It's U.S. Open week and the Lake Course at Olympic is perhaps the toughest setup in the rota of courses used for the toughest test in golf. The course was built on a sand dune nestled on an immaculate track between the Pacific Ocean and Lake Merced. The sandy base ensures some of the fastest greens Tour pros will ever putt in their careers, and the USGA has already had to water them down to keep things from getting extreme. Olympic's six doglegs also all have fairways that bank the opposite way from the hole routing. It's an incredible test that Mike Davis will ensure is fair.
In addition to creating the toughest setup, the USGA is also renowned for creating groups ripe with juicy storylines, whether it's by links in players' backgrounds or simply by grouping the most successful players in the game. They have done that again this year, putting Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Bubba Watson together. While Woods enters coming off a win at Muirfield Village, there are still plenty of questions about his game and swing and how it will hold up on a major championship test like this. Watson and Mickelson are also not in top form, but Lefty continues to set his sights on the national championship -- the "white whale" of his career. Their group will go off at 10:33 a.m. on Thursday.
The USGA also created the UK equivalent of that power threesome, putting Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, and Rory McIlroy together. All three have held the No. 1 ranking over the past year, with McIlroy and Donald jostling for the top spot most recently. Rory is looking to defend his dominating win at Congressional last year, but he had missed three straight cuts before adding Memphis to his schedule last week. He was in contention at the St. Jude before rinsing his tee shot on the No. 18. Rory's group will tee off at 4:29 p.m. ET
For the third time since 2008, the USGA will schedule the tournament to be played during primetime on the east coast. It has been a successful format, started at Torrey Pines in 2008 and repeated at Pebble in 2010. A schedule of tee times below:
Morning wave off No. 1 tee:
10:15 a.m.: Scott Langley, Steve Lebrun, Beau Hossler (a)
10:26 a.m.: Jason Bohn, Raphael Jacquelin, J. B. Park
10:37 a.m.: Michael Thompson, TBD, Steve Marino
10:48 a.m.: Brendan Jones, George Coetzee, Gregory Bourdy
10:59 a.m.: Patrick Cantlay (a), Jonathan Byrd, Kyle Stanley
11:10 a.m.: Retief Goosen, Vijay Singh, Zach Johnson
11:21 a.m.: Paul Casey, Hiroyuki Fujita, Mark Wilson
11:32 a.m.: Adam Scott, Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson
11:43 a.m.: Tim Clark Toru Taniguchi, Rod Pampling
11:54 a.m.: Francesco Molinari, Bo Van Pelt, Peter Hanson
12:05 p.m.: D. A. Points, Dong-Hwan Lee, Kevin Streelman
12:16 p.m.: Edward Loar, Paul Claxton, Alistair Presnell
12:27 p.m.: Mark McCormick, Nick Sherwood (a), Cole Howard
Morning wave off No. 9 tee:
10 a.m.: Shane Bertsch, Martin Flores, Tommy Biershenk
10:11 a.m.: Scott Piercy, Matthew Baldwin, Matt Bettencourt
10:22 a.m.: Thomas Bjorn, Kevin Na, Branden Grace
10:33 a.m.: Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Bubba Watson
10:44 a.m.: Joe Ogilvie, Stephen Ames, Tim Herron
10:55 a.m.: Davis Love III, Padraig Harrington, David Toms
11:06 a.m.: Carl Pettersson, Charl Schwartzel, Charles Howell III
11:17 a.m.: Robert Karlsson, Bob Estes, Robert Rock
11:28 a.m.: K. J. Choi, Y. E. Yang, K. T. Kim
11:39 a.m.: Fredrik Jacobson, Robert Garrigus, Alexander Noren
11:50 a.m.: Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, Sang-Moon Bae, Rafael Cabrera-Bello
12:01 p.m.: Marc Warren, Anthony Summers, Michael Allen
12:12 p.m.: Hunter Hamrick, Tim Weinhart, Scott Smith
Afternoon wave off No. 1 tee:
3:45 p.m.: Casey Martin, Cameron Wilson (a), Dennis Miller
3:56 p.m.: Jim Herman, William Lunde, David Mathis
4:07 p.m.: Nicolas Colsaerts, Charlie Wi, Simon Dyson
4:18 p.m.: Alvaro Quiros, Gary Woodland, John Senden
4:29 p.m.: Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald, Lee Westwood
4:40 p.m.: Jim Furyk, Sergio Garcia, Graeme McDowell
4:51 p.m.: Stewart Cink, Trevor Immelman, Lucas Glover
5:02 p.m.: Ernie Els, Geoff Ogilvy, Angel Cabrera
5:13 p.m.: Martin Laird, Ben Crane, Anders Hansen
5:24 p.m.: Matteo Manassero, Aaron Baddeley, Miguel Angel Jimenez
5:35 p.m.: Brian Harman, TBD, Mikko Ilonen
5:46 p.m.: Brice Garnett, TBD, Jesse Mueller
5:57 p.m.: Brian Rowell, Alberto Sanchez (a), Brian Gaffney
Afternoon wave off No. 9 tee:
3:30 p.m.: John Peterson, Morgan Hoffmann, Aaron Watkins
3:41 p.m.: Jeff Curl, Nicholas Thompson, Casey Wittenberg
3:52 p.m.: Soren Kjeldsen, Chez Reavie, Peter Lawrie
4:03 p.m.: Michael Campbell, Olin Browne, Joe Durant
4:14 p.m.: Bill Haas, Nick Watney, Brandt Snedeker
4:25 p.m.: Martin Kaymer, Hunter Mahan, Justin Rose
4:36 p.m.: Steve Stricker, Ian Poulter, Matt Kuchar
4:47 p.m.: Jason Day, Louis Oosthuizen, Jason Dufner
4:58 p.m.: Rickie Fowler, Ryo Ishikawa, Dustin Johnson
5:09 p.m.: Hunter Haas, Tadahiro Takayama, Lee Slattery
5:20 p.m.: Alex Cejka, Kevin Chappell, Blake Adams
5:31 p.m.: James Hahn, Darron Stiles, Roberto Castro
5:42 p.m.: Brooks Koepka (a), TBD, Samuel Osborne
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