RealClearSports: Phil Playing with Tiger? Fabulous

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN FRANCISCO – We’ve been waiting for this, waiting for the matchup of Tiger, Phil and Bubba, waiting for golf’s great examination coming once more to America’s favorite city, waiting for birdies and bogeys by the Golden Gate.

The U.S. Open, a magical tournament, to be played starting Thursday at a course, fascinating, Olympic Club, where magic is always in the air, wafting like the afternoon breeze, engulfing like the fog off the Pacific.

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© RealClearSports 2012

RealClearSports: Golf's Big 3 and Memories of Ty Cobb

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN FRANCISCO — The word was out, drifting across Olympic Club, like the fog that was coming in off the Pacific: Tiger, Bubba and Phil in the same grouping for the U.S. Open. The huge merchandise tent had been unlocked about 10 a.m. Thursday. And now so was the secret.

They've figured it out at the U.S. Golf Association. Blind draw? Tiger Woods here, Phil Mickelson there? That was the old days, when the USGA wanted some pretense of equality and fairness.

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© RealClearSports 2012

SF Examiner: Bubba Watson walks away from Masters in tear-jerking triumph

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

And now we wait and hope, hope the next major golf championship of 2012, the U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club in June, can be as full of tension and greatness — and, of course, drama — as the Masters.

What an ending Sunday, in the shadows after the setting sun dipped below the Georgia pines, a day of history, only the fourth double-eagle in 77 Masters and, because the winner couldn’t be determined until a sudden-death playoff, mystery.

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Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company

Global Golf Post: Haas Plays Safe And Is Not Sorry

By Art Spander
For GlobalGolf Post.com

PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA -- Jack Nicklaus said he "loved option holes," and the beguiling 10th at Riviera Country Club, only 315 yards long, with a rolling green surrounded by bunkers, was one of his favorites. Bill Haas would like to second the motion.

Haas knocked in a 45-foot birdie putt Sunday at the 10th, the second hole of a three-way sudden-death playoff, to beat Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley and win the Northern Trust Open.

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Copyright 2012 Global Golf Post

Global Golf Post: Bradley's Long, Cool Ride to Augusta

By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA -- The mirrors were taped to the sides of the car, a Ford Focus. "They fell off too much," Keegan Bradley remembered.

Not what you want to make an impression at Augusta National. Or even at the Subway sandwich shop down the street.

Bradley's mode of transportation is better now. It should be. He won the PGA Championship...

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Copyright 2012 Global Golf Post