Tiger’s U.S. Open Ready — But What About Brooks And D.J.?

Tiger Woods wanted to see some positives last week at The Memorial and he did.

El Tigre was darn steady — 70-72-70-67 — with his best work coming during the final round.

“My game is right where I feel like it needs to be,” Woods said last Saturday. “I hit a lot of good shots the last three days here and haven’t really scored like I’ve hit the golf ball.”

He finally scored on Sunday, a 67 that coulda, shoulda, woulda been better.

Joey LaCava is allowed to meet the press these days, unlike other loopers for Woods and Joey certainly liked what he saw up close and personal in Columbus:

“First 12 holes were an absolute clinic,” said LaCava of that final 18 on Sunday. “He still hit some decent shots coming in. It wasn’t like he played poorly, he just didn’t get anything out of it the last five or six holes.  He’s certainly going in the right direction with good momentum. I thought the iron play was top-notch today. Definitely some good momentum and positive vibes from both (weekend) days. The quality of shots on a scale of one to 10, I would say were a nine.”

For the record, Tiger hit 12 of 14 fairways and 14 of 18 greens last Sunday, and putted just 26 times.  For the week, he ranked ninth in strokes gained, approach to the green and 10th in strokes gained tee to green. For the week, he hit 75 percent of the fairways.

And with that, we’ll declare him U.S. Open ready, for now.

But what about the two guys who skipped last week — world’s No. 1 Brooks Koepka and No. 2 Dustin Johnson?

Both are in this week’s field at the Canadian Open, both using this as their tune-up for Pebble Beach next week.

D.J. HAS to play this week — he’s on the RBC staff and is the defending champion.  As for Koepka?  Well it certainly didn’t hurt Brooksie when he played the week before the PGA at Colonial.

D.J. also had a little announcement last Sunday.  He’s basically said adios to his now former coach — Claude Harmon III, son of Butchie.

Claude the Third, along with his dad, has been working with Johnson for about five years.  Claude the Third said that he was surprised to see Johnson working with Allen Terrell, who coached Johnson in college and is the director of coaching at the Dustin Johnson Golf School in South Carolina, at last month’s RBC Heritage and PGA Championship. When Claude the Third attempted to contact Johnson regarding his work with Terrell, Claude the Third got “ghosted” by D.J.

In one of those diplomatically worded “prepared statements” D.J.’s henchman, aka his manager, gave everyone this gem:

 Johnson said he will continue to work with Butch Harmon via video and in Las Vegas as well as Terrell and that he and Claude the third  “mutually decided it would be best if (Claude the Third) focused his efforts elsewhere.”

So now it’s back to business for D.J., who gave Brooksie a little poke down the stretch at the PGA but then threw in a couple of late bogeys to take the heat off his fellow Jupiter resident.

Is D.J. ready for the U.S. Open?

Check back on Sunday, if you will.

Is Koepka ready for the U.S. Open?  It would shocking if he isn’t, considering he’s gone back-to-back in the major.

Now the question looms:

Can Brooksie go back-to-back-to-back?

Will someone step up at Pebble Beach?

But first things first.

Oh Canada!