Among other things, what’s going on here is agecide, geriatricide or whatever the word is to describe the act of old golfers assaulting an 80-year-old course.
Tom Watson, age 53. Eduardo Romero, age 48. Nick Price, age 46. They are all on the leaderboard at a U.S. Open that thus far has been distinguished by the relentless sight of a scoreboard color that for most participants in most years is only a rumor. That color is red.
A red number, of course, signifies a score under par. There are years when breaking par on any given U.S. Open round is break-out-the-bubbly time.
Here at Olympia Fields we currently have a different kind of U.S. Open. This is an Equal Opportunity Open in which young guys, old guys, fat guys, skinny guys, guys from Fiji and guys named Woody who worked in a bank while they were going to Q-School, are all putting up the red numbers.