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Thursday, Jun. 17 First groups out must rise early ESPN Golf Online staff and news services
PINEHURST, N.C. -- The 99th edition of the U.S. Open will get an earlier start than usual.
The United States Golf Association has pushed up the first tee time during Thursday and Friday rounds to 6:30 a.m., a half-hour earlier than normal.
Jumbo Ozaki, David Toms and Brendel Chamblee get the early-bird honors in the opening round, and Sven Struver, Jeff Gallagher and Andrew Magee tee off first Friday.
The USGA said the early tee times are not necessarily aimed at slow play in the 156-player field -- commonplace at U.S. Opens because of the difficulty of the courses -- but as a safeguard against thunderstorms that can plague the South during June afternoons.
"If we run into some weather delays, we wanted to make sure that we've used all the available daylight and don't leave players out on the golf course Thursday and Friday," said USGA vice
president Trey Holland. "We'd feel bad if we had five groups that are out on Friday and we need to make a cut, and we had started at 7 o'clock. We would have lost a half-hour of daylight over the course of the day."
But the USGA didn't consider having players tee off of both Nos. 1 and 10 to start their Open rounds -- something the pros are used to doing the first two rounds of almost all PGA Tour events.
"We're solidly opposed to that," Holland said. "We believe the Open championship should be played the way the golf course architect laid out the golf course, and we'll continue to use the No. 1 tee format."
But Davis Love III scoffs at that thought, preferring to think about the extra two hours of play the back nine would receive in the morning and the extra two hours the front nine would get in the evening if they started players on both halves.
"If you could play it faster, (all the players) would go for that," Love said.
Not that Pinehurst No. 2 would be a good U.S. Open course to start that practice. It doesn't have a traditional turn, with the 10th tee located nearly at the farthest point on the course from the clubhouse. After the No. 1 tee, the closest tee to the clubhouse is No. 14. |
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