Enough whining, already.

Tackling the greens at the U.S. Open is like practicing putts on the concrete floor of your driveway if your driveway was built at the peak of Mount St. Helens. Waaaaaah!

I landed my approach shot six feet from the cup, and it rolled into a bunker as if a protégé of Jim Henson were dragging it along by a string. Boo, hoo, hooooooooo!

All the United States Golf Association left off this course was a clown’s mouth. Long, snot-laden sniffle.

Tough to justify sacrificing an hour of my Father’s Day watching the final round of the season’s second major golf championship, when the sound of one press conference makes me forget that I only have one 10-year-old and I’m not surrounded by a dozen toddlers.

Two months haven’t been enough time to recover from all the tantrums at the Masters. Now, the pampered millionaires who make of a habit shooting 65 more often than I quadruple-bogey can’t hack punitive Oakmont without a wailing and a gnashing of teeth.

It’s supposed to be hard, OK? This is not the Jerkwater Classic on the Nationwide/Hooters/Whogivesacrap.com Tour. There’s a reason they play this tournament at Pebble Beach, Shinnecock Hills and Oakmont and not Kezar Lake, Prospect Hill and Oakdale.

Even geriatric professional wrestler Ric Flair infamously intoned that to be the best, you’ve gotta beat the best. Being forced to find some pencil-thin fairways, land your second shot on a silver dollar and two-putt on a surface with steeper curves than J-Lo is supposed to separate the men from the money-list chasers.

These complaints have become more commonplace in recent years as we’ve watched Zach Johnson, Ben Curtis, Todd Hamilton, Shawn Micheel, Rich Beem, Geoff Ogilvy and Michael Campbell win majors on presumably Tiger-proofed layouts. (Did I forget Morris Hatalsky and Bill Murray?)

Golf gurus trip over themselves in the rush to apologize when someone you’ve never heard of wins a major. Sorry, but I don’t follow the logic. I’m a casual fan, at most, and there is nothing more entertaining than watching a has-been or a never-will-be lock the jaws of the lion.

Talk about weather conditions and tee times all you want, but the fact remains that some dude named Paul Casey shot 66 Friday on the same course that yielded Phil Mickelson a 77.

Somebody brought the bully to his knees. And isn’t that the point?


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