For its online-only coverage the USGA has been featuring “marquee” groups, starting Thursday morning with the Tiger-Phil-Bubba pairing and then switching to the “world top three” group of Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald in the afternoon. Those two groups were supposed to switch places on Friday, with the top three group as the morning show and the Tiger squad later in the day.
But apparently the Thursday afternoon group’s disappointing performance has caused an online switch, as now the USGA says it will feature the group of Jim Furyk, Sergio Garcia and Graeme McDowell Friday morning. We first heard about the switch in a late Thursday tweet from the main USGA feed:
We will have EXCLUSIVE coverage tomorrow at 7:55 am pdt of the @TheSergioGarcia, Jim Furyk and @Graeme_McDowell group! usopen.com/en_US/video/li…
— USGA U.S. Open (@usopengolf) June 15, 2012
I guess the switch makes some sense, since McDowell is tied for second after a 1under 69 Thursday, with Furyk only a stroke back at even par and Me, Sergio, still not out of it at 3-over. McIlroy (77 Thursday), Westwood (73) and Donald (79) might have gone south Thursday, but I think it would have been interesting to see them go for broke Friday, trying risky shots to maybe make the cut. At about 11 p.m. Thursday we are trading DMs with the USGA Twitter operators trying to figure out who made this call. Will update this post as we learn more but — if you were hoping to see a Rory comeback online Friday, you are outta luck.
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