Durzblog

The sternest test in golf has arrived, and the Open gets no tougher than this year at the Black Course in Bethpage State Park on Long Island...Its the tournament where the fans can watch the players, who generally consider even a bad score, hack it around a bit and cherish their pars. The rough will be up, the fairways tight and the greens at lightening speed. On Sunday (or Monday) their will be one lone survivor. That man will have won the most important golf tournament of the year.

Quick Facts about the Course
-- 2nd longest in US Open History at 7,426
-- 3 par 4's over 500 yards, including #7 -- the longest par 4 in any major ever, at 525 yards
-- as anyone in the Northeast will tell ya, its been raining for three weeks, that ought to help the players out and slow the greens down

Here are the past 10 champions:

• 2008 Tiger Woods 
  
• 2007 Ángel Cabrera
  
• 2006 Geoff Ogilvy 
  
• 2005 Michael Campbell 
  
• 2004 Retief Goosen
  
• 2003 Jim Furyk 
  
• 2002 Tiger Woods 
  
• 2001 Retief Goosen 
  
• 2000 Tiger Woods 
  
• 1999 Payne Stewart 
  

Fun Facts:
How it all started, The first championship was played on October 4, 1895, on a nine-hole course in Newport, Rhode Island. It was a 36-hole single day tournament with 11 competitors. The winner was a 21-year-old Englishman Horace Rawlins, who had arrived in the U.S. in January that year to take a job at the host course. He received $150 cash and a $50 gold medal.

Durzpix
Winner: Garcia
Dark Horse: Poulter
Long Shot: J.J. Henry