- He Can Win…Maybe: Among the many elite players populating the top of the U.S. Open leaderboard, Sweden’s Robert Karlsson would not be likely to attract the lions share of the weekend wagering – and the bettors might not be wrong.  But as readers of this site are aware, the 39-year-old Karlsson arrived at the Open as one of the hotter players on the European Tour, having logged four consecutive top-three finishes (plus a fifth top 10) since early May, and playing himself into a likely spot on the European Ryder Cup team.  Further, his 2008 run is no fluke, for Karlsson is a seven-time E Tour winner (most prominently at the 1997 BMW International and the 2002 European Masters), a former Ryder Cup player (2006) and the possessor of one of the sounder swings in professional golf.  The lone problem in this rosey scenario is that of late he has struggled a bit on Sundays, blowing a four-shot 54-hole lead at the prestigious BMW PGA Championship (ultimately tying for 3rd, two back of playoff winner Miguel Angel Jimenez) and, last November, literally handed Jimenez the Hong Kong Open on the 72nd hole.  Can Karlsson win at Torrey Pines?  I suspect that most of his contemporaries on the E Tour believe he can, and it would certainly be fair to say that Karlsson’s chances would rate slightly better than Michael Campbell’s would have in 2005.  But then I’m surely not one to talk, as he was the 21st name on my 20-man odds chart at the start of the week.  That is, I considered Karlsson for one of the final spots, then ultimately stayed away on the theory that if he's twice crumbled under E Tour pressure, how could he close the deal here?  But I’m more than ready to be proven wrong…

- The Less-Big Easy:  There were a few ragged mid-round moments on Friday but considering that this is the U.S. Open, Ernie Els’ Butch Harmon-induced swing alterations certainly seem to have the two-time U.S. Open winner moving in the right direction.  Harmon, it seems, has widened Els’ stance and shortened his backswing, changes which are immediately apparent when watching the Big Easy in action.  Interestingly, though looking quite different from the overly loose move which Els was employing previously, this new swing is actually not so very different from that which he made famous as a 20-something world-beater back in the mid-1990s.  In those halcyon days, Els got the club almost precisely to parallel at the top of his backswing, whereas today he falls just a bit shy – but then he’s 15 years older and considerably broader in his torso nowadays, too.  One noticeable difference: The club is laid off significantly more at the top now – unless the swings I saw this afternoon were aberrational which, given the way the shots were sprayed, is entirely possible.  With Els still being new to this swing, the common storyline is that he’ll be mentally challenged to hold up under the stifling pressure of the Open, but I’m not sure I buy that.  He’s won the event twice, after all, as well as the 2002 British open in a dramatic four-man playoff – so who, other than Tiger Woods, has more positive Major championship experience to draw on under the gun?
 
- The Open Doctored?:  I may very well be wrong here, but have Rees Jones’s hideous-looking Torrey Pines bunkers softened a bit in their short lives?  I’m basing this thought on a decidedly unscientific sample: my recollection of a promotional calendar that the “Open Doctor” (an hysterical phrase!) put out several years ago in which the then-much-newer hazards looked almost geometric in their sharpness, particularly those built into the hillside at the par-5 13th.  It seems to me that the present hazards, while still terribly unnatural in appearance, have improved markedly, now safely reaching the level of mere ugliness…
 
- Hail Brittania:  Much has been made regarding the USGA’s grouping of the world’s top 12 players in their Thursday/Friday U.S. Open tee times, an idea which, save for Phil Mickelson’s cogent observation that the leading contenders will now all enjoy the same weather and course conditions, strikes me largely as much ado about nothing.  Still, if the decision was made to pair Tiger Woods, Mickelson and Adam Scott together, can it possibly be a coincidence that England’s Ian Poulter, Paul Casey and Luke Donald were also grouped?  This certainly made life easier for any British expats who came out to watch the weekday rounds, but I wonder: was the USGA even tempted to drop Scott down a group and elevate Ian Poulter into Tiger’s?