ESPN.com - Golf Online - US Open Men 2000 - U.S. Open should be one for the ages

By Doug Ferguson
Associated Press
Thursday, June 15

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Tiger Woods, beware.

The last time there was this much buzz at Pebble Beach was when the best player in the world arrived at the spectacular seaside course for a major championship.

U.S. Open at a glance

A brief look at the 100th U.S. Open, which starts Thursday:

Site: Pebble Beach Golf Links.

Course: 6,846 yards, par 71.

Format: 72-holes stroke play.

Cut: Top 60 and ties, and anyone within 10 strokes of the lead after 36 holes.

Playoff: 18 holes Monday, if necessary.

Field: 156 (148 pros, 8 amateurs).

Purse: $4.5 million (Winner: $800,000).

1999 champion: Payne Stewart, who died Oct. 25 in a plane crash.

Noteworthy: Jack Nicklaus is the only player to win the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and a U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in the same year.

Quoteworthy: "The beauty of this place is not surpassed by hardly any other place in the world." -- Tom Watson.

Thursday TV: 3-5 p.m. ET (NBC), 5-10:30 p.m. ET (ESPN).

The year was 1929. The results were shocking.

Bobby Jones was unceremoniously bounced from the first round of the U.S. Amateur by Johnny Goodman, and hotel rooms emptied across the Monterey Peninsula.

That won't be the case when the 100th U.S. Open gets under way, and not just because Woods has proved close to infallible over the last year.

Never before has so much history converged on a major championship.

The centennial U.S. Open in a millennium year.

The void left by defending champion Payne Stewart, killed in a plane crash last October. He was remembered Wednesday with a 21-shot salute by his peers, who hit balls from the edge of the 18th fairway into the Pacific Ocean.

The farewell appearance of Jack Nicklaus, a four-time U.S. Open champion and the only player to win an Open and a U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach.

The legend of Pebble Beach, which has produced great champions and unforgettable shots whenever it plays host to a U.S. Open -- Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tom Kite.

"This might be the most intriguing event in a long time," said Paul Azinger, who offered another heartfelt eulogy of his good friend and promised to play with the kind of focus that brought Stewart so much success in the toughest test of golf.

It all unfolds Thursday, over a course that was designed by two amateur golfers and has become America's beloved cathedral of golf along the rugged California coastline.

"The golf course has always had a special place in my heart," Woods said. "One, for its pristine beauty, and another for the mystique behind Pebble Beach."

For Jones, it was his first trip to a place described as the "greatest meeting of land and water in the world," and there were some who predicted he might have problems with the tiny greens and 10 of the 18 holes exposed by the Pacific wind.

That's not the case for Woods.

He returns to a course where only four months ago he put on a performance that showed why he is always a threat to win. Trailing by seven shots with seven holes to play, he made three birdies and an eagle from the fairway to win by two strokes.

It was his sixth straight PGA Tour victory, the longest streak in over 50 years, and continued a stretch he carries into the U.S. Open -- in his last 25 tournaments around the world, Woods has finished out of the top 10 only twice.

"We're all looking for one score all the time," Colin Montgomerie said. "And it's his."

While Woods goes after his first U.S. Open title and continues a slow climb toward Nicklaus' benchmark of 18 professional majors, Montgomerie and so many other have come to Pebble Beach with their own nuggets of history.

Montgomerie thought he won at Pebble Beach in 1992, his first U.S. Open, by getting out of the wicked wind and into the clubhouse at even-par 288. He wound up third, and has suffered through two other close calls in the Open since then.

"I have to be honest, it's not a normal tournament," Montgomerie said Wednesday. "There's slightly more pressure on the situation."

Phil Mickelson played his first professional round at Pebble Beach in the '92 Open, a 4-under 68. He followed with an 81 and missed the cut. With 16 victories, including three this year, Mickelson figured he would have won a major by now.

"I think it's very important that it take place fairly soon, because I've had so many opportunities to really break through and win, and for whatever reason I just haven't come through and done it," Mickelson said.

Driving him on are memories of Pinehurst, where Stewart beat him by one stroke with a 15-foot par putt on the 72nd hole. Disappointment turned to joy the next day when he watched the birth of his daughter, followed by a sense of shock four months later when Stewart perished in a plane crash.

Tom Lehman, who played in the final pairing of the U.S. Open four years in a row without winning, considers Pebble Beach a special setting, particularly since he met his wife here. David Duval gets another crack at his first major and has a history of playing Pebble well -- he holds the course record, a 10-under 62, along with Kite.

And while no European has won the U.S. Open since Tony Jacklin in 1970, that could change. Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood have both beaten Woods to win this year, while Sweden's Jesper Parnevik is a two-time winner on the PGA Tour.

Still, it all goes back to Woods, the No. 1 player in the world trying to survive the most demanding test of golf in the world.

"You always want to see how far in front or how far behind you are from him," Sergio Garcia said. "You know that beating him, you're going to be probably winning the tournament, or getting very close to it."

Such pressure is not unknown to Woods, who has been regarded a favorite ever since he won The Masters by 12 strokes in 1997.

That victory, in a roundabout way, also is linked to Jones' first trip to Pebble Beach.

After losing in the first round, Jones went a couple of miles up the coast to a new course called Cypress Point. There, he found inspiration to collaborate with Alister McKenzie on a course they designed in Georgia that became Augusta National.