Notebook
reporter’s
By Jim Moriarty
4: 55 p.m.
With a birdie on the 10th hole, his fourth in a five-hole
stretch, Webb Simpson emerges for the first time all
week as a legitimate threat to claim the U.S. Open title.
sprinkler head, and Simpson wonders if he can get relief.
Again, Gist offers the same answer: no drop. Despite the
verdict, Simpson manages a deft up-and-do wn for par to
finish at one over for the championship.
6: 15 p.m.
Simpson stands over his third shot at the 16th hole, he
calls over rules official Skip Gist who is following his group.
Simpson wants to know if he could get a drop because his
lie, in the first cut of rough, was trampled grass from traffic
that had passed through the hole. Gist makes a quick
ruling: no drop. “It wasn’t a crossing area,” he says. “And
his ball wasn’t in the fairway so it didn’t matter.”
6: 54 p.m.
After a massive duck hook off the tee on the par- 5 16th,
Furyk misses a putt that would salvage par, falling to two
over. It’s the first time all day that the 2003 U. S. Open
champion doesn’t hold at least a share of the lead.
6: 21 p.m.
Ernie Els’ bid for a third U. S. Open title comes to a
painful end on the 16th hole. One stroke off the lead, the
Big Easy pulls his 9-iron approach long and left, the ball
rolling down the shaved slope around the green. Using
a putter, Els tries to run his fourth shot along the ground
but doesn’t hit it hard enough, the ball rolling back
toward his feet, resulting in a costly bogey.
7: 10 p.m.
As Furyk putts for birdie on the 17th green, wife Tabitha
stands with their kids outside the ropes by the 18th tee,
eyes closed waiting for the crowd’s reaction. When the
gallery groans, she shakes her head and moves the kids
inside the ropes, where they take a knee and prepare to
watch the final hole.
6: 26 p.m.
For all the attention he has received the previous few
days, Hossler’s impressive Open run ends with a thud
on the 18th. Needing par to secure a share of low amateur honors with future University of Texas teammate
Jordan Spieth, Hossler instead finishes with a double
bogey to allow his friend to claim the honor outright.
One consolation for Hossler: Earlier in the day LPGA star
Paula Creamer said on Twitter that she would go to the
prom with the Orange County, Calif., junior.
7: 27 p.m.
Having missed a 24-foot birdie try that gives Simpson
the victory, McDowell walks off the 18th green having
made one stroke too many to claim his second U. S.
Open title in three years. As Mike Davis approaches
offering condolences, McDowell is quick to stick out
his hand and say to the USGA executive director,
“Awesome job.”
7: 49 p.m.
As if the hats Davis wears aren’t already numerous, he
takes on one more task during the trophy presentation
for Simpson: bouncer. When a crackpot making bird
sounds runs on the 18th green, Davis proceeds to yank
him out of the television camera view.
6: 45 p.m.
Simpson calls Gist over to the right side of the 18th green
and asks for another ruling. This time his ball was in a
depression that looked like it might once have been a
11:03 p.m.
McDowell posts a picture on Twitter of a full pint of Guinness with an appropriate caption: “Consolation prize.”
When the fog with the fancy maritime
name rolls across Olympic Club, the old
quote attributed to Mark Twain, “The cold-est winter I ever spent was a summer in
San Francisco” inevitably gets trotted out.
There’s no real problem with this except
that Twain probably never said it. He did
say something along those lines once, but
it was about Paris.
Twain moved to San Francisco in June
of 1864, reputedly to avoid prosecution
in Nevada for dueling. He had been the
Nevada correspondent for the San Francisco Morning Call and latched on with the
folded-over broadsheet when he arrived
in the city. His beats included, but were
not confined to, the courts, theater and
any other item of interest that would now
make a perfectly wretched blog post. It
wasn’t an altogether satisfactory association. He referred to his journalistic career
as, “fearful drudgery, soulless drudgery,
and almost destitute of interest.” His
term of employment ended in October
when it was suggested by his employer
that he would be happier elsewhere, so he
resigned.
Although his items appearing in the
Morning Call carried no byline, there are
some you could take a good country stab
at identifying, like this coverage of the lo-
cal bigamist, Isaac Hingman. “The story of
the illegal wife is plausible,” says the item
dated July 8, 1864, “and if it is true, Mr.
Hingman ought to be severely dealt with.
But not too severely—we go in for modera-
tion in all things, and, considering all the
circumstances of this case it might be a
questionable application of power to do
more than hang him. To hang him a little
while—say thirty or forty minutes—ought
to be about the fair thing, though. He
wants to marry too many people; and he
needs treatment that will tend to check
this propensity.”
Sounds a lot like the U.S. Open setup
philosophy.
