U.S. Open 2012 Golf Groupings Provide a Few Chuckles

While people are talking about the star power of having Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson in a grouping at the U.S. Open, they are missing the truth behind the group. The USGA has long been known for having a peculiar sense of humor when structuring groups for U.S. Open Championship tee times on Day 1.

Woods, Mickelson and Watson are all Masters champs, and as such, their grouping is a natural, easy layup for the USGA.

But we are just getting started.

There is a PGA-champions grouping of David Toms, Davis Love III and Padraig Harrington. There is also a former-U.S. Open-winners group of Ernie Els, Geoff Ogilvy and Angel Cabrera. Then there is the past-major-winners group of Stewart Cink, Trevor Immelman and Lucas Glover.

Whether the committee making up the tee sheet just ran out of former U.S. Open champs or had some other sinister concept in mind is not discernible from the group of Jim Furyk, Sergio Garcia and Graeme McDowell—perhaps it is because they are all Ryder Cuppers.

We're not done there, however. The group of Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood have all been World No. 1s. 

After that it an get a lot tougher and a lot funnier, SNL funny in parts.

The USGA gets goofy.

There’s the long or belly putter group of Adam Scott, Keegan Bradley and Webb Simpson.

There are the three Bobs: Robert Karlsson, Bob Estes and Robert Rock.

There’s the Carl, Charl, Charles group:  Carl Pettersson, Charl Schwartzel and Charles Howell III.

There are the hyphen players:  Gonzalo Fernandez-Castańo, Sang-Moon Bae and Rafael Cabrera-Bello.

And the USGA did themselves proud with the all-Korean, initial-nicknames group of K. J. Choi, Y. E. Yang and K. T. Kim

Sometimes the USGA has odd connections, like everyone having won an obscure event someplace on the globe, and sometimes it’s just a tall, skinny-guys group like Steve Stricker, Ian Poulter and Matt Kuchar. They could also qualify as second-placers since all of them have a significant number of second-place finishes in tournaments.

There are some that make you wonder, like is this just JD, LO and JD? Or is there more to it with Jason Day, Louis Oosthuizen and Jason Dufner.

There’s the single-guy, rock-star group of Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson and Ryo Ishikawa. 

And finally, we can’t forget about the long hitters trio of Alvaro Quiros, Gary Woodland and John Senden.

To tell you how serious the USGA is about this funny grouping bit, they once put three guys with mustaches together. One of them was Mike Nicolette.