Bethesda, Md. — Given the choice between a good night sleep before playing in his first-ever U.S. Open and watching his beloved Boston Bruins beat Vancouver for the Stanley Cup, Rhode Island golfer Brad Adamonis said there was never any question.
“Bruins first, you know,” Adamonis told us after posting a disappointing 6-over 77 in Thursday’s opening round at Congressional Country Club.
Brutal. Adamonis, whose alarm went off at a “brutal” 4:30 a.m. after he turned in at midnight following the Bruins 4-0 blanking of the Canucks Wednesday night, conceded his late night may have cost him some strokes but he wasn’t about to second-guess himself. “I waited my whole life for that game. It was very rewarding,” he said. “It was a great game, wasn’t it? They played so well.”
The 38-year-old from Cumberland, R.I., who had attempted to qualify for the national championship 25 times before making it this year as the final alternate, chose not to linger on what he called an obviously “bad score.” Rather, the former hockey player who has played on the Nationwide and PGA Tours, talked Bruins. Indeed, Adamonis can recite chapter and verse about Bruins history — like the fourth game of the 1990 series with Montreal that he and his late father David attended.
“We’d never beaten Montreal in a series and Rick Middleton scored a short-handed goal with 20 minutes left in the second period,” he recalled with a big grin. “It was a standing ovation for the rest of the game. Nobody sat down.”
David Adamonis, who taught his son to play golf, passed away in 2009, but is never far from the thoughts of the player who conquered junior and high school golf but has struggled in the professional ranks. “I was thinking about some of the things he said to me,” he said. “Patience pays off, the power of positive thinking.
“I was getting a little quick with my swing so I just tried to hang in, that’s what he does,” Adamonis said. “He would have loved to have been here.”
As for his first-round score, Adamonis was philosophical. “It tastes pretty bad, but really, it’s a U.S. Open,” he said. “It’s a tough course and if I can play good tomorrow and have three good rounds, you never know.”
Uihlein eagles. Meanwhile, another New Englander, top amateur Peter Uihlein, eagled the par-4 fifth hole and shot a 1-over to put himself into the mix, just seven shots back of leader Rory McIlroy’s 65. The reigning U.S. Amateur champion chose a different tactic than Adamonis did for his first U.S. Open; he turned out the lights before the Bruins claimed victory.
“No, I went to bed,” Uihlein said following the round he played with defending U.S. Open champ Graeme McDowell and 2010 British Open winner Louis Oosthuizen.
Uihlein, from New Bedford, Mass., and the son of Acushnet chief executive Wally Uihlein, battled nerves before his magical fifth hole, which he managed with a hybrid off the tee and a “perfect” pitching wedge from 124 yards out. “After it went in on five, it kind of helped settle me in a little bit,” he said. “I freed up a bit.”
After starting his round with a tee shot that went far to the right, only to bounce off the foot of a spectator and into the rough, Uihlein was satisfied with the day’s outcome.
“At 3-over through 4, if you’d told me I’d shoot 72 I’d take it,” he said.
McIlroy, for his part, recognized that he had a long way to go before adding this week’s major to the win column. The 22-year-old from Northern Ireland suffered a painful meltdown after taking a 54-hole lead into Sunday of this year’s Master — a fact of which he was quite cognizant when he spoke with ESPN following his masterful first round.
“It was a good round of golf,” McIlroy said. “I didn’t make any mistakes, which in a U.S. Open is huge.”
Comfortable with his game and the golf course, McIlroy said he played his tee shots and irons well. “I have to go back that up tomorrow and put myself in a good position going into the weekend,” he said.
Where’d they hide the fairways? Fortunate to be on the leaderboard at all was Phil Mickelson. With the label of five-time U.S. Open runner-up hanging over his head, Lefty did all he could to play himself out of the tourney completely. That he finished his day just 3-over was a minor miracle after his double-bogey start on his favorite hole, the par-3 10th. From there, Mickelson proceeded to hit shots to far corners of Congressional Country Club that no one knew existed.
The birthday boy (Mickelson turned 41 Thursday) could not find the fairway, teeing off into one tough patch of rough after another. On the 14th, he could have used a GPS to find his ball, nestled down into waist-high weeds. Somehow, he managed to chop it back into play without employing a scythe.
More trouble on 16, when Phil the Thrill used a driver to try to undo a wild tee shot. After such misadventures, it was not surprising to learn from USA Today that Mickelson placed an SOS call to coach Butch Harmon Thursday morning. Perhaps a more comfortable start on the front nine on Friday will help Mickelson find his way back to the fairway.
Related posts:
- Brad Adamonis Gets His First Shot at a Major at The 2011 U.S. Open
- The Road Back for Brad Adamonis
- Brad Adamonis is back while Tim Petrovic keeps hanging around the top of the leaderboard
- Boston golfer James Driscoll flirts with 59 in Puerto Rico Open
- The Road Back for Brad Adamonis: In his own words
