torrey Pines) but not LA. Until now.

There’s a saying that if you delay drinking a wonderful bottle of wine too long it’s like turning a Picasso to the wall. Better to get a taste. So it is with a famous golf course.

The late Sandy Tatum gets at least some of the credit. Maybe most of it. Tatum grew up in Los Angeles and had access to LACC.

An NCAA champion at Stanford in the 1940s, Tatum believed in what some call the “growing of the game.”

He was the force behind the improvement of San Francisco’s Harding Park, where the clubhouse carries his name. This Open at Los Angeles Country Club carries his spirit.

Golf war is over; Saudis won, of course

There are two inescapable rules in life: Everything is negotiable. Money counts.

And so has pro golf become yet another toy in the multi-billion dollar repository of Saudi Arabia. 

The game has been sold to the oil sheiks. And please don’t whisper the word hypocrite, even though the guy who was permitted to remain in control of the PGA Tour concedes we outlanders will do exactly this.

The Scots gave us golf back in the 16th Century. The Saudis, in something called the Public Investment Fund (a clever name for a very private and restricted nation), bought it back over the weekend.

Don’t believe flagsticks were included.

For the past few weeks, the LIV Tour has been making life miserable and golf purses very expensive for the PGA and DP (British) tours, stealing top names (such as Brooks Koepka who won the PGA Championship three weeks ago) and stealing attention.

The whole LIV (read Saudi) plan was to force the PGA and DP tours to merge with poor little (oops, rich little). To no one’s surprise, it worked.

Because the people who back LIV have crude oil pumping on their property, they likewise have a wretched, terrifying record on human rights and gender equality.  

And oh yeah, they’re accused of financing and formulating the 9-11 attacks — the Golf Channels’ Brandel Chamblee unflinchingly refers to the Saudi regime as “murderous dictators.”

But problems in golf had to be corrected, and so after secret meetings that started in London, apparently the problems have been. No more infighting. 

And now Yasir Al-Rumayyn; governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, will become chairman of the new organization.

Sure, relatives and friends of those who perished in the 9-11 attacks protested the new agreement, but golf is going to do well. Additionally, Donald Trump, who owns courses on which LIV tournaments will be played, is delighted.

Not that the golfers were pleased with the new arrangements, particularly since they weren’t told about them until a meeting Tuesday afternoon following practice rounds at the Canadian Open.

One golfer said he only learned about the merger through Twitter, hours after it had been announced in the media.

Observers say the Saudi involvement is a reflection of “sport washing,” an attempt to improve the country’s negative image by holding events or investing in soccer teams, such as the Premier League’s Newcastle franchise, which had a winning year.

Tiger Woods reportedly was offered $300-$500 million to join LIV, but he and Rory McIlroy stayed loyal to the PGA Tour. Then again they had bankrolls almost as large as a Saudi prince.

Those players who did jump from the PGA Tour were given lifetime suspensions, but — here’s where the hypocritical comment of PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan comes into play — the probability is they’ll be welcomed back.

The war between Tours is over. It’s hard to say whether golf is no longer a loser, but unquestionably Saudi Arabia is the winner.

Money always counts.