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OAKMONT, PA. — It's last call from the 107th U.S. Open. Final thoughts, observations and loose change:
• Angel Cabrera of Argentina was no fluke winner. He's contended before in other majors, including the Masters and last year's British Open, where his poor decision making and Sunday nerves quickly sank his chances. You could chalk up his back-to-back bogeys at 16 and 17 on Sunday to nerves, but then again, those were damn tough holes. He hit the gutsiest tee shot of his life at 18 and made the most important par of his life. He earned the trophy.
• Tiger Woods rationalized his play in recent majors by pointing out that he's finished first-first-second-second in the last four, and that's not bad. Give the man four FedEx Cup points for being right. But there's something alarming going on with Tiger. Forget that stat about never coming from behind to win a major on the last day. At the Masters and at Oakmont, he grabbed the lead on Sunday ... and couldn't hold it either time!
At the Masters, the par 5s cost him. He was spooked by No. 8 and hit 3-wood off the tee (3-wood?), and then he made a rare poor decision to go for the 15th green in two from a bad lie when he didn't need to (he found the water). At Oakmont, he committed a no-no by bunting it over the third green, biffed his third shot across the green, muffed his next pitch and made an un-Tiger-like double bogey. The Old Tiger makes par from the fairway there 9 out of 10 times, and the 10th time, he doesn't make double.
The biggest concerns of Tiger-watchers? Whatever happened to his tempo? It used to be fluid. Now he seems to be trying to hit everything as hard as he can, like he did when he overpowered Augusta National in 1997. Is it possible to have too much muscle? For once, it was his near-flawless play Saturday that looked like the aberration.
• Oakmont is the king of the U.S. Open courses. I don't think I'm alone in that opinion. While it's debatable if that much rough is really necessary to make Oakmont challenging, I already can't wait for a return visit. (Paul Goydos suggested the course might actually be as difficult if it had no rough, like Augusta National in the old days. Then balls would roll into the bunkers and ditches — a hell of a concept.) Memo to USGA — don't make us wait another 13 years to come back to Oakmont. If you haven't already penciled it in for 2015, do it now.
• It was Oakmont's monster length that drew most of the attention during the week — the par-3 8th at 288 yards and the par-5 12th at 667 yards ranked as the longest holes of their kind in major championship history.
