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Give Scott A Hand

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 13, 2008

Hire A Driver

Phil Mickelson, known to carry two drivers in his bag for the benefit of different ball flight patterns, showed up for Thursday's opening round of the U.S. Open without the big club.

"My game play was that I only want to hit it a certain distance," Mickelson said. "I don't really want to hit it past 300 yards on most of the par 4s, because it starts running into the rough."

He carried four wedges and hit 3-wood or a hybrid off the tee.

Adam Scott, who joined Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as the third member in the USGA's dream pairing, shot a 2-over 73, but that wasn't bad considering the Aussie was playing with a broken right hand.

Although pretournament reports said he had broken his right pinky, Scott reported it was his entire hand that had been fractured when a friend slammed a car door on it back at his London home May 21.

"It was the night of the Champions League soccer final in Russia," he said.

Scott said it's not healed, and it is sore, but he did not wear a cast or bandage.

"It doesn't really affect my golf swing, so I'm pretty lucky to be playing," he said.

Smoke-Free Golf

No butts about it, this week's U.S. Open at Torrey Pines is a major championship first.

To both the delight and indignation of the gallery, the 108th Open is smoke-free.

No matter that cigars have become a spectator fashion statement in recent years. Anyone caught on-site smoking - cigarettes or cigars - faces up to a $100 fine.

The United States Golf Association asked for an exemption this week, but San Diego officials - worried about the health effects of second-hand smoke and sick of cleaning up discarded cigarettes - banned smoking at its beaches, city parks and municipal golf courses in 2006 and refused to budge.

The city, however, did agree to exempt the players, their caddies and others inside the ropes that keep spectators off the course.

"Our concern was for the players," USGA president Jim Vernon said. "This is the national championship, and some of them smoke."

Best Player Never To ...

Somebody must carry the title of "Best Player Never to Have Won a Major," so for the time being it belongs to Sergio Garcia.

The 28-year-old Spaniard has seven career PGA Tour wins, including this year's Players Championship. He is No. 7 in the World Golf Rankings. But still no major.

"I don't think too much about it," Garcia said. "I've tried to take a positive out of it. Like anybody else, my goal is also to win tournaments, win majors, try to become the best player I can become and try to help the people out there, make people happy.

"That's a big goal. I think there are other players out there that are in a similar position to me, like Adam Scott and some of the other guys, but we're all trying to achieve that, so it's a work-in-progress."

Garcia's work obviously is not done. He shot 5-over 76 Thursday.

USGA Not Adept At Channel-Surfing

The first staple of any golf tournament media center is television screens providing the live network feeds from around the golf course.

The USGA did its obligatory duty Thursday, with two big screens and various smaller sets stationed throughout the press center, all tuned to ESPN's morning broadcast. Then a funny thing happened.

In the afternoon, ESPN's broadcast ended and NBC took over the feed - except all the televisions remained tuned to the cable network.

USGA officials admitted no one present knew how to change the channel.

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