U.S. Open Challenge Adds Big Ben

Like Torrey Pines in 2008, this year's U.S. Open is being played at a unique destination: Bethpage. The course is unique for a number of reasons. First, if you have the patience to sleep in your car overnight, you and I could get on Bethpage Black for around $100 and play the same golf course that the pros will be teeing it up on in less than two months. Also, it might just be the toughest course in the country, boasting the famous sign outside that warns, "Warning: The Black course is an extremely difficult course which we recommend only for highly skilled golfers."

Now, as it turns out, if you're lucky enough to win the 2009 Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge, a contest that's open to the public, you'll not only get a chance to play Bethpage, but you'll do it with Michael Jordan, Justin Timberlake and Ben Roethlisberger, who recently announced he'd participate this year.

All three celebrities have a single-digit Handicap and have been included in previous Golf Digest rankings of athletes and musicians. On the 2007 list of the top athlete-golfers, Jordan ranked T–30 with a Handicap of 1.2 and Roethlisberger ranked T–121 with a Handicap of 7. Timberlake, the host of the PGA Tour's Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, was ranked T–15 with a Handicap of 6 on Golf Digest's 2008 "Top 100 in Music" list. Timberlake played in the 2008 Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge and shot 98 at Torrey Pines.

Butch Harmon plans to be on the bag for Timberlake while Fred Couples has already announced he will caddie for MJ. Since Big Ben hasn't announced his caddie yet, might I suggest a former ex-lover of Number Seven? I promise it would pump up the rankings.

Also, if you're interested in voting for the winner, click here. Last year, Tony Romo participated at Torrey Pines and shot a respectable 84. The winner of the contest in '08, John Atkinson, shot a 114 at Torrey Pines.