"The majors are what golf's all about." Nick Faldo

Canadian Len Ganz says that he is "A bit of a slow reader and regular subscriber. Just read April 2007 and Lorena Ochoa's tips for breaking 90. She wants to show me how to fade a ball. Don't know about you but as someone who is trying to break 90 I need more practical tips. I can already fade it into the trees off of the 1st tee. What I need to know is how not to hook it into the pond on the left of that short par 3 or how to line up that 3rd putt on the 18th to win the match. These are tips that I can use."

Len, your letter arrived just in time, if you want to talk about Lorena Ochoa. This is a big weekend for the Best Female Player Never to Have Won A Major. But first your comment about her tip. Most of the time I'd agree that How to Hit a Fade may not be ideal instruction for amateurs trying to break 90, but think of it this way: It's the experience of some good players and teachers that when we hackers try to hit the fade, we tend to drop the club farther "inside" on the downswing and actually create a better swing path. Doesn't work for everyone, mind you, but it's why some good players revert to fading the ball when things go wrong. So there's a method to that madness. By the way, she also teaches you how to draw the ball...

On the subject of Ochoa and majors, Yahoo's Mike Arkush, who last year profiled Ochoa for Golf For Women, takes a pretty tough stance today:

"Ochoa was standing on the 18th tee in the final round of the 2005 U.S. Women's Open with a share of the lead. All she had to do then was get one more par and she would be in excellent shape. Instead, she snap-hooked her drive into the lake, leading to a triple. It was the worst shot at the worst possible moment. She finished sixth.

"A year later, Ochoa lost in a playoff to Karrie Webb at the Kraft Nabisco in California. Webb eagled the final hole to get into a playoff and won it with a birdie. That's the type of heroics Ochoa needs to pull off....

"It doesn't matter that the computer says she's the No. 1 player in the world.

"What matters is majors, and she doesn't have any.

" Okay, Mike. It may not be this week, but Ochoa is no Monty. She'll win many majors it says here.

--Bob Carney

"Right now all I need is confidence to play well." --Michelle Wie

She shot 82, but a lot of the talk--yours and the press room's--today remains with Michelle Wie, for whom golf isn't loads of fun right now.

The St. Pete Times site had this snipey quote from former Wie instructor Gary Gilchrist: "What I saw on the range the day before she teed off for her first round, I was absolutely blown away that she even teed it up the next day, " Gilchrist said. "I would've had to have had a few drinks before I teed off. She was hitting it everywhere. She couldn't hit a driver at all." Ow.

Gilchrist makes it sound like a technical problem but in Ron Sirak's report for our web site, it sounds like confidence is the big issue: "The part of her game that seems to be suffering most is trust. What appears to be going on is more a crisis of confidence than it is the result of an injury."

On the range, David Leadbetter, Wie's coach, had Michelle swinging with a Gary Player-like step-through move in which she would follow the flight of the ball by taking a step toward the target. "It's forcing me into trusting my shots," Wie said. "Because right now all I need is confidence to play well."

Lead did a tip like that for Golf Digest and former Digest Schools instructor Ed Bowe suggested that very drill in our Breaking 100, 90, 80: "Try Player's walk-through drill If you are taking big chunks of turf or skull the ball when you swing, you may be hanging back on your rear foot at impact, trying to scoop it in your anxiety to get the ball off the ground. Instead, let the club's loft get the ball airborne. As a drill, try Gary Player's classic walk-through swing. When you make contact, continue moving on as if you're walking after the ball."

If you don't trust your swing, in other words, you hang back, flip the wrists or block it, which is what Gilchrist was seeing. Misses both ways, a pro's worst nightmare.

Nevertheless, I'm betting, against all odds, that Wie wins one this year.

--Bob Carney

The last round is a tournament in itself. Andy Plummer

Had Aaron Baddeley held on Sunday to win the Open (big if!) , the most-talked about swing in golf would be on every golfer's lips this morning. But Stack & Tilt didn't quite make it. All three of the players who subscribe to Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett's New Tour Swing of our U.S. Open issue made the cut, and Badds, of course, led after three rounds. He finished T-13; Mike Weir was T-20, and Dean Wilson, T-51.
Pretty impressive.

In the case of Baddeley, the big question is, did the swing give out, or was it simply the nerves of a 26-year-old faced with the baddest course in America. On Saturday, Baddeley gave credit to Plummer and Bennett:

Q. Can you take us through the maturation you referred to of when your swing and confidence kicked in, when you got better, why you're better and so forth?

AARON BADDELEY: I would say in October, November, 2005, I was out working with Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett, and ever since I started working with them, there's really been an upward curve of improvement of driving the ball in the fairway, hitting better iron shots. Yeah, I mean, that's just been a constant improvement, and I feel like every time I go to practice with them or even by myself, I know exactly what I need to work on. And I just feel like I'm going to keep improving because of what I'm working on.

So editor Peter Morrice got back to Andy Plummer yesterday to get Plummer's recap....

Plummer talked about how the swing stacked up against the Oakmont rough:

"If you know the mechanics, if you get the tilt right, the angle of descent into the ball gets steeper, so it's perfect for hitting out of deep rough.Then, the standing up to the finish helps the club get out of the rough."

"With Aaron, it was one of those cases where the ball got rolling in the wrong direction. He hit a couple of bad drives, but so did everyone else.You see how a few missed putts can really be the difference. The triple on the first hole derailed him, but he was still right there. He hit his driveright, then tried to play to the right-front of the green because the ball feeds left from there. Maybe he made a tactical error there, trying to gettoo precise with the second shot, and the ball got hung up in the rough. From that spot, he knew it would be tough to make bogey."

"The lesson for Aaron is to understand how long a major really is. It's like 10 tournaments in one. So much drama happens just in a final round, so many ups and downs. The last round is like a tournament in itself."

—Bob Carney

(photo: J.D. Cuban)

Angel Cabrera, the winner of the 107th U.S. Open, has, up until Sunday, not gotten the credit he rightfully deserves. He has never missed a cut in the U.S Open in eight career starts, and he has T-4 and T-7 finishes in the British Open to his credit.

The 6’0’’, 210 pound Cabrera, who led the field in driving distance this week is a certainly a big-game player. “I definitely usually play very well in the U.S. Open,” said Cabrera through his translator Manuel Tagle. “Most of the time I'm not making any putts, but this week it was like everybody was missing the putts. So that gave me an advantage.”

Tiger Woods definitely falls into the category of players who were not able to get putts to fall. “For most of the week, I kept having these big, breaking putts and I had to be real defensive and basically feed the ball down there,” said Woods. “Hopefully it went in, but the majority of the putts didn't. … I hit the ball good on that back nine [on Sunday]. I just needed obviously to make one more putt.” Cabrera, though, wanted to make it clear that it was more than just Woods he beat this week.

“The good thing is that I beat everybody here, not only Tiger Woods,” he said through his translator. This is true. Cabrera, the 41st ranked player in the world coming into the tournament, beat the number one, two, three, all the way to 40th best players in the world (except for no. 17 Choi-Kyung-Ju, no. 27 Brett Wetterich and no. 34 Richard Sterne who failed to qualify for the championship). Despite the monumental achievement, the humble Argentine, still tried to downplay the significance of his victory. “[San Antonio Spurs’ guard Manu] Ginobili is still going to be there on the front pages because he has accomplished things that no other Argentine has,” said Cabrera in Spanish. “What I have done has already been done by [Roberto] DeVincenzo, so what [Manu] has done will be more recognized.” When asked where he was going to put his new trophy, Cabrera said in Spanish, “With me, in my bed. It's going to sleep with me.”

It has been a long week, playing a brutally difficult golf course. No wonder sleep was on the champion’s mind.

--Jeff Patterson

A female black bear and her cub were spotted on the seventh fairway this morning, around 10:45 a.m. Golfers were already into their final rounds then, but the first player off, Kevin Sutherland had not yet reached the 479-yard par 4, which has a large wooded area on the right side of the fairway.

Marshals called for security and a law enforcement official came to the seventh hole with a taser gun, but by the time he arrived the bears had already returned to the woods. They were never found again and no one was bothered.

It is not the first time that a bear had been on the course, but it is believed to be the first time since 1994 that a bear, Golden or black, has been on the seventh fairway during a U.S. Open.

--Jeff Patterson

Aaron Baddeley spent most of his youth watching golf on television, imagining that one day he would get to kiss a major championship trophy. Entering Sunday’s final round with a two-shot lead, he has that opportunity.

“I've watched so much golf, I can tell you about what people wore, what they shot, everything,” said Baddely. “I loved watching the majors. I taped them and watched them over and over. I can recite commentary from when Nick Price won. I saw myself in that [winning] position, absolutely.”

When he established himself as an up-and-coming star, by winning the Australian Open as an 18-year old, Baddeley made a conscious effort to watch the top players, alongside them in their practice rounds. “When I was young, I remember asking Greg Norman for a practice round,” said Baddeley. “I remember asking David Duval for practice rounds, because these guys were the best players in the world.” Even with two PGA Tour victories to his credit, Baddeley still makes an effort to watch the top golfers win. This April, he was watching the Masters finish on CBS, when he returned to Augusta National to see Zach Johnson win the Masters, in person. “We were at home watching the coverage, and when he birdied -- I think when he birdied 16, we were like five or ten minutes from the course,” said Baddeley. “We drove straight back to make sure we were there on the 18th.”

Today, as the leader heading into the U.S. Open’s final round, all the eyes will be on him. “Obviously I'm going to deal with some emotions because I've never been in this position before,” said Baddeley. “But I play golf, I've worked my whole life to be in this position so I'm going to embrace it.” But will Baddeley’s eyes be on the leader board? “It's not like Tiger and I are seven shots ahead of the rest of the field,” said Baddeley. “There's a few other guys at 5-over. I think it would be a mistake not to look at the boards.”

--Jeff Patterson
(Photo: Getty Images)

All rounds should take less than three and a half hours. Royal Dornoch Golf Club

Mathew Goggin’s new nickname should be the Tasmanian Speed Devil. The native of Tasmania, Australia went around all 18 holes at Oakmont in two hours and 45 minutes this morning. He teed off the first hole at 10:05 a.m. and was done before the seventh group of Kenneth Ferrie and Nick O’Hern had reached the ninth green.

“He usually goes pretty quickly,” said Goggin’s caddie Brian Sullivan. “I think he was actually trying to go slowly.” Goggin was offered a marker, when he was the last guy on the course to finish at 10-over par, but he said that he preferred to play by himself. The reason? “So I could get done quickly,” he said. “I really didn’t give it too much thought.”

The Speed Devil has actually played alone two times before, once at Callaway Gardens and once at Disney, with mixed success. “I’ve had the worst score making the cut before, that’s nothing new,” said Goggin. “I’m just glad they didn’t do it in reverse, where you get to tee of last on the tenth tee. . . . It was actually a lot of fun because I play quickly.”

When asked if his putting suffered — he had 32 putts including miss of a tap-in on the ninth — because he was unable to see other players' putts, Goggin said no. “It’s been suffering all week,” he said. “It’s been a general theme. I’ve seen lots of other guys putt and I’ve still missed those.” Still playing alone was somewhat difficult. It’s definitely not normal. “It’s hard,” said Goggin. “You actually have to slow down just to get in a normal rhythm.”

Sullivan tried everything he could to get his player to slow down. “I was actually conscious of trying to stay back to try to force him to pull it back a little bit,” he said. “I actually started reading greens — I normally don’t — just so he wasn’t like take the pin out and go.” Still there were times where Goggin got way ahead of his caddie and just stood still and waited. “It’s tough, you hit it in the bunker, he’s got to rake, and I’m up by the green waiting,” said Goggin.

Although the round was not as fast as Mark Carnevale’s two hour and 28 minute round in 1994, it still was pretty fast. “I actually need a couple of caddies to keep up with me, one up front and one behind,” said Goggin.

--Jeff Patterson
(Photo: Getty Images)

With rounds of 79 and 81, Andy Matthews won’t win the U.S. Open this year, but he has definitely won over young Cooper Schechterle.

Schechterle, a 3-year-old born 27 weeks premature, met the Canadian Tour pro in Oakmont’s clubhouse during Wednesday’s thunderstorm. Matthews entertained the awestruck boy during the delay as the entire Schechterle family smiled.

Despite the rigors of Matthews’ first U.S. Open week, he was extremely generous with his time. “We were even e-mailing [Wednesday] night,” said Cooper's mother, Melissa, whose son is Massachusetts’ ambassador baby for the March of Dimes. “I was like, ‘You need to be preparing for the U.S. Open tomorrow.’ ”

At night, back in the hotel, all Cooper could do was think about Andy. “He kept saying, ‘Andy golf, Andy golf,’ ” said Melissa.

On Thursday, Cooper watched Matthews’ first round from a stroller. When the family arrived at the 11th hole, Cooper ran under the ropes — he did not need to duck — toward his new friend. “He saw the blue shirt [Andy was wearing], and he just ran right toward him,” said Melissa.

Cooper made it about halfway to Matthews before being called back by his parents. If his mother had not told him, “You'll see him later," he probably would have kept going.

Cooper and his parents came to the Open this week to get signatures from professionals on Oakmont flags. One flag was going to be auctioned for the March of Dimes, and the other would be for Cooper to keep. But after obtaining more than 35 signatures from the likes of Ernie Els, Chris DiMarco and Todd Hamilton, the flags were stolen.

When Todd Hamilton heard about the family's misfortune, he promised that he would get a golf bag signed for Cooper. Matthews offered to get two other flags signed.

“There are so many nice people on the PGA Tour,” said Melissa.

— Jeff Patterson

Aaron Baddeley shaved two strokes off his score from Thursday with a second-round 70 despite what many players thought were much tougher conditions.

“Since I’ve really started working with Andy [Plummer] and Mike [Bennett], my ball striking has improved,” Baddeley said. “My driving accuracy has improved a lot, which makes it easier to play the game. . . . My driving is actually one of my strengths now, where it was never like that.”

Playing well in a U.S. Open requires extreme accuracy, and it has taken some getting used to for Baddeley, who had never made the cut in this championship. “In Australia, you just blast away, and if you hit in the fairway, great, and if you hit it in the rough, it’s no problem,” he said. “But it’s not like that here at all.”

Click here to read Peter Morrice’s article on Plummer and Bennett from Golf Digest’s June 2007 issue.

— Jeff Patterson

Even at the U.S. Open, players are helping each other with their games.

“I had a real good lesson from Thomas Björn yesterday on the chipping green,” said Graeme McDowell, who followed a 73 on Thursday with a 72. “I want to see him again this evening to see if he can help because I find it very difficult to get the ball up-and-down from this rough.”

The same teacher-student relationship has existed with Tiger Woods and Bubba Watson. The two have been companions in early-morning practice rounds. “This week I asked him what does he write in his yardage book,” said Watson. “I just ask him a bunch of questions like a little dog chasing a bulldog. I’m just napping at his feet to see how he works and how he ticks. He’s let me do that, I guess, and I’ve been lucky so far.”

In both cases the students are beating the teachers. Watson is in second place after two rounds; Woods is four shots back and tied for 13th. McDowell is tied for 13th as well, but Björn missed the cut.

To see Bubba Watson’s powerful swing and get David Leadbetter’s analysis click here. It is so powerful, Watson even thought about trying to drive the 358-yard 14th today, before his caddie persuaded him not to.

— Jeff Patterson