It's uncanny: On the day I jet off to Long Island for a visit with Craig Currier and the rest of the team at Bethpage State Park for our June preview story on the 2009 U.S. Open, I get not one but two Open-related e-mails in my in-box.
The first details a new partnership between the USGA and something called the World Golf Tour that will give visitors to the official U.S. Open Web site an opportunity to compete in a virtual U.S. Open championship from their own computer. That's right — a virtual U.S. Open.
Seems the World Golf Tour is an outfit that offers a number of online golf games (and after poking fun at them a little here, I went and registered and the games are actually dangerously addictive — you have been warned) and is producing a virtual replica of the Black Course at Bethpage, my destination tomorrow and the host to this year's Open. In essence, beginning May 25, competitors will be able to virtually tee it up on the Black for a tournament that will offer the winner a trip to the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
Almost as interesting as the game is how the World Golf Tour created the online Bethpage. Using over 100,000 high-definition photos taken both from the ground and the air, along with precise GPS coordinates of the actual course, the group created a virtual course that will feature actual championship tees, competition rough heights (will it be graduated rough? Who knows?) and green speeds similar to what the world's best will encounter when they arrive in Long Island in June. You can get the complete story about this event right here.
The other item isn't as cool as that one, but I'm sure the folks at Bethpage would disagree — the Black Course at Bethpage was named the top layout in the country in the sixth edition of Zagat's (you know, the restaurant people) America's Top Golf Course survey, which asked over 6,000 avid golfers their opinions on the best tracks in the U.S. Bethpage Black beat out luminaries like Chambers Bay near Seattle and Pebble Beach, both former and/or future U.S. Open sites in their own right, for top honors.
As I call it night, here's hoping Mother Nature cooperates tomorrow. Craig told me today that they haven't had any measurable rainfall on Long Island in something like six weeks, yet tomorrow is calling for a 60 percent change of rain, a thick overcast and temperatures in the mid 40s. Wish me luck.
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