U.S. Open Preview

I've arrived at Pebble Beach feeling good about my game and ready for the U.S. Open.
 
Last week, I spent five days with my coach, Mike Wilson, working hard on trying to correct some of the problems that have caused me to have a slow start to 2010. You can't correct problems if you don't identify them and I think we did just that and followed up with a lot of work on correcting them. From that point on it was a lot of hard work. There's no solution to this that's going to come easily. I know that and that's why I've been putting in the time to get things turned around. So that's one good reason to be optimistic.

This tournament is at Pebble Beach, a course I've played well in the past. I have seven top-10 finishes in the AT&T since 2000 and really like the way the course sets up for my game. I've felt there have been a few times when I could have won this event. However just being in the hunt consistently leaves me with a good feeling for the place coming into this week.

Now the setup here will be vastly different than it is for the PGA Tour event. I played a few weeks ago and I know some of the fairways have been moved closer to the edges of the cliffs and the rough will be the nasty U.S. Open stuff that you want to stay out of. Still, you can feed off the feeling of success and I've definitely had some here.

Then there's the fact this is the U.S. Open. I love this tournament, love the challenge of playing one of the toughest courses we see all year. I was watching video of the 2000 Open last week and saw how rock-hard everything was. Wedges were bouncing 10-feet in the air and fairways were running out. That was my second U.S. Open and I finished tied for 16th, a good performance for sure.

For me, the harder the course, the more I like it and they don't come much harder than the U.S. Open. So I hope the conditions remain tough.
 
With the course, the tournament and lots of hard work, I'm looking forward to a good week here at Pebble Beach.

As always, thanks for your support.
Mike