The Golf Watch

2010 U.S. Open Storylines: Compton, Tryon, Jiménez, Duval...

Excited about U.S. Open week? All of the talk the next few days will be about Tiger, Phil and Lee. Here are some other storylines to watch out for:

1. Two years after his second heart transplant, Erik Compton heads to Pebble Beach. 

2. At age 16, Ty Tryon was expected to be the next big thing, especially after making the cut at the Honda Classic. Now, Tryon is 26. Time flies. 

3. 5 years ago, Jason Gore played in the final group of the U.S. Open, alongside Retief Goosen.  A lot has happened since that memorable weekend. Gore claimed his first and only victory on Tour in 2005, but after a couple of rocky years, he is splitting his time between the PGA Tour and Nationwide.  He has only made 2 out of 6 cuts on the Nationwide this year. He'll be hoping to recreate some of the magic of Pinehurst in 2005.

4. Miguel Ángel Jiménez will be recognized for years to come for his strong Ryder Cup play. But for some, he will be remembered as finishing second to Tiger Woods at the US Open at Pebble in 2000. It doesn't matter that he finished 15 strokes behind, he still finished second.

5. Hunter Mahan, Ricky Barnes, Nick Watney. My guess is that this threesome will get the least amount of air time on television, but has the greatest potential to go low.nAll three of these guys are known to play well on tough courses. Look out.  

6. Martin Kaymer, Sean O'Hair, Charl Schwartzel.The USGA always gets creative when assigning groupings for the first two days. This one I'm still trying to figure out.  Germany, U.S., South Africa? Maybe they were going for a World Cup feel. 

7. Jeff Overton and Rickie Fowler. Those are two names you won't be seeing this week.  Neither player qualified for the Open, but arguably should have. Both are inside the top-15 on the money list. Maybe one of these two should have gotten the sponsors exemption instead of Vijay.

8. David Duval. He was a contender at the U.S. Open last year. He finished runner-up at Pebble Beach twice in the mid-90's. In 2000, he finished T-7. A fine track record if you ask me.

Compton's heroic journey continues

No cart and 18 holes later, Erik Compton is at 1-under-par T-14. 

[Steve Elling column]

Compton misses Q-school stage three by one stroke

After reading John Feinstein's Tales from Q-School, I learned that missing the cut in the second stage of Q-school is often much harder on a player than missing out in the third stage-mainly because if you make it to the final stage, you will at least leave with some sort of status on either the PGA or Nationwide Tours. 

Erik Compton, who was the highest profiled player in stage two, missed making it to stage three by one stroke.  Compton had his second heart transplant earlier in the year, and his play has been an inspiration.

I know it's a shameless plug, but I recommend going to Golfweek.com to check out Jeff Rude's interview with Compton.  I've read article after article about Compton's story, starting with the fine piece by Jim Moriaty in Golf World, but hearing Compton speak on camera is an emotional experience.  Rude conducts the interview with class. 

Compton receives sponsors invite to PGA Tour event

Kudos to Erik Compton, who recently got through the first stage of Q-School, for scoring a sponsors invite to the last PGA Tour event of the year in Disney. 

Compton gets nod to use cart for Q School

As a follow-up to Jim Moriaty's in-depth and heartfelt article on Erik Compton in Golf World, Rex Hoggard of Golfweek writes on the Tour blog that the PGA Tour has accepted Compton's request to use a golf cart during the first stage of Q-School.  Hoggard adds:

According to published reports, the Tour also granted Compton a waiver to use a beta blocker which is part of the circuit’s banned substance list.

This is the right move for the PGA Tour, not only from an ethical standpoint, but for publicity purposes as well.  After the damage to the Tour's image during the Casey Martin case--and the LPGA English mandate debacle this summer--this makes the most sense.