- Runs In The Family:  Yesterday’s note on Jumbo Ozaki (who withdrew from the UBS Japan Tour Championship Friday after an opening 77) paid tribute to one of Asia’s true golfing legends, but let us not forget that Jumbo’s two brothers, Tateo (“Jet”) and Naomichi (“Joe”), have enjoyed fairly stellar careers of their own.  And this became particularly relevant on Friday because while Jet was doing little better than Jumbo in Japan (76-83, and a missed cut), Joe was in Endicott, New York lighting up the Champions Tour by taking the first-round lead at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open with a dazzling nine-under-par 63.  Though largely a quiet performer in his three Champions Tour seasons (he entered the week ranked 38th in Charles Schwab Cup points, with but a single top 10 in 2008), Joe played nearly flawless, bogey-free golf over the En-Joie Golf Course, going out in a steady three-under-par 33, then turning on the blue heat by birdieing six of the final seven holes for an incoming 30.  With a two-shot lead over Eduardo Romero, Ozaki is still a long way shy of victory, but his round was enough to make me wonder if Jumbo ever seriously considered giving the Champions Tour a shot…

- At Least Torrey Pines Had Views:  Allright, so I’ve never been much of a fan of Robert Trent Jones’s “Heroic” school of golf design (much less son Rees’s flailing attempts at doctoring Trent’s work) but watching a bit of the AT&T National on Friday, I was reminded of just how drab a golf course Congressional actually is.  Now, to be fair, this was not a case where some classic Golden Age design was obliterated by Trent’s hard pars and easy bogeys; the club’s original 1924 Devereux Emmet design was far more sporty than great, and a major renovation was unquestionably necessary for the club to become (and remain) a major player on the national tournament stage.  But watching the world’s best (well, maybe not this week…) tackling the layout made famous by Ken Venturi’s dramatic, heat-stricken run to the 1964 U.S. Open, I find myself waiting almost completely in vain for any shots of genuine interest, save for the famously watery approach to the 466-yard 17th-turned-18th-turned17th-turned (permanently this time?)-18th, which is undeniably a thriller, particularly to the marquee back-left pin.  Oh, I suppose that some may have their interest peaked by the lake that closely flanks the green of the 518-yard par-four 6th (a decent par five for members), or if anyone’s crazy enough to have a go at the 602-yard 9th in two (where’s John Daly when we need him?).  But for myself, I’m too busy simply trying to tell the other 15 holes apart, and wondering – as I too often do – how “long” and “tough” managed to survive as architectural tenets into the postwar era, but “interesting” somehow did not.  And as a not-so-comforting thought, the U.S. Open returns here just three years from now – though by that time Rees will probably be hired to clean up his own mess, making more substantial green complex alterations that will somehow look exactly the same as at present.  Torrey Pines, at least, is public, and though sleep producing from a strategic perspective, does offer a quintessentially magnificent California setting  One thing I know for certain: if USGA Senior Director of Rules and Competitions Mike Davis can set Congressional up to produce the drama that Torrey Pines did, he should be nominated for sainthood.  Thankfully, it will be some time before we find out…