Pinehurst #2 will host both the US Open and the US Women’s Open in 2015. Here are a couple of interesting short bits on Crenshaw and Coore’s efforts to restore the course ahead of that double header.

When Bobby Jones had his unparalleled year in 1930, he won the four biggest tournaments of his day: The US Amateur, the US Open, the British Amateur and the British Open Championship. It was a shocking achievement that made Jones a sports hero on a par with Babe Ruth—greater even, for the Babe never got a ticker tape parade in New York.

People struggled for words to describe the event. Atlanta Journal sports writer O.B. Keeler, Jones’ unofficial biographer and publicist, dubbed it the “Grand Slam,” borrowing not from baseball, but from a bridge term.

It must be remembered that, at that time, tournament golf was as much an amateur’s game as a pro’s. Walter Hagen may have been the only man at the time making a full time living playing tournament golf (as opposed to working as a club pro) .

So in 1960, after having won the Masters and US Open, Arnold Palmer was asked about Jones’ achievement by Pittsburgh sports writer Bob Drum on the plane flight to England where Palmer was to play in the Open Championship. Drum apparently lamented the fact that Palmer could not match Jones’ achievement because golf now was a pro’s game and not an amateur’s. No one would ever win the Amateur and Open national championships again.

Palmer then speculated that in the age of the professional, a more realistic Grand Slam would be the Masters, the US Open, the Open Championship (British Open) and the PGA Championship.

Palmer lost on the Old Course by a single stroke to Australia’s Kel Nagle.

But the dream had been indelibly etched into the mind of the golfing public.

• First, congratulations to Webb Simpson. He’s been a top tier player for the last couple of years and this is the icing on the cake.
• I loved the competitive nature of the final round. Lots of guys had chances to win, right down to the final group on the final hole.
• I feel sorry for Jim Furyk. He basically choked.
• The Beau Hossler story didn’t pan out. Too bad.
• Here’s an interesting stat on the current competitive balance. Since Tiger won his last Major, there have been fifteen different winners in sixteen Majors. Only Harrington repeated. Tiger last won at the 2006 US Open. Since then, it was Harrington, Harrington, Cabrera, Glover, Cink, Yang, Mickelson, McDowell, Oosthuizen, Kaymer, Schwartzel, McIlroy, Clarke, Bradley, Watson and now Simpson.
• Given that, the favorite for the Open Championship has to be ... none of the above. How about Garcia?
• Tiger proved again what I’ve been saying for more than a year. He’s going to return as a very good Tour player. Nothing more.
• Olympic has developed quite a reputation, hasn’t it?
• Westwood’s lost ball in the tree was bizarre. It is almost as if the Golf Gods don’t want him to win a Major.
• The USGA shortening the 16th dramatically may have been the game changer. Some guys seemed to adjust. Some didn’t.
• Over par won for only the third time in 34 years.
• Third American Major winner in a row. Can we now end the discussion about European Tour domination of golf? Seems to me that domination is whichever way the wind is blowing at the time.
• It didn’t look like security at the US Open was up to par. So many were crowded around Tiger after Saturday’s round that he banged his hand. Then that lunatic gets onscreen to make bird calls.
• I’m really tired of Bob Costas. Let’s consign him to the dust heap with Brent Musberger.

In just his second US Open, seventeen year old Beau Hossler finds himself in a better position to win on Sunday than Tiger Woods and dozens of other top players.

So who is Beau Hossler?

His record in the National Championships is short: He missed the cut at Congressional in 2011, with his best round a 76. But in that, he’s already making his place in history. He’s the first high school student since Mason Rudolph in 1950-51 to qualify for consecutive U.S. Opens.

A win places him with Bobby Jones, Charles (Chick) Evans, Francis Ouimet, Jerome Travers and John Goodman as the only amateurs to win the tournament. No amateur has won since Goodman in 1933.

Golfweek has Beau Hossler as the number three ranked junior golfer.

This past April, Hossler won the Boys Division of the Heather Farr Classic in Scottsdale to take his fourth AJGA title. He finished that tournament with a 7-under-par 64 final round and a tournament-record total of 15-under 198.

Hossler won two consecutive AJGA golf events in the summer of 2011: the Trader Joes’ Junior Championship, where he shot all three rounds in the 60s, and the Stockton Sports Commission Junior Open. In 2009, he qualified for the US Amateur at the age of 14. In 2010, he won three Southern California PGA Toyota PGA Tour Cup tournaments. He also was that circuit’s Player of the Year with a 72.32 average.

Hossler currently attends Santa Margarita Catholic High School, were he will be a Senior this upcoming year. He carries a 4.0 average.  After his parents divorced when he was three, mother Amy married Matt Balsz, who has served as Beau’s every-day stepdad. Beau Sr, Amy and Matt have been identified in the gallery following them around.

I was not in good spirits Friday night when the chicken entrails suggested that the weekend would be a long coronation for Tiger Woods’ Fifteenth Major.

Saturday proved the auguries wrong. Tiger shot +5 and now is in a tie for 14th. Meanwhile, as Jim Furyk ground his way to -1 for the tournament, Graeme McDowell shot -2 to go into a first place tie.

Now let me be clear before I get angry emails accusing me of being a Tiger hater: I was at no time rooting AGAINST Tiger. I was, however, rooting FOR competition. I watch golf (and indeed all sports) for the competition. The more uncertain the outcome, the more interest I have. If Tiger is in the lead after 54 holes, odds are that he will finish 72 in the lead—YE Yang not withstanding.

(I was, however, rooting against much of the media. Without Tiger in the lead, what will they talk about? After the hours long discussion about why Tiger isn’t in the lead, they may actually have to get to work and come up with some clever things to say about whomever is in the lead).

Sunday should be quite exciting. Behind McDowell and Furyk, Frederik Jacobson is at +1, with Lee Westwood, Ernie Els, Blake Adams and Nick Colsaerts all at +2. The Crowd at +3 includes Webb Simpson, Kevin Chappell, John Senden, Jason Dufner, John Peterson—and amazingly, 17-year-old amateur Beau Hossler.

That’s right. A high school junior is somehow within striking distance of a US Open win.

And Tiger still has a chance to turn it up and get a come-from-behind victory. This is after all the US Open.

He won’t win, but what a story it is already.

Going into Saturday, I think you can pretty much assume that Tiger will win this 2012 US Open. He’s probably practicing his fist pumps in front of the mirror at this very moment.

There are some sneaky good guys within a couple of shots of the lead: Jim Furyk and David Toms are tied for first, but I Furyk has been in a couple of years worth of slump. Toms is a fine player, but I don’t see him staring down Tiger.

Matt Kuchar, Hunter Mahan, Jason Dufner, Charl Schwartzel, KJ Choi are at +3. Any of these would need the round of their lives on Saturday to have an impact.

The +4s also have some guys who, with career rounds could get back into it: Nick Watney, Justin Rose, Ernie Els, Steve Stricker, Padraig Harrington.

I don’t see it, though. This one is Tiger’s. If he’s still in the lead Saturday night, there won’t be any reason to watch on Sunday.

I just heard an announcer on The Golf Channel say that Michael Thompson, who’s leading the 2012 US Open this morning is a “Former Eagle Scout.”

As an Eagle Scout, I’m here to tell everyone: There is no such thing as a FORMER Eagle Scout.

An Eagle is an Eagle for life. It becomes part of your DNA.