US Open

Catching up on some long overdue summer blog posts!  This one will deal with the US Open Championships that were played this June at Pinehurst Resorts which is about a half north of Laurinburg.  I had bought tickets to the Men's Open Wednesday practice round from Shannon's step father and so I went up there with my dad and the two boys.  Shannon and I had volunteered to work at a food booth that would benefit Communities in Schools, an organization run by Janie and Catherine's brother.  We signed up for the morning shift on the last practice round for the women's US Open on Wednesday.  At the last minute we were switched to Saturday which we were not able to do so we dropped the volunteer act and accepted some free tickets courtesy of Janie to attend the Wednesday practice round.  Cameras are not allowed at the US Open except during the practice rounds so this was a cool chance to get some pics of some of the people we see on TV all the time.  Unfortunately we only remembered to bring the camera the first week so we didn't get to take any pictures of the women's practice round while we were there.  We did get to watch Michelle Wie for a hole.  She went on to win the tournament which was pretty cool.

Henrik Stenson

An amateur signing a golf ball for Drew.

2013 US Open champion Justin Rose signing Drew's hat.

Justin Leonard signing Cole's hat.

Justin Leonard signing Drew's hat.

Cole sporting his 2005 Pinehurst US Open hat with autographs on the brim.

Matt Kuchar

Greg Norman walking around with Gary Woodland giving him some pointers.

Someone on the chipping range.  The boys were sitting on the grass next to the chipping green.  When he was finished he handed each boy one of his golf balls.  It made their day.

Angel Jimenez

Ernie Els

The clubhouse behind the 18th green and a monstrous bunker.

The three Hamilton's on the 18th fairway with the 18th green in the background.  That is a camera tower on top of the clubhouse in the background.

A banner with the men's and women's trophies on it.  (and a cardinal!)

The kids on the putting green.  As you can see there were some elephants buried under it.  

They had an 18 hole course laid out on the putting green that the kids could go around for free.  It was really popular and a lot of fun for the kiddos.

The brothers having a good time together.

Cole working on his putting stroke.

Andy North from the Golf Channel getting ready to film a segment on how tough the greens are.

Bubba Watson drew quite a crowd.

Bubba Watson hitting out of the bunker on the 5th hole.