We had a bit of a change of schedule today.  James didn’t hit the course until lunchtime and it was straight to the range.  To be fair he’s hitting it as well as I’ve ever seen him.  He did some Trackman work and after a bit of adjusting he put a new Titleist TSi driver into the bag.  He was absolutely ripping it.  He also has a new 21 degree Titleist TS2 hybrid as the 19 degree was going too far.  I think this is a good sign, the last time he put a new driver in the bag was when we were on the way up to Portmarnock for the Amateur last year and he had a fitting at the GUI Academy in Carton House.

As we weren’t up to much with James this morning, Mike Collins and myself went to the course to go Tiger hunting!  We met him on the 16^th,  he was playing with Justin Thomas so it was great to see the two of them hitting a few shots.  After Tiger finished I ended up saying a quick hello to his caddie Joe LaCava and I ended up getting one of the Bridgestone Tiger balls he had used.  I reckon I’ll never get another chance to do that so I’m glad I took the opportunity.

I also had a chance to talk to Harry Diamond who’s on the bag for Rory McIlroy.  He’s a really nice guy and we were chatting about golf back home as well as the course and the draw.  There’s seems to be plenty of talk about the course from a lot of players and caddies.  There’s been a lot on Twitter about the rough and the media are picking up on it, there has been a few videos too on the greens and some of the slopes.  A lot of players are giving out, but they’ll know where  they have to put it on Thursday, and how to plot their way around the course.

Conor Dowling’s US Open Report – Tuesday

James seems to be happy enough about the draw, and I’m really looking forward to watching Bubba play golf.  The bag is ready now, we’re using James’ Irish carry bag so its nice and light and easy to drag around.  The only thing James really looks for during a round is water so I’ll make sure that I’ve plenty of that.  He’s pretty laid back when on the course so the only other thing I have to do is get the yardages right!  Thursday is getting closer now so the plan for tomorrow will be to focus the practice on the short game and play the back nine in the evening.