The movie studios nearby would’ve insisted on Rory or Rickie.
But sports are unscripted, and we’re luckier for it.
There is so, so much to discuss.
Here are 18 Parting Thoughts from the Los Angeles Country Club.
Wyndham Clark wanted an early look at the course.
So he called his good buddy P.J.
Fielding, a two-time All-Ivy League college golfer at Penn and a member of the Los Angeles Country Club.
Theyve been tight for years, having played a few boozy pro-scratch tournaments together.
And so Clark hit up Fielding asking to come a week before the tournament.
A sneak-peek before the chaos begins.
Pros taking out Joes for advice, its a tricky business.
But Fielding remains a better-than-scratch player and frequently rubs shoulders with the pros.
Hes also a student of golf course architecture and knows this layout inside and out.
Clark picked his brain clean.
I felt like it was that in depth.
He’s helped a lot.
But Fielding liked what he saw.
I told him afterwards that he could win this thing, Fielding says.
The course sets up so well for him.
They all do, when you have the game Clark does.
Cockiness, by the way?
His words not ours.
On Friday he said he had only three goals for the week.
For me, it was: Enjoy myself at a beautiful golf course.
It was: Be cocky out there.
It was: Remind myself of the first two.
Hes your newest major champion and almost certainly will be part of the U.S. Ryder Cup team in Rome.
What a victorynot just for Clark, but for his caddie, John Ellis.
Ellis is sompething of a mini-tour legend in California.
He’s known as maybe the best playing caddie on the PGA Tour.
He qualified for two U.S.
Opens, including the 2008 edition at Torrey Pines.
Ellis did exactly that, and he’s been handsomely rewarded for his work this year.
Rory McIlroy hit it more than good enough to win the U.S. Open.
He hit 15/18 greens on Sunday, not including finishingjustoff the green on 5 and 17.
He gave himself look after look after look…and missed them all.
Like, all of them.
The longest putt he made all day was six feet, and that was for par.
His putts refusing to go in on major Sundaysit’s reached cruel and unusual levels.
He had pretty good speed all day.
Hit a number of good putts.
Missed some high, missed some low.
Too much speed, not enough speed.
It’s amazing none of them fell by accident.
It’ll happen soon enough.
It has to, right?
This marked his 19th top-10 finish since his last major victory.
Keep giving yourself a chance and eventually it’ll happen.
That’s what logic says.
The superstitious side of you says there’s some black magic at play.
How else do you explain all those near misses?
The man himself is not overthinking it.
He knows it’s coming, and it’s going to be incredible.
“I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”
A tweet outlining some of LA Country Clubs rather strict/old-school rules went semi-viral on Thursday.
There are no phones allowed on the golf course.
No shorts, either.
Men must wear jackets in the clubhouse at night.
Predictably, it drew the ire of social media.
Are they living in 1950?
Sounds like a fun place to hangout!
Heres the thing, though.
Its not a place to just show up and hang out.
Its the same principle as a couple not allowing shoes inside their house.
Sure, it might not be your cup of tea, but its not your house.
Nor is it really your business.
Theres room for everyone.
Gil Hanse will oversee the renovation of the executive track free of charge.
These places can surely afford it with their well-monied memberships and the revenue hosting a major brings in.
Bunch of debate this week about the golf coursespecifically, whether it was difficult enough.
I fall on the side of wanting carnage and suffering at the United States Open.
Yes, LACC is a world-class golf course and forced players to get creative, particularly around the greens.
Yes, great play was rewarded and bad play punished.
You should want to strangle a USGA official after putting a ball off the green.
He talked on Wednesday about wanting to identify, not embarrass the best players in the world.
Should we care if theyre embarrassed or not?
I can assure you any bruised egos recovered rather quickly.
A setup like this fine 51 weeks a year.
You wont find me complaining about a winning score at any event besides the U.S. Open.
But this was the U.S. Open.
They shouldve narrowed the fairways a bit more.
Through the morning wave on Friday, there was not a single round in the 80s out of 234.
Four of the seven lowest 36-hole gross scoresso, irrespective of parin U.S. Open history happened this week.
That just did not feed the U.S. Open beast.
Why, then, were the scores so low?
LACCs fairways are wider than youre used to seeing at the U.S. Open.
If you miss them, youre screwed.
I genuinely think the course is playing 300 yards shorter (than normal from the back).
Ive played here so many times when its damp and you get 5 yards of roll.
Im getting 30 this week.
I’m telling you, these are just a pure bent surface which is beautiful to putt on.
If you produce good greens, you’re going to get good scoring.
Most big events in Californiathe Farmers, the U.S.
These were carpet all week.
Give these guys perfect conditions, theyre going to ball.
One other aspect of this U.S. Open felt off: man, was it corporate-ey.
We knew this would be the case.
The USGA limited GA tickets to 20,000 per day, which is extremely small for a major championship.
And, per Matt Fitzpatrick, even that number is misleading.
Very poor, is how he described the on-site atmosphere.
Its disappointing on the USGA side.
Hopefully its not the same for other U.S.
But the USGA/LACC took the best ones and planted big, expensive corporate hospitality tents.
It also makes sense from an economics perspective.
A boutique U.S. Open of sorts.
The first tee was a particularly bizarre scene.
Max Homa noticed the eerie silence.
Its a fact of life, but still a bummer.
Alright, now lets say something nice about the USGA.
Two things, actually.
If he putted field average at the Nelson, hed have won it.
That’s…that’s pretty damn good.
Keith Mitchell wins the award for Player Who Dresses Most Like An LACC Member.
All the sudden, Justin Thomas is in semi-danger of missing the Ryder Cup team.
His 81 on Friday was the nadir of the first real slump of his career.
He beat just one player in this 156-man field.
He missed the cut, badly, at the Memorial.
He shot +12 for the week at the PGA Championship for a T65.
He missed the cut at the Masters.
Yeah, it just hasnt been a good year at all.
Credit to Thomas for facing the music on Friday.
He couldve very easily dipped out of LACC through the back door.
Its definitely the lowest Ive felt, he said.
Its pretty humiliating and embarrassing shooting scores like that at a golf course I really, really liked.
I thought it was set up really well.
Yeah, I dont know just gotta figure it out.
I reached out to Thomas agent to double-check hes all good physically and was told he is.
Just some tough times and a few swing tweaks.
Hell be back soon.
But golf will serve humble pie any chance it gets, even to Hall-of-Fame level players.
This, too, shall pass.
I thought it was the wrong decision then, and I still think its the wrong decision.
Did you see 14?
Err…I hadnt.
Im assuming he laid up?
He hit it in the rough, went for it and made eagle.
I thought of you, he said.
No, Im not even winding you up.
I thought, that twat…..
So, so good.
What a narrative arc.
Two beauties, Tommy and Finno.
I had the pleasure of hosting Joel Dahmen at my parents house for the week.
Hes as cool as he comes off on Netflix and social media.
Hes care free as hell.
Like, before his round.
Joel warmed up for Fridays round with a decently intense tennis session.
He likes to play, and it gets his body loose, so why not?
Is it the best possible outlook to produce peak performance?
But theres no rule that you have to milk every single ounce of achievement out of your body.
Id wager to say hes one of, if not the, happiest people on the PGA Tour.
Theres something to be said for that.
Joel is chill as hell, go-with-the-flow, nothings-too-serious.
Theres no right way to do it, and different things make different people happy.
Im all for the NIL movement, and Im all for these kids making more money.
See what I did there?
I realized I was contradicting myself and being lame, so I caught myself and changed course.
It caught the high side and trickled out to just under three feet.
McIlroy couldnt believe it.
He took a step back, crouched and re-read the putt.
It was one of the more tour moves Ive seen in quite some time.
(Or, in this case, unit the 2039 U.S. Another disappointing major championship performance from Patrick Cantlay.
If youre the No.
Hes yet to do that in his career.
Ive got a problem with the OWGR that has nothing to do with LIV Golf.
For my money, the algorithm doesnt weight the major championships nearly enough.
Because its not the same.
The courses are harder, the lights are brighter, the pressure more acute.
Players are judged by how they perform in the major championships.
4 in the world despite not doing anything of note in the majors.
So much fun, as always, needing our with you guys.
Im off to sleep for a few days.
