Dual Citizenship a Foreign Thing

Best indication that the U.S. Golf Assn. is geographically challenged: The giant scoreboard that shows hole-by-hole scores for each player has made a few bogeys so far, basically because officials can’t decide which countries some international players are from.

Mathias Gronberg and Pierre Fulke are listed as living in England, which should come as a surprise to their families in Sweden. Retief Goosen, a South African, is listed as being English, and so is Peter Lonard, an Australian.

Gary Orr, Paul Lawrie and Colin Montgomerie--all Scots--were identified as English on the scoreboard, but when a Scottish journalist pointed out the error, corrections were made. Somewhere, bagpipes sounded.

There was more. Padraig Harrington went from English (wrong) to Irish (right) in one day, but while Jesper Parnevik is correctly listed as Swedish, countryman Gabriel Hjertstedt is identified as being from Florida. Although that’s where he lives (and so does Parnevik), it’s not his native country.

What this all means: You can’t tell the players without their passports.

Mark Brooks’ 10-foot putt for par at the 18th saved his 64 that matched the lowest second-round score in U.S. Open history.

Brooks, from Fort Worth, and usually drier than a sidewalk in the summer, described the putt this way: “I wiggled it down there. Sometimes they go in and sometimes they don’t. I was lucky.”

The 1996 PGA champion, Brooks went on about a five-minute dissertation when asked what has gone on since he last won five years ago. When he finished, Brooks asked: “Is that enough odyssey?”

The last two rounds are not likely to be affected by weather. The forecast for today is mostly sunny and breezy with a high of 89. Clear skies are expected for Sunday’s final round with a temperature of 92.

Tee-time report: Carl Paulson finished his first round at 7:15 a.m. Friday and had a second tee time of 5 p.m.

“It makes for kind of a strange day,” he said.

Jay Don Blake completed the last hole of his first round at 7:24 a.m. Friday morning and didn’t tee off for the second round until 5:10 p.m.

“I got up at 5:30 and played one hole,” he said between rounds. “I hit balls for a half-hour. I think I’ll have some breakfast and go back and get three or four hours of sleep. Of course, I have a 3-year-old, so I might not get any.”

Mark Calcavecchia was not impressed that his first-round playing partner, Phillip Price, withdrew on the 14th hole.

Price, from Wales, was seven over when he bowed out with an “undisclosed” illness.

“He was looking at shooting eight, nine, 10 over and he pretty much had no chance of making the cut,” Calcavecchia said. “Obviously, I would have stuck it out and played. I mean to fly over here for that . . . He didn’t say a word. He was fine out there. He was playing bad, making bogey every other hole. He wasn’t [complaining] and didn’t say he was hurt or anything.”

Jeff Quinney, the 2000 U.S. Amateur champion, shot 15-over par 155 in two rounds in a threesome with Tiger Woods.

Quinney had a horrible, first-round 82, but his 73 in the second was only two strokes worse than Woods, who was one-over 71.

“He has that aura about him where you’re really intimidated,” Quinney said. “I think even the top guys in the world admit they’re a little intimidated. After the round he walked up to me and said, ‘I know you didn’t finish the way you wanted to, but you really handled yourself well, and I’m proud of you for that. You never gave up.’ ”

Woods says he was impressed by the 22-year-old from Eugene, Ore.

“He was having a tough time and he’s an amateur, but he didn’t go crazy or anything,” Woods said. “That’s not easy to do.”

Through late Friday, only one player had reached the par-five, 642-yard No. 5 hole in two shots, and his name wasn’t Tiger Woods.

The man who conquered the longest hole in U.S. Open history was Steve Lowery, who reached the green with a driver and three-wood.

“I hit the three-wood 294 yards,” he said. “I really smoked it.”

He birdied the hole and is four-over 144 after two rounds.