Bethpage Eases Up in the Afternoon

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Turns out, the golfers who never teed off during the United States Open’s Day 1 downpour were lucky in more ways than just staying dry. When they finally kicked off their first round after noon on Friday, Bethpage’s fearsome Black course had lost much of its bite. Mike Weir of Canada blistered it for four birdies on the front nine and finished with a six-under 64, which tied the course record and is an unthinkable score on such a long course with usually punishing greens.


Weir held a two-shot lead after the first round finally finished, ahead of Sweden’s Peter Hanson, who birdied the final two holes to reach four under. David Duval made a surprising charge to join Todd Hamilton in a tie for third at three under.

Phil Mickelson came along to electrify a crowd already rooting hard for him to win. Mickelson threatened the lead but faltered late to finish one under. The second round was scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. Friday, and Mickelson, for one, was eager to keep going.

“The soft conditions are great,” he said. “Balls that land in the fairway stay in the fairway. I think the conditions will never be easier. We want to play as much golf as we can under these conditions.”

The afternoon crew quickly took advantage of those conditions and left the morning golfers behind. The amateur Drew Weaver and Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland were the best of that crew, shooting one-under 69s. Tiger Woods started his day at 7:26 a.m., when the first round resumed with a shotgun start, by missing the par putt he left there when the weather horn sounded Thursday morning. Woods double-bogeyed No. 15 and stumbled more from there, finishing at four over.

“The course is playing tough, obviously,” Woods said after his round. “They moved quite a few tees up, but still, the fairways have dried out just enough where you’re getting just a little bit of mud, and the wind is starting to pick up just a little bit.”

That wind did not bother Weaver, who could hardly consider Thursday’s weather disastrous, or even terribly troubling. He gained an entirely different perspective on such things when, as a student at Virginia Tech, he was 100 yards from the shootings that ravaged the campus in 2007.

“It’s always with you,” Weaver said.

Weaver, 22, who recently graduated, qualified for the Open in sectional qualifying and also won the British Amateur, which gains him entry to the Masters.

Despite the unfriendly rain Thursday and the not-yet-compliant course of Friday morning, Weaver enjoyed his round. He had three birdies on the back nine to pull from two over to become one of the few players under par in the morning. But he said he plays with the perspective earned on the day he heard shots coming from Norris Hall, the day a lone gunman killed 32 people.

“At the British Amateur, it’s definitely something I was playing for,” he said. “It’s nice to have something to dedicate to those that were lost.”

Weaver played in the Masters and the British Open but never had a sniff of the lead. He started Friday at two over after he played 11 holes on Thursday. He made a good par save at the 12th hole with a 10-footer and then birdied No. 13 with a 20-foot putt, and No. 16 with an 18-footer. “At that point I was kind of feeding off the crowd, wasn’t nervous and used my adrenaline to my advantage,” he said.

He got the crowd into it on 17 with a 22-foot putt that broke left to right and rolled in the hole.

“It was incredible, really nice to pour that in and hear that roar,” he said.

Weaver, though, said he learned how to appreciate much smaller things than golf victories by surviving the massacre at his university.

“We’ve definitely moved on and developed a little better outlook on life, a little more positive, and have learned to appreciate the smaller things in life,” he said. “Things are great, but we haven’t ever forgotten the loss.”

Woods, meanwhile, was dealing with woes involving golf only, and he had a few. After starting the day one over, he collected another bogey immediately. He seemed to be finding his game with two birdies early on the back nine, but then doubled No. 15 and bogeyed 16 and 18.

“Well, I wasn’t playing poorly,” Woods said. “I was even par with four to go, and I was right there where I needed to be, and two bad shots and a mud ball later, here we go and I’m at four over par.”

On No. 18, while Woods’s playing partners Ángel Cabrera and Padraig Harrington were busy looking for Cabrera’s ball in the rough, Woods not only did not help, he hit his approach shot over their heads toward the green. He was clearly focusing on his game.

The United States Golf Association hoped to get most of the second round completed Friday before dark. The forecast for Saturday is gloomy: an 80 percent chance of rain, and possibly another inch for the waterlogged course.