So you're one of the roughly 42,000 fortunate fans with a ticket to the first two days of next week's U.S. Open, and you just found out that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are playing together in the same group. Does that mean you're going to follow them?
Uh, is a Torrey Pine a pine tree?
It's going to be a forest of people out there. Woods is like flypaper to fans in a normal event, but now that the USGA has decided to put him and Mickelson and third-ranked Adam Scott in the same group, well, let's just say the chances of overcrowding are a lot higher than they used to be.
"We've kicked that round," said Mike Davis, the USGA's senior director of rules and competitions. "Will they get 35% of the crowd, 50%? We just don't know, but obviously, it's going to be a lot."
It was as simple as 1-2-3, the notion that the USGA would put the top three-ranked players together for the first two rounds of the U.S. Open, a bonanza of star power that's destined to become either an instant hit or a disaster in the making.
The U.S. Open pairings are usually as constant as the U.S. Open rough, but an opportunity to pair Woods and Mickelson at Torrey Pines, where they both have had success since they were teens, made sense to the USGA.
Davis said he was convinced Wednesday after running into Woods at Torrey Pines. He watched him practice, asked Woods about it, and came away convinced Woods was not only ready to play, he was ready to play nice with Phil. Or as nice as they can manage anyway.
For the USGA, it was a no-brainer, Davis said.
"It's a new opportunity, a rare one, we've got No. 1 and No. 2, they've got so much history at Torrey Pines, it just seemed like the right time to do it."
Maybe, but chances are that Lee Janzen, Steve Flesch and Rich Beem aren't going to be quite so jolly. They're the group behind Woods, virtually guaranteeing them less than a serene day at the golf course.
The group ahead of Woods-Mickelson-Scott might have it even worse, but only if thousands of people moving around while you're trying to play a shot is something that bothers you. The group ahead of the Big Three consists of Mark Calcavecchia, Oliver Wilson and Joe Ogilvie.
Davis thinks fans will leapfrog holes, like skipping one to go to the next and set up shop there to wait for the Big Three. It's also his opinion that Woods draws huge crowds regardless of the tournament or the venue, so any group behind or ahead of him knows the situation beforehand.
