Brooks Koepka won the U.S. Open at 1-over this weekend. Fine.

Last year he won it in Erin, Pa. at 16-under. So the 2017 U.S. Open was basically the John Deere Classic OR Koepka and everyone else on the Tour got 17 strokes worse since last June. Nearly 70 players finished the 2017 U.S. Open under par; not one of them did this year on Long Island.

Can’t speak for JJ (can but won’t; I’ll let Bonzai do that, as he does nearly every weekday 5-6 on SportsTalk, 1130 AM The Tiger — “Ben, why do you keep telling me what you THINK I’M THINKING?!“) but I’ll give the tournament a 1-under score since no one finished under par; here’s why it’s not lower/better.

I followed it since Thursday but watched less than 10 minutes until Sunday afternoon, when I dug in. I wanted the announcers to help me a bit more and they didn’t so I turned the sound down. I wanted to be captivated but wasn’t. But I enjoyed it, mainly because it was hard on the pros.

No one could play golf like that every weekend. The mental grind would be too tough. That’s a lot of thinking. You’ve got to have pitch-and-putt Honda Classics to balance things out for the pros. And the fans. And maybe this is why some pros get so upset when a course is set up long and hard, even for them, even for guys used to hovering below par each week. And few people understand just how good these guys are, how good they have to be to stay there.

So they get spoiled and come U.S. Open week, the complaining starts. Another reason I turned the sound down was the crowd noise; the crowd was sort of romper roomish. But then, maybe they fed off the players’ complaints, so who cares? Let ’em yap.

My golf squeeze Jimmy heard one of the pros complain at a recent-enough Open that a green wouldn’t hold his 3-wood. Uh…courses aren’t designed for players to be throwing 3-woods into greens. Figure out another way to get there. Or figure out how to hit your 3-wood so it’ll sit down like a bird on a limb.

And while players might have had some legit complaints about a couple of back-9 pin placements Saturday, every hole but 14 was birdied at least 4 times Saturday. And 14 was parred by nearly half the field. So…do what those guys did.

Because the bottom line is this: Somebody ALWAYS WINS THE TOURNAMENT! Do what THAT guy did. Don’t be mad at the course. Somebody is going to win whether the course is hard or easy. EVERY TIME. Be that guy.

The Masters is my favorite, but the U.S.Open is No. 2 because of the angst and woe it brings with it. Hope +4 wins it in 2019 but Pebble Beach is always a jump ball so who knows…

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