Golf San Diego

Darren Rovell has been all over the Tiger-Apple-Ebay scene lately, and he didn't skip a beat on the newest development: fantasy sports site RotoHog has purchased the "Monday Apple" eaten by Tiger during the U.S. Open playoff and is holding a vote to determine what they should do with the rotten scrap of fruit.

"We were looking for something that would be a good Golden Palace play," said Shane Igoe, the site's director of content and viral marketing, referring to the online casino that has generated publicity by buying weird auction items.

A la Marc Ecko, who put the Barry Bonds' No. 756 home run ball up for a public vote, the folks at Rotohog are asking the masses what they should do with the apple.

It's a pretty good move on the part of RotoHog -- our nation's collective fascination with food, celebrity and the webbie-tubes are a solid combination to market off of. Of course, unlike Ecko, RotoHog guarantees to actually follow through with whatever the public decides (and is mocking the designer/baseball-history-ruiner on the site, +1). Anyway, head over to the Tiger Apple site and get your vote on.

To keep you prepared before you do, the choices are ...

If you're here and you aren't sure why, it's because you should be on the main page of FanHouse's 2008 U.S. Open Bonus Playoff 'Shot of the Day' Extravaganza. Basically, we want you to tell us what the best shot of the Tiger -- Rocco Monday matchup was.

As much as I dislike Johnny Miller's "work", he is dead on when describing the bunker shot on 15 by Eldrick as a "Tiger Shot" (of course, that's what the rest of us call it too, so he's really just doing his job). Tiger follows Rocco's dialed up shot the green at 15 by going inside of him from a ridiculous downward sloping, ball-beneath-the-feet bunker shot from 170 yards out.



He may not have taken full control of the tournament here, but this is arguably the most ridiculous shot he hit the whole tournament.

Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate went to battle today while the rest of the U.S. (San Diego excepted) was at work. A lot of us watched streaming online and a ton of us followed the two via Shane Bacon and what was a pretty freaking spectacular live blog.

18 holes wasn't enough for either golfer though (well, nice guy Rocco was probably ready to go home after 18) and we ended up getting a sudden death playoff that saw Tiger walk away as the 2008 U.S. Open Champion after just one extra-overtime hole.

There were hundreds of great shots over the course of this prime time rankings raker of a U.S. Open. But Monday's round (easily the least watched of the last three days) was probably the best, as Tiger and Rocco dueled back and forth. Both of those reason -- the compelling golf and the unwatchability -- are why we want you, the fan to let us know which shot you think was the best. They are also why we're providing video clips of each shot.

Follow the links below and then vote to let us know what the Shot of the Day on Monday was, and if you have other nominations, by all means leave them in the comments section.

The issues that athletes have with addiction to uppers and pain medication is pretty well documented. I do not think that Tiger Woods has any sort of painkiller addiction. And I think he probably has a prescription for whatever he took.
However, it is still really odd to hear him say that he "took some things" to help relieve the pain issues in his knee following his comeback on the final round of the U.S. Open Sunday.



The reason it is odd is that, well, to be frank, golf is much harder on pain killers. Your senses are numb and muscles relaxed, which is good for the amateur who swings to hard. But for an athlete like Tiger who relies on pinpoint timing to perform, pain medicine just does not seem like the most logical option.

It could also explain, depending on what he took and when he took it, the opening round double bogey fiasco of his.

Tiger Woods' 18th hole at Torrey Pines was nothing short of a roller coaster ride. It was both exasperating, heart wrenching and thrilling to watch as a television spectator, so I can't imagine having to be Rocco Mediate.

First, his tee shot, which went wayward, ended up in a bunker and basically took eagle out of play, which somehow made this whole thing more dramatic.



The last three shots are after the jump.

Tiger Woods just did something that would normally be described as "amazing" and "otherworldly". But because Tiger's CPU does not understand the phrase "realistic", an insane birdie-four on 18 has him headed to a Monday morning playoff against Rocco Mediate.

Mediate, by the way, was forced to watch from the clubhouse at one under as Lee Westwood and Tiger teed off at 18, needing eagle to win or birdie to force some sort of playoff (Monday morning threeway would have been nice, but oh well.)

Tiger immediately went sand to the left followed by Westwood going sand to the right. But the shocking moment was Tiger's shankjob out of the bunker that left him slinging clubs and unlikely to get the bird he needed. Or so it seemed.

But as is typical of El Tigre, he took a 105 yard shot, lying in the rough in some sort of hole and put it 12 feet. Westwood, who safely got out of the bunker, was just outside and putted first, missing just right.

And as Ryan pointed out in the live blog, after seeing Lee miss, you almost felt like Tiger was "100%" to hit his. But that didn't make the his putt, which rolled around two thirds of the lip before dropping, any less dramatic.

Little known fact about the site of this year's U.S. Open: there is a nudist colony that frequents the beach near Torrey Pines. No, seriously. They get naked and run around the beach and from said strip (bwa-ha-ha) of sand, they can see the Open workers firing up all the golf Major obstacles. Like bleachers and stuff. For the fans who will be watching.

"It's pretty much what you would see on any other beach," said [Lloyd]Johnson, the frontal man for the nudist group that frequents the scenic stretch. "People playing volleyball, throwing the Frisbee, body surfing, building sandcastles, collecting seashells. Maybe playing some backgammon."

[...]A scant 100 yards below one of the most scenic vistas in golf is a historic eye-opener of another sort. Paralleling the Torrey courses is a stretch of storied sand called Black's Beach, where they congregate in the buff below the bluff.

Hello, friends. Oh wait. Wrong tournament. Whatever. We don't need no stinking Nance. We've got all the drama in the world as the best players on the PGA gear up for a run at Torrey Pines South in sunny San Diego.

Of course, everyone on the PGA Tour is good. The best two players though, are the most dramatizing and in many ways, polarizing (although I would argue certain on and off course events changed that some). And this year they are paired up to start the U.S. Open.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson sit at number one and number two in the world, respectively, and while we will talk about all things Torrey and Open today, we're going to focus specifically on those two gentlemen.

Do you love one and not the other? Who do you love? Why do you feel that way? Do you despise Phil for his juxtaposed work ethic and success? Or do you think Tiger is too robotic? Are you bored beyond tears at work and just wanna chat about golf? Or do you just love golf so much that you root for both of them?

Stop by Wednesday, June 11 at 1pm and join myself, Ryan Wilson, Shane Bacon and Stephanie Stradley to talk Torrey.

Golf.com has taken some of SI photographer Fred Vuich's early shots from Torrey Pines and let them loose on the public with the technology known as Gigipan. Essentially, you can go to the site and spend upwards of a half hour (depending on your golf obsession and work setup) zooming in and out while navigating the toggle to check out the five shots they've got set up.

The options are:

The green on the par-3 third hole
The bunker-lined 18th green
A look down the 11th fairway
The ocean-side par-4 fourth hole
From tee to green on the 13th hole

The shot taken above is from the third hole. It's not the "prettiest" but when I first looked at it, I became terrified based on the rough/trap combo that would have me laying up. Reality is though, that this shot is taken from the whites (I believe) and not the tips, which are set off to the right and about 160 out. Still, if the pin is in the front, this hole becomes a tough par.