How to improve the Golf Digest US Open Challenge

All right, we have seen it for two consecutive years: average Joe fails to break 100 on US Open course. The late John Atkinson missed by a bunch at Torrey and Larry Giebelhausen failed by a deuce this year at Bethpage. Do I anticipate next year’s guinea pig succeeding at Pebble? Not if the following change isn’t made…

GET RID OF THE CELEBRITIES! Have celebrities caddie and have one celebrity in the group. Choose two average Joes and one long-hitting Josephine and triple the chances for success.

It’s clear to me that the fact that the celebrities outnumber the average Joe is a negative. In addition to the course conditions, which is supposed to be the real challenge, the average golfer has to deal with the media pressure of these celebrity golf clowns (with no offense intended to circus clowns.) If the goal is to add the pressure of a US Open competition, why would you put non-Open contestants in the group? Pick three Nationwide tour guys to accompany the chop, not JT, MJ and BR.

In summary, ditch two celebs, add one more guy and one gal to the mix from the populace, and allow the average trio to pick the celebs they want as caddy. In the end, you’ll have a truer, better, more interesting show.