Lucas Glover

Lucas Glover is seven under with two holes left in the second round at post timeI'd have bet on the guy based on Boland's recommendation, but I have a strict policy against wagering on athletes or teams I've never heardNewsday baseball/golf scribe Erik Boland surely is too modest to point this out on his own, so I will: Check out his picks here for golfers other than Tiger and Phil most likely to win the U.S. Open.

It's late night in the Philippines and early morning in America. Already, many people are looking for an updated US Open Golf 2009 Leaderboard. As I checked from the US Open Golf official website, I found out that Lucas Glover (USA), Mike Weir (CAN) and Ricky Barnes (USA) are on top of the US Open Golf Leaderboard. Fan-favorite, Tiger Woods, is tied on bottom at 66th position. The first round ended with 25 players at even par or better. Then an abbreviated second round began. When play was suspended for darkness Friday, two things were as clear as the looming weather forecast was cloudy.

The players forced to play in the rain Thursday were as aggrieved as the spectators with tickets who had watched them. Except, unlike the fans, the rain-soaked players from Thursday would not be getting a refund, nor would they receive automatic invitations to Monday, when the fourth round will probably be played. The benefits of playing Friday afternoon were indubitable. Eleven of the top 13 scorers in the first round played in the afternoon. That is a statistic that will not hearten those who slogged it out Thursday morning and then finished Friday morning before warmer, calmer conditions arrived.