SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The record-setting U.S. Open winner. The Masters champion. The top-ranked player in the world.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
The Olympic Club clobbered Rory McIlroy, Bubba Watson and Luke Donald in two rounds at the U.S. Open, sending some of the most prominent players on the planet home before the weekend. All three missed the cut, looking more like amateurs at a local course than professionals in a major championship.
“Disappointed,” said McIlroy, the second-ranked player who finished at 268 last year at Congressional to break the 72-hole record by four shots. “It wasn’t the way I wanted to play.”
Not even close.
World No. 1 Luke Donald finished at 11-over par, McIlroy 10 over and Watson 9 over. While 65 players were good enough to hang around at 8 over or better, the three stars were among 91 others not quite ready for “golf’s toughest test.”
So long, San Francisco.
“I felt a little uncomfortable,” Donald said. “I felt I wasn’t compressing the ball like I should have been. I didn’t have quite the full control. In previous years, I probably would have panicked a little bit. But I tried to go out and just kind of trust it and even in the practice days I wasn’t quite comfortable.”
Feeling uneasy is exactly what organizers wanted.
That, and a smaller field on the weekend.
The USGA decided this year to eliminate the 10-shot rule in which players within 10 strokes of the lead make the cut. Starting at this year’s championship, the cut was the top 60 and ties.
USGA executive director Mike Davis said the idea behind the new rule was to limit the number of players making the cut _ 108 did so Oakland Hills in 1996 _ and prevent slow play that could force a two-tee start in threesomes.
The flip side was 1993, when Ernie Els made the cut because of the 10-shot rule. He closed with 68-67 on the weekend to tie for seventh, which made him exempt for qualifying the following year. Els won that next year at Oakmont for the first of his three majors.
Watson, 2010 British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen and Dustin Johnson were among the notables who would’ve been spared this year. So would’ve Casey Martin and his cart, too.
“I haven’t really looked at the leaderboard,” said Phil Mickelson, whose second-round 71 put him at 7 over and safe. “I’ve been more on the cut line.”
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