First round belongs to a couple of hicks

LA JOLLA -- The 108th U.S. Open rolled out the green carpet Thursday and produced a full-on rock star treatment -- the Tiger-Phil-Scott trio -- and of course, no one in that group took the first-round lead at Torrey Pines.

That distinction belonged to 29-year-old PGA Tour rookie Kevin Streelman, who has missed seven cuts so far, and 33-year-old Justin Hicks, best known for coming from Wyandotte, Mich., for graduating from something called the Montgomery Tour and for not being the "other" Justin Hicks.

The Justin Hicks who isn't tied for the lead of the U.S. Open is a local teaching pro at Stadium Golf Center. The Justin Hicks who shot a three-under-par 68 and is tied for the lead of the U.S. Open looked up during his round and saw his wife walking with the other Justin Hicks.

"I said 'Wow, that's kind of weird,' " said Hicks, who met his namesake earlier in the week.

Here's something else that was kind of weird: The Big Three got around the course without being suffocated by galleries that would probably qualify as suburbs.

The first round of the U.S. Open was long on star quality, but kind of short on sub-par rounds. That list featured Hicks and Streelman, but included only nine others, with Geoff Ogilvy, Rocco Mediate, Stuart Appleby and Eric Axley only a shot behind the co-leaders after opening at two-under 69.

Streelman must know something about Torrey Pines, where he got into the Buick Invitational field as the last alternate, a ranking of 1,114th, played himself into the last group on Saturday with Tiger Woods and wound up tied for 29th.

Streelman may not be famous, but he comes from a Wheaton, Ill., high school with some strong name recognition: Red Grange, John and Jim Belushi and Bob Woodward.

As for the Open's name-dropping pairing of Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott, Mediate sized it up and pronounced it an unqualified success.

"The one, two and three players and with what Tiger's gone through, everyone's going crazy wondering what's going on," Mediate said.

Hold that thought for Hicks, un-famous enough that his agent caddies for him. He is also unknown enough that he's often mistaken for the teaching pro Hicks, and vice versa.

"The tour got us mixed up, companies got us mixed up, checks were going to my place, checks were going to his place, there was all kinds of fun stuff going on there," he said.