STROKE OF THE DAY

"A good golf course makes you want to play so badly that you hardly have the time to change your shoes. "

The biggest storyline heading into the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines isn’t how the course will hold up as a major championship layout. It’s not about the treacherous tri-blend rough, the slick poa annua greens, or the 7,643 yards players will have to negotiate on the South Course.

It’s a shame, considering the San Diego venue has been waiting anxiously for this moment for six years.

But with all respect to Torrey and 155 of the 156 players in the Open field, all things pale in comparison to the left knee of Tiger Woods.

Woods, who had arthroscopic surgery on the knee two days after the Masters in April, hasn’t played on Tour since the season’s first major. After the procedure, his initial plan was to be healthy enough to play The Memorial in late May, but prolonged soreness forced him to delay his competitive re-entry until the U.S. Open.

“Is it fully recovered? Probably not,” said Woods, the world’s No. 1 player, in reference to his knee. “It’s a little sore, but not anything that I haven’t dealt with before.

“I wanted to play at Memorial … to get back and get used to the rhythm and the flow of competitive play. I just had to change my training a little bit and make sure I was ready for this one.”

How the Cypress native holds up for 72 holes remains to be seen, but Woods seemed confident about his situation: “Come game time on Thursday, I’ll be ready.”

What will make “game time” even more exciting is that Woods will be paired with Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott in the first two rounds. The second- and third-ranked players in the world, respectively, will be the lead guinea pigs in a new USGA experiment that aims to put the top-12 golfers in the world rankings in the same wave of play during Thursday and Friday.

“I wish that we had it more,” said Mickelson in reference to the tee-time positioning. “[In the past] I haven’t liked the way the PGA Tour puts us on opposite ends every week. I think it’s great that a major championship has us paired together, because usually one end of the tee times has an advantage over the other.”

Mickelson, a San Diego native, has won the PGA Tour’s Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines three times. He knows precisely what’s at stake given his hometown connection and his record at previous U.S. Opens.

“I’ve come close to winning this championship four times. This is a tournament I know and I believe I can win,” he said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me to compete in the U.S. Open on a course I grew up on.”

Mickelson had many insights on the South Course during his press conference, but arguably none raised more eyebrows than his description of the new tee box on the 613-yard par-5 13^th.

“It’s the biggest waste of money I’ve ever seen,” said Mickelson. “It doesn’t matter what I think, we’re going to end up playing it and I’ve got to be ready for it. But it’s terrible.”

The overall setup on the South Course remains a bit of a mystery since the USGA has said it plans on mixing tee boxes on holes like the 13^th, the par-3 third and the par-4 14^th throughout the week. The rough, which features kikuyu, rye, and poa annua grasses, has been deemed tough but fair by many, including Mickelson.

“It looks like the most playable rough that we’ve ever had in an Open that we’ve ever had in an Open, [but] it’s hard to gauge,” he said. “You just don’t know how the ball is going to come out out of that primary cut. It’s very difficult to be confident going at a green or at a pin.”

Be sure to check back regularly to Southland Golf throughout the week for complete live coverage of the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.