The Bench Jockeys

The Pairings for the first two rounds of play at the US Open at Congressional in Bethesda, Maryland have been posted and there are quite a few alluring threesomes.  Undoubtedly, purposeful player selections have been made by the USGA for the Open which will be without its top spectator draw, Tiger Woods – out with an Achilles injury.  Wasn’t it Achilles who was invulnerable to any weakness except an injury to his heel which was held by his mother, Thetis, as she dipped him into the river Styx to make him immortal?  Clearly, there are other parallels and some alternative body part references which unite this Greek myth to the post-modern allegory of Tiger Woods, but I digress…

As is the custom with the Open, “super pairings” are sprinkled about the 156-man playing field to create buzz, keep spectator traffic under control, ease operational needs for televised coverage, and of course, to prove to golf fans just how very clever the USGA pairing committee really is.  Although lacking an American presence, the marquee grouping of  Luke Donald, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer offers Open-watchers the top three golfers in the world in a nice neat package.  The next best pairing -fortunately playing at a time when the Donald group is not – is Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson, immediately followed by a pairing of three recent Master’s Champions: Charl Schwartzel, Trevor Immelman, and Zach Johnson.

Other pairings of note combine reigning U.S. Open winner Graeme McDowell, British Open Championship winner Louis Oosthuizen, and U.S. Amateur winner Peter Uihlein.  Then the pairing commitee decided to get cutesy.  There is the New Spanish Armada of Miguel Angel Jimenez, Sergio Garcia, and Alvaro Quiros;, followed by the Brothers Molinari and teen phenom, Matteo Manassero to round out  the Italian Stallions.  There is the all-Swede Abba fan club grouping of Henrik Stenson, Johan Edfors, and Fredrik Jacobson (it’s too bad the commitee did not group Karlsson, Noren and Hanson for a little $2 Nassau sidebet) as well as the USGA’s own makeshift version of the Asian Invasion with Ryo Ishikawa, Anthony Kim,  and Y.E. Yang.  In a most unusual pairing, even if Nicolas Colsaerts of Belgium can speak English, I am not sure he will understand many of the words coming out of the mouths of fellow pairing mates and good ol’ Georgia boys, Heath Slocum and Russell Henley – hopefully they won’t skin him.

As for early predictions, it’s easy to pick one of the favorites, but we think players from the Retief Goosen, David Toms and Steve Stricker group will be in the hunt on Sunday, along with members of the Matt Kuchar, Paul Casey, and K.J. Choi pairing.  The Bench Jockeys will be on-site for the entirety of the Open and with the volunteer schedule will be following the back-to-back pairings of Rickie Fowler, Ian Poulter, and Hunter Mahan & Camilo Villegas, Aaron Baddeley,  and Brandt Snedeker on Thursday as well as the Goosen/Mickelson groups on Friday.

To view the entire pairing list for the rounds on Thursday and Friday, click here.  http://www.golfweek.com/news/2011/jun/10/2011-us-open-usga-announces-pairings/

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 12th, 2011 at 14:26 and is filed under Chazerai, Professional Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.