Open and Closed

Angel Cabrera takes a Major, nice work. He was fun to watch, man, he was pacing around chain-smoking like he was in a maternity ward. Made the shots that needed to get made all the way down the wire, played a helluva round.

Jim Furyk's 3 straight birds on the back 9 put him in the mix. But I never felt like he would get it done. And he blew up on 17 right on cue. Tiger just didn't finish his birdie putts--ditto, Ames who had plenty of chances to pad his lead and just couldn't knock them down--but otherwise struck the ball well for 2 straight days. Baddeley was a train wreck, too bad, waiting for that kid to take off and Sunday at Oakmont can't be the easiest place to do it.

And Oakmont is the worse possible course I could imagine. The fairways are narrow and jut off in weird angles, the rough is thicker than a Colombian drug cartel, there's freakin' sand all over the place, and everything's on a hill. The greens play fast but then bite right at the cup and of course there on a hill too. It sucks from stem to stern: the drives leave you absolutely no safe haven, the short game is like shooting on a pool table and the putts run fast and curvy except where you want them to. +5 to win the US Open seems ungainly but perhaps it made for the best possible golf.