The PGA Tour schedule has reached its second major tournament of the season and Tiger Woods enters after a bad run at the Memorial, but based on past results, that will not stop him from having a good run at the U.S. Open, which starts on Thursday at Merion Golf Club's East Course.
Woods will have a star pairing for the first two rounds, as he will be grouped with Rory McIlroy and Masters champion Adam Scott, making the top three ranked players in the world partners for the start of the major. Scott said that there will be intensity and energy in the grouping together and that he is ready to compete after winning at Augusta National. Woods finished in the top five after dealing with a drop shot controversy and now he has the chance again to break his majors drought.
Woods has played well all year and has won four times on tour, including at the Players Championship where he got into a tiff with Sergio Garcia, who said Woods distracted him while playing a shot. The two went back and forth in the media and Woods eventually put that behind him, the same thing he did with racist comments that Garcia made later. Woods won the Farmers Insurance Open, WGC Cadillac Championship and the Arnold Palmer Invitational before winning the Players and now he has the chance to add his 15th career major win.
Rain has been coming down on the course over the weekend and added a number of inches to the grounds and players had to wait until late morning to get on the course on Monday to start getting ready for the major. The course was able to be played on Saturday and Scott was able to prepare on Sunday as well ahead of the first round afternoon tee time for the star grouping. The three will play early from No. 11 on Friday in the second round and many are expecting a winner or at least contention out of the three.
The players will be looking to be accurate on the course and hitting fairways has shown to be a telling statistic for winners at the Open. Woods will be on the course with Garcia for the first time since the two went back and forth and after the rains during the weekend they could have a tough go of it on the course and Woods will have the chance to break the drought for him that extends back to the 2008 U.S. Open when he won in exciting fashion.
"Absolutely, (there's going to be) some energy and electricity, playing with him at any time there always is," Scott said Monday morning while waiting out a weather delay. "And given the hype around this grouping and being a major, it's going to be an intense couple of days.
"But essentially that's what we're playing for. That's a pairing you'd hope for on Sunday, also, because if you don't enjoy that kind of stuff it's going to be tough for you to have success out here. At some point, if you're playing well and winning a tournament, you're going to have to try and beat him. And that's what you want to be out here for. That's why you spend the hours and test yourself. And I'm looking forward to that Thursday and Friday."
