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The U.S. Open returns to one of golf’s iconic locations this week. This will be the sixth U.S. Open conducted on Pebble Beach Golf Links, a course known for its beautiful scenery and stiff challenge. It may be short by today’s standards, but small greens and high winds still provide plenty of challenge. Tiger Woods is the only player to finish under par in the past two U.S. Opens at Pebble Beach, and he did it with the greatest performance in the game’s history. Here’s 9 Things to Know before play gets underway on the California’s Central Coast. 1. AN INAUSPICIOUS START It’s impossible to fathom now, but the first attempt to construct the Pebble Beach Golf Links was unsuccessful. Twenty-five memberships for the new seaside course were sold for $25 apiece, according to Neal Hotelling’s official history of Pebble Beach. Nine temporary oil-and-sand-greens were built. In April 1910, the new course was advertised as “soon to openâ€�. Ten members backed out, though, and the plans were scrapped. It was nearly a decade before golf was played at Pebble Beach. Then the land that is now one of the world’s most famous courses was almost sold for housing lots, but Samuel Morse destroyed the plans and convinced the owners that the land would be better used as a golf course. Morse hired two amateur architects, Jack Neville and Douglas Grant, designed Pebble Beach. “The big idea was to get as many holes as possible along the bay,â€� Neville said. “Nature had intended it to be nothing else but a golf links.â€� When it opened, Pebble Beach was simply referred to as the No. 2 course at Del Monte. The new seaside course was preceded by the inland Del Monte Golf Course, which opened in 1897, and was an attraction for the well-heeled guests of the Del Monte Hotel.  Though the centennial of Pebble Beach is celebrated this year, the course was first played the previous year. Only one man, Mike Brady of Massachusetts, finished within 20 shots of par in the 36-hole tournament that marked the course’s unveiling. Brady, the runner-up at the 1911 and 1919 U.S. Opens, shot 79-75 to win by 13 shots. “The critiques on the opening day included lack of turf, rock-infested fairways and indentations on the greens from the sheep employed to maintain the grounds,â€� Hotelling wrote. The San Francisco Chronicle said the course was opened “somewhat prematurely.â€� At a time when golf balls cost more than the greens fee, the course was deemed too difficult. One newspaper called the course “a conspiracy to make necessary the purchase of large quantities of golf balls.â€� It was closed for nearly a year until being re-opened on Washington’s Birthday in 1919. To mark the birth of the country’s first president, a cherry tree was planted in front of the Lodge at Pebble Beach. All golfers present that day took an oath swearing to turn in honest scorecards. The course and lodge were built for a reported cost of $200,000. 2. SHORT STUFF Pebble Beach will play 7,075 yards for the U.S. Open. Since 2010, only one U.S. Open venue has been shorter (Merion, 2013). Pebble Beach still provides a stiff challenge, though. The average winning score in U.S. Opens at Pebble Beach is 282.6 strokes (the course has played as a par-71 in the past two U.S. Opens). The legendary sportswriter Jim Murray called the course “7,000 yards of malice.â€� “It’s a more strategic golf course than people give it credit for,â€� said Golf Channel analyst Arron Oberholser, who won the 2006 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. “People think you can just bludgeon it because it’s barely 7,000 yards, that it’s a pitch and putt, but you have to give yourself the right angles. “You have to be very strategic on where you attack and when you attack. You have to know your outs. Knowing where to leave it is massive. People look at the greens and think they’re just tilted (back-to-front), but you miss a couple in the wrong spots and you have nothing.â€� The June date virtually guarantees a firm and fast golf course. And the seaside locale means wind will be a factor. “Pebble Beach without any wind is not a very hard golf course,â€� said Jack Nicklaus. “But you never find it without any wind.â€� Scores can soar when the wind blows especially hard. That’s what happened in the final round of the 1972 and 1992 U.S. Opens, when the scoring average was 78.8 and 77.3, respectively. Eight of the final 14 players to tee off in 1992 shot 80 or higher. Scott Simpson shot 68-88 in the final two rounds. Mark Brooks shot an 84 on Sunday after starting the final round in second place. Jeff Sluman, the runner-up in 1992, said the final round was “as much fun as a migraine.â€� 3. TARGET PRACTICE Combine the conditions with the smallest greens on the PGA TOUR and it’s easy to see how Pebble Beach combines such a challenge. The field hit 52% of the greens in regulation at the last U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. They hit less than half in 2000 (48%). A course hasn’t had a lower GIR percentage since then. Before the last U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, the USGA’s Mike Davis called Pebble Beach’s greens, “the scariest greens we’ve had for a U.S. Open. “So many of these greens have a lot of pitch from back-to-front or side-to-side, and they’re small,â€� Davis said. “That (green) speed is a very scary speed if you short-side yourself or get on the wrong side of the hole.â€� Oberholser said only Oakmont and Winged Foot have more back-to-front tilt than Pebble Beach. “You’re starting 3-footers potentially a ball or two outside the hole,â€� he said. Phil Mickelson, a five-time winner of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, said in 2010 that there were several greens he’d miss intentionally. “You cannot chip downhill, especially out of the rough with these greens,â€� he said. “(The greens) are so small and so hard that there are a couple that are virtually impossible to keep the ball on the surface.â€� 4. REWARDING GREATNESS The list of champions at Pebble Beach proves that the course is more than just a pretty place. Many of the game’s greats, from Nicklaus to Watson to Woods, have won U.S. Opens at Pebble Beach. Five of the six majors at Pebble Beach have been won by World Golf Hall of Famers (or those destined for enshrinement). Nicklaus (1972), Tom Watson (1982), Tom Kite (1992) and Tiger Woods (2000) all won U.S. Opens at Pebble Beach. The PGA Championship also visited Pebble Beach in 1977. Another Hall of Famer, Lanny Wadkins, was the champion. “I’ve been enamored with the course since first setting eyes on it during a practice round of the U.S. Amateur,â€� said Nicklaus, who also won the 1961 U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach. “It’s as dramatic as any course in the country, but mostly it was the complete test of golf that intrigued me.â€� MAJORS AT PEBBLE BEACH 5. THE BEST OF THE BEST Nicklaus and Woods both won twice at Pebble Beach during the best seasons of their historic careers. In 1972, Nicklaus tied career-highs with seven wins and two majors. It was the only time in his career that he won the first two majors of the year. He started the season by beating Johnny Miller in a playoff at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Nicklaus returned four months later to win his third U.S. Open. He beat a star-studded leaderboard with a score of 290, the highest winning score at the U.S. Open since 1935. He clinched his win with arguably the most famous shot of his career, a 1-iron that one-hopped the flagstick on the par-3 17th. Nicklaus had at least a share of the lead after every round. He started the fourth round with a one-shot lead over three players, including Lee Trevino. Miller and Arnold Palmer were just two shots back. Nicklaus won by three with a final-round 74 in difficult conditions. Only one player broke par in the final round as the average score neared 79. It was his 13th major triumph, tying him with his boyhood idol, Bobby Jones. “The course was playing as close to impossible as it can get,â€� Nicklaus said. “And skill in putting was practically eliminated.â€� Nicklaus’ Grand Slam bid ended at The Open Championship, where he finished a stroke behind Trevino. Woods replicated Nicklaus’ Pebble Beach double nearly three decades later. It started at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where Woods played the final four holes in 4 under, including a hole-out eagle on the par-4 15th, to win by two. He beat 54-hole leader Matt Gogel by nine strokes over the final eight holes. Woods went on to win three majors that year, joining Ben Hogan (1953) as the only men to win three professional majors in a single season. It started with Woods’ masterpiece performance at the U.S. Open. Despite a triple-bogey (with no penalty strokes) in the third round, Woods went on to win by 15 shots. He led by six shots after 36 holes and took a 10-shot lead into the final round. He broke Old Tom Morris’ record for largest victory margin in a major. “If you put Old Tom Morris with Tiger Woods, he’d probably beat him by 80 shots right now,â€� said Ernie Els, who shared second place with Miguel Angel Jimenez. “Hey, the guy is unbelievable, man.â€� Woods went on to win The Open Championship at St. Andrews by eight (also over Els), then won the PGA Championship in a playoff with Bob May. Woods won a career-high nine times that season. LARGEST WINNING MARGINS IN MAJORS* * – since 1925 Woods has won five majors by at least five shots. He has at least one victory of five or more shots in each of the four majors (he did it twice at The Open Championship). Since World War I, no one else has won more than two majors by at least five strokes. 6. FRIENDLY WELCOME Pebble Beach offers a (relatively) gentle opening stretch. There are two par-5s and three par-4s shorter than 410 yards in the opening third of the course. That stretch plays slightly tougher in the U.S. Open because the 502-yard second hole is converted from a par-5 to a par-4, but it’s still important to start well. Throw in the 109-yard seventh, the shortest hole on the PGA TOUR, and competitors in the 2010 U.S. Open had faced five of Pebble Beach’s seven easiest holes before reaching the eighth tee. That stretch included the four easiest holes on the course. EASIEST HOLES IN 2010 U.S. OPEN 7. SEASIDE STRETCH After those opening holes, Pebble Beach quickly hits players with three of the greatest par-4s found anywhere. It starts with the eighth hole, which Nicklaus called it the “finest second shot in golf.â€� Woods said it was one of the most daunting approach shots in the game. Players hit a blind tee shot to a fairway that’s some 10 stories above the ocean. The approach shot must sail over the cliffs to a small, severely-sloped green that sits below the golfer. Next up are the ninth and 10th holes, which combine to measure more than 1,000 yards. Both feature fairways that slope toward the ocean. A drive down the right side, near the beach, offers the best angle to both greens. Bunkers protect the left side of both putting surfaces, and the ocean isn’t far from the right side. Players must hit their approach with the ball laying below their feet. A new tee will stretch the ninth hole to 526 yards. The added length will keep players from reaching a downslope that could propel their balls closer to the green. Players hit the ninth green just 41% of the time in 2010. The 10th hole, which will serve as each player’s starting hole during one of the first two rounds, is 495 yards. It’s the widest fairway on the course, but also severely tilted toward the water. “People are starting to understand how good these holes are,â€� golf-course architect Tom Doak wrote. “That’s what you remember after playing the course the first time, not 17 and 18. If 8, 9 and 10 were the closing holes, it would be the most famous finish in golf.â€� NOS. 8-10 IN 2010 8. NO BARGAIN Par-5s are supposed to be birdie opportunities, but that’s not the case on Pebble Beach’s back nine. The 14th hole runs uphill, away from the water, and doglegs right. The 18th hole turns to the left as it hugs Stillwater Cove. They’re two very different holes but both offer a challenge not normally found on three-shot holes. The 14th green was designed by local artist Francis McComas, who also was an avid golfer. To give the long, uphill hole a unique flair, McComas created a two-tiered green settled among overhanging oaks. A large bunker protects the upper tier on the left. His creation is one of the most recognizable greens at Pebble Beach. It also is one of the most difficult. The 14th annually ranks as one of the toughest par-5s on the PGA TOUR. It was the third-hardest hole in the 2010 U.S. Open, playing to a 5.44 scoring average. That’s the highest scoring average on a par-5 on the entire PGA TOUR since 2000. Pebble Beach’s 543-yard final hole is one of the most famous in golf. It is a dramatic par-5 that dares players to flirt with Stillwater Cove. That wasn’t always the case. It started as a 325-yard, par-4 that was once deemed a “woefully poor finishing hole.â€� To add some intrigue to the 18th hole, a new tee was built on the rocks behind the 17th green. It added 35 yards to the hole and forced players to carry the cove. The hole finally became a par-5 in 1922, after a creek behind the green was culverted. This allowed the green to be moved 170 yards down the coast. 9. ANNUAL VISIT The PGA TOUR visits Pebble Beach each year, of course, for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Four of the five players who won a U.S. Open at Pebble Beach had previously won the annual PGA TOUR stop there. Players can only glean so much information from their trips to the tournament once known as the Crosby Clambake, though. PLAYERS TO WIN U.S. OPEN AT PEBBLE BEACH AND AT&T PEBBLE BEACH PRO-AM Mickelson won his fifth AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this year, tying him with Mark O’Meara for the most wins in the tournament’s history. That success won’t mean much this week. “There’s really no carry-over, other than I just really enjoy this place,â€� Mickelson said. “I seem to play some of my best golf here and that’s probably about it.â€� Nicklaus, who won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am three times, concurs. “When they play it in June, it could be like a rock,â€� Nicklaus said. “A lot of guys think because they come here and play it at the AT&T that they’re going to have experience on how this golf course plays. “I’ve never seen many rounds at the AT&T that give you much experience for what we’re getting (at the U.S. Open).â€�

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The U.S. Open's return to Winged Foot means revisiting one of the wildest finishes in the tournament's history. Phil Mickelson's failure on the final hole receives most of the attention, and for good reason. The U.S. Open is the only event that stands between him and the career Grand Slam. His six runners-up in this event also are a record; no one else has more than four. Winning at Winged Foot would have given Mickelson three consecutive major victories, as well. Winged Foot may have been his best chance to win his national championship. Playing in the final group, he arrived at 18 needing a par to win. Instead, his drive sailed off a hospitality tent and his recovery shot ricocheted off a tree and nearly bounced back to his feet. He made double-bogey instead. "I am such an idiot," Mickelson famously said afterward. "This one hurts more than any tournament because I had it won." His 6 at the last hole dropped him to 6 over par for the tournament, one shot behind winner Geoff Ogilvy. He wasn't the only one who lost the 2006 U.S. Open with bogey, or worse, on 18. PGATOUR.COM recently spoke to the others to illuminate all of the craziness that occurred on Winged Foot's closing hole: COLIN MONTGOMERIE Finish: T2, 286 (+6) Shots behind Ogilvy: 1 Score on 18: Double bogey What happened on 18: Flared his approach from the 18th fairway short and right of the green. Quotable: "I am convinced to this day that if I was able to hit that second shot in real time — I walk up to it and hit it the way that I do — I would have won." Mickelson wasn't the first player to lose the 2006 U.S. Open with a double-bogey on the final hole. Montgomerie did it first, and from the middle of the fairway. At least one fellow contender said it was Montgomerie's double, not Mickelson's, that was the most shocking because of where it came from. We're all accustomed to Mickelson scrambling from the trees. Mickelon's popularity - and his enduring quest for his first U.S. Open - has caused his mistake at Winged Foot to overshadow Montgomerie's. "That's the one that will forever haunt (Mickelson), but he's spent his life going for those shots. It's not like it was out of character," Padraig Harrington, who finished fifth at Winged Foot, told PGATOUR.COM. "What was out of character was Monty. Monty spent his life hitting the green with a 7-iron. "I was gob-smacked. Not so much with Phil. Phil is like that. I was gob-smacked with Monty." Montgomerie wrote in his autobiography that Winged Foot was "the major near-miss which can still wake me up in the middle of the night." Montgomerie, a World Golf Hall of Famer, had five runners-up in majors but never won one. What happened on the final hole was especially jarring after the good fortune he experienced one hole earlier. He made a 40-footer for birdie on that hole, a stroke of fortune that made him wonder if fate was finally shining upon him. "It went in and you think, ‘OK, is this it? Is this suddenly my time?'" Montgomerie recently told PGATOUR.COM. Johnny Miller could see Montgomerie's emotions from the broadcast booth. "I think he is thinking about crying right now," NBC's Johnny Miller said on the telecast. "I'm serious." Gary Koch concurred with Miller's observation, saying, "He looks very emotional, Johnny." Montgomerie walked to the 18th tee tied for the lead with Mickelson. Montgomerie split the fairway with his trademark high fade. He later called it his best drive in a pressure situation. He was left with just 172 yards to the hole. The pin was on the right-hand side of the green, a perfect spot for his left-to-right ball flight. Montgomerie had to wait several minutes to hit the shot, however, after Vijay Singh drove into the same hospitality area that Mickelson later bounced his tee shot off of. While Singh received his drop, Montgomerie estimated he had to wait 15 minutes before hitting his shot. "He's been waiting down there, Johnny, but he's been waiting nearly two decades for a major championship, so what's another minute or two," Dan Hicks said on the broadcast. It was the wait that Montgomerie felt hurt him. "The time, that was the problem with it," he told PGATOUR.COM. "It was the time I had to think. That's why I'm a quick player normally, because I'm convinced that the longer you have over a shot, the more doubt and the more negative thoughts spring up. And that's what happened and unfortunately I mishit it." Montgomerie changed from a 6-iron to a 7-iron right before hitting, a decision that Miller immediately questioned. "I'm surprised he just switched clubs, when you've had 10 minutes to figure it out," Miller said. Montgomerie thought adrenaline would give him added distance with the shorter club, but he caught it fat. "What kind of shot is that?" he said almost immediately after impact. The ball fell short and right of the green. He was below the green, chipping up to a putting surface that sloped away from him. His flop shot sailed well past the pin and he ran his par putt approximately 10 feet past the hole. He missed the comebacker, which would have gotten him into a playoff. "Colin Montgomerie will wonder if there will ever be another chance," Hicks said. There wasn't. Montgomerie, who was less than a week shy of his 43rd birthday, never finished better than T42 in another major. "I had a very bad flight home that night," Montgomerie wrote in his autobiography. "I remember sitting there in a daze, not knowing what to say or do. I wasn't crying. I had gone beyond that. I was incapable of any analysis. The same three words, ‘What just happened?', kept going through my head." JIM FURYK Finish: T2, 286 (+6) Shots behind Ogilvy: 1 Score on 18: Bogey What happened on 18: Hit approach into bunker and missed 6-foot par putt. Quotable: "It still pisses me off." - Furyk, on his missed putt on 18 Furyk doesn't remember seeing Mickelson's debacle on the 72nd hole. He was on his way out of town when it happened. The U.S. Open runners-up are included in the trophy ceremony but Furyk never thought he'd need to stick around for that after his bogey on the final hole. "I missed (the trophy ceremony) because I left," he said recently. "I didn't think I was going to be second. It never even dawned on me. I was in my car on the way out by the time that all shook out." Furyk, who'd won the U.S. Open three years earlier, three-putted the 15th from 30 feet for his first bogey of the back nine. He thought he needed a birdie at 18 to win the tournament for a second time. "What I remember was kind of hanging on all day and staying within distance. Just kind of hanging on, hanging on, hanging on," he said. "I just felt like I needed to get one more birdie on the way in. "I was always disappointed I bogeyed that last hole. I was pedal down, trying to make birdie as hard as I could." Furyk's tee shot landed in the fairway but bounced left into the second cut. He tugged his second shot into a bunker left of the green but blasted out to about 6 feet. Furyk and his longtime caddie, Mike "Fluff" Cowan, studied the putt intensely. Furyk backed off multiple times. "I backed off of it because I wasn't comfortable," Furyk told PGATOUR.COM. "I remember hitting a decent putt. I looked up and it burned the edge." The left-to-right putt lost steam and missed on the low side. "That was not that hard of a putt, except for the situation," Miller said on the telecast. "If they end up at plus 5, Furyk will think about that one for a while," Hicks added. Furyk still does. PADRAIG HARRINGTON Finish: 5th, 287 (+7) Shots behind Ogilvy: 2 Score on 18: Bogey What happened on 18: Three-putted from long distance for his third straight bogey. Quotable: "That could have defined my career as a massive choke. But thankfully others made worse and they got the blame." It's easy to forget the mess that Harrington made of the 18th hole. The final round overshadows all that precedes it, after all. Harrington finished his third round with a triple-bogey on 18 after topping a 5-wood out of the rough. The ball rolled just 20 yards. He pulled his next shot into a bunker, then three-putted. He started the final round four back of the leaders, Mickelson and little-known Kenneth Ferrie. Harrington played with Furyk in the fifth-to-last group. Harrington was bogey-free for his first 15 holes Sunday. He started the day with 11 straight pars before birdies at 12 and 14 got him into the mix. Playing so far ahead of the leaders, it was difficult to tell what he needed to post to have a chance. It turns out three pars would have done the trick. He closed with three straight bogeys instead. He missed the green at both 16 and 17, missing a 3-footer for par on the second-to-last hole. He hit his approach on 18 to the back-left corner of the green. Thinking he needed to make his birdie putt from across the green, he raced it past the hole and missed the comebacker. "I had three pars to win the U.S. Open. It's as simple as that," he said. "When I bogeyed 16, I thought I needed to make a birdie. As it turned out, I only needed to make two pars." He paused as he relived the crazy finish. "Wow. Crazy game," he added as he shook his head. Harrington's sports psychologist, Bob Rotella, approached his client after the round to check on his well-being. Harrington was upbeat despite the tough finish. "I was quite happy, to be honest, because it was the first time I knew I could win a major," he told PGATOUR.COM recently. "I know I messed up but I just didn't read the situation right. I didn't choke in the sense that I hit bad shots. I choked in the sense that I went for the wrong shot at the wrong time, which was situational awareness, which you only get from experience." Harrington won the following year's Open Championship, then won both The Open and PGA Championship in 2008.

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Tiger Woods and Mark Calcavecchia were never supposed to play in Foursomes (alternate-shot) at the 2002 Ryder Cup at The Belfry. Birdie-machine Calcavecchia seemed more appropriate for Four-ball play, but two things led to the Tiger-Calcavecchia pairing. First of all, they were friends, having played practice rounds together, and “Calcâ€� wouldn’t be intimidated by Woods’ aura. And secondly, there was something Calcavecchia knew that U.S. Captain Curtis Strange didn’t, or at least didn’t seem to take into account: Playing with Ken Green and Payne Stewart, Calcavecchia had gone 4-0 in previous Ryder Cup Foursomes. “I actually had to talk Curtis into it,â€� Calcavecchia said recently. “I brought it to his attention. I said, ‘Let me play with Tiger, I’ll get you a win.’ “I would have thought, teeing off, that there was no way we could lose.â€� A lot of people have thought that way upon partnering with Tiger, who is coming off a seismic victory at the TOUR Championship at East Lake last weekend, the long-awaited 80th of his career at age 42. He is perhaps the greatest player in history, knows more about winning than anyone short of PGA TOUR victories leader Sam Snead (82), and would appear at first glance to be the perfect teammate. What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out. In seven Ryder Cups, Woods has had 12 partners in Foursomes and Four-ball play, going 4-8-1 and 5-8-0 respectively, for an un-Tiger-like 9-16-1 record in the matches that make up the first two days (and 16 of 28 points) of the competition. One of the stories heading into this week’s Ryder Cup at Le Golf National in Paris will be the U.S. Team’s effort to win on foreign soil for the first time since 1993. But to do that, U.S. Captain Jim Furyk may need to find a way to help Woods find a partner. His record in Ryder Cup Foursomes and Four-ball has been a head-scratcher, to say the least. Woods’ frustrations certainly haven’t been for a lack of trying. Three times, in ’99, ’02 and ’04, he has been paired with three different players in a single Ryder Cup. He settled down and went 2-2 with Furyk in ’06, and 2-1 with Steve Stricker in 2010. The Woods/Stricker tandem had been potent the previous year in the 2009 Presidents Cup, winning all four of their matches. But in the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah, they went 0-3 as the U.S. lost a heartbreaker. What gives? I think Tiger’s not easy to pair with people. Because the attention that he brings … you’re expected to win, and then you’re going up against the best players in (Europe), and over an 18-hole match. So, a lot of funny things can happen. As it turns out, it may not be that complicated. It’s the ball — or it was. Although Ryder Cups in America never abide by the one-ball rule, Ryder Cups in Europe used to do just that, forcing Foursomes teams to pick a ball (brand, compression, cover softness) and stick with it for the day. Woods played a soft, high-spin ball that was unfamiliar to the rest of the TOUR, sometimes leaving his partners to try and adapt on the fly. They didn’t always have much success. So it went for Calcavecchia as he and Woods never quite clicked at The Belfry and lost 2 and 1 to Europe’s Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood. “I had a problem playing with his Nike ball,â€� Calcavecchia recalled. “I hit a couple iron shots that I thought were perfect and came up 30 feet short. And on a par-5 on the front nine, I thought I could carry this fairway bunker and it crashed into the lip, which surprised me. I basically hit his ball 10 yards shorter than I hit my ball. It just felt softer than the Titleist I was playing. “And neither of us played very well,â€� Calcavecchia added. “Tiger missed a couple 4-footers for par, which he never does, and on 14, the par-3, he half-shanked an 8-iron about 50 feet right and it buried in the corner of a bunker. I could barely get a club on it and we lost that hole. Prior to that, I’d hit a couple bad drives and put him in a bad spot. But that’s alternate-shot.â€� How bad was it? Garcia and Westwood won three holes with pars. The good news is that the one-ball rule is no longer in effect in Europe, allowing Foursomes teammates to each use their own ball off the holes where they tee off, simplifying the process. Woods, at least, believes the rule change might help him going forward, whether he’s paired with Bryson DeChambeau, as speculated, Phil Mickelson or somebody else in France this week.

“Now when you’re pairing guys — a little bit more on personality than your golf ball,â€� Woods said. “So that’s changed the alternate shot. … It’s so much easier now because we’re able to hit whatever we want off the tees. And that makes a world of difference.â€� Both he and DeChambeau play a Bridgestone ball, albeit different models. Woods calls it, “a firmer version of what I play.â€� Perhaps more indicative of a potential partnership, the two have formed a rapidly growing friendship, teaming up for practice rounds and also playing together in the third round of the Dell Technologies Championship, when DeChambeau shot 63 on the way to his second victory in as many weeks to start the FedExCup Playoffs. “If he goes around and shoots 8-under par every time, that will work,â€� Woods said. Shooting 65, as Woods did twice at East Lake last week, would also work. As for why his record isn’t better in Four-ball, more often called best ball in the States, NBC/Golf Channel commentator Justin Leonard says that’s more complicated. There’s heightened attention on anything Woods does; players are especially fired up to beat him (ask former No. 1 Greg Norman about being a target); and match play can be a fickle beast. “I think Tiger’s not easy to pair with people,â€� Leonard said. “Because the attention that he brings … you’re expected to win, and then you’re going up against the best players in (Europe), and over an 18-hole match. So, a lot of funny things can happen.â€� Funny things that as Joe Pesci might say are not exactly “hah-hah funnyâ€� for the Americans. Leonard, one of the 12 Americans who have partnered Woods, fared better than most; they halved a Foursomes match against Jesper Parnevik and Ignacio Garrido at Valderrama in 1997. Phil Mickelson has a different theory about Woods’ woes. “When you’d be partnered with him, you’d let him do all the work because he’s so good,â€� Mickelson said. “And you don’t get focused in on your own game and play our best golf.â€� Who will be Woods’ partner in France? That might be up to Woods himself; after all, he was a Vice-Captain until Furyk tabbed him as a captain’s pick. “Tiger tells you who he wants to play with; he’ll tell the captain,â€� Calcavecchia said. You get the sense that he’s probably right, be the year 2002 or 2018. As for Woods’ partner problems, though, the one-ball rule isn’t the only thing that’s changed over the decades. “It was a little bit different 15, 18 years ago than it is now,â€� Calcavecchia said, “especially with all Tiger has been through. He’s a little easier to be around. Whoever gets paired up with him, whether it’s DeChambeau or someone else, I think will feel more comfortable.â€� DeChambeau already sounds comfortable. “I don’t really want to say it,â€� he said, “but I think maybe we can potentially intimidate a couple of people out there. I think it would be kind of cool.â€� Your move, Captain Furyk.

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