Jungle Bird Was Offered A Refund If He Was Coming To Merion

Jungle Bird of 2012 U.S. Open fame was offered a full refund in case he was thinking of crashing the 2013 U.S. Open trophy ceremony. Or the tournament in any way.

Deadspin's Samer Kalef with the story and the USGA's offer via letter.

Where's Mike Davis When You Need Him? Jungle Bird Resurfaces

At the Notre Dame-Navy game of all places. A shame the USGA Executive Director wasn't there to tackle the nut.

Andy Zhang Resurfaces; Wishes He Would Have Cut Off The Media Questions Sooner

Stephen Fastenau talks to the 14-year-old U.S. Open contestant about his appearance at Olympic Club as Andy Zhang prepares for the AJGA event at Hilton Head Plantation.

The 14-year-old landed in the U.S. Open field after Paul Casey withdrew with an injury. He played a Tuesday practice round with Masters champion Watson, and after walking off the 18th green was surrounded by media members who didn't stop asking questions.

"It's my first time doing all this stuff," Zhang said. "I should have said 'Stop,' when I wanted to stop. I didn't know what to do. I kept going and answering questions. I didn't want to keep up the group behind us."

Ah the young lad, who was better than most twice his age at answering questions, just needs to understand that we didn't want to talk to the geezers behind him.

Beau Returning To Congressional On Sponsor's Invite

Jonathan Wall on the AT&T National jumping on the Beau Hossler bandwagon by giving the high schooler and recent U.S. Open contender a spot in this year's field at Congressional, where he played in last year's national championship.

Ryan Ballengee says Hossler hoped for an all-UT pairing but the tour won't be going that direction.

The 17-year-old hoped to be grouped with a pair of Texas Longhorns in current player Jordan Spieth and alumnus Justin Leonard. Hossler, entering his senior year of high school in the fall, has already committed to the University of Texas for his collegiate golf. However, the PGA Tour will not group the trio, a Tour official said.

Update on 2012-06-25 02:38 by Geoff

**Barry Svrluga talks to Hossler and profiles him for the Washington Post.

When the AT&T National begins Thursday at Bethesda’s Congressional Country Club, Hossler will be the youngest member of a 120-man field. Eleven of those players, most notably tournament host Tiger Woods, have won major championships. But only three of them led the most recent major, the U.S. Open: Woods, Jim Furyk — and Hossler.

“The whole experience just helped my confidence,” Hossler said. “I just respect the games of those players so much. They’re the best in the world. But now, I think if I play well, I can play with them and compete.”

Plodders Rejoice...A Review Of The 2012 U.S. Open Setup

The digital edition of Golf World has been emailed to subscribers and those of you mysteriously not subscribing should be able to read my story analyzing last week's setup of Olympic Club.

In my story I only included a few holes as examples, but here's the entire comparison of the non-one-shot holes and the "Fairways Hit" stats in 1998 compared to this year. You'll see that other than a few exceptions, the players hit far fewer fairways despite being armed with better equipment than in 1998.

Hole   '98% '12%
1         55    63
2         67    54
4         47    33
5         42    34
6         59    52
7         59    21    
9         45    34
10       63    52
11       57    55
12       55    44
14       69    51
16       69    51
17       62    40
18       64    61

Total    58.5    46

Green in regulation percentage for the field was virtually identical in 1998, 52.5% compared to 52% in 2012.

"The Burger Dogs were so good (and the golf so irredeemable) that our group went back after the 14th hole as well for seconds."

Steve DiMeglio (here) and Scott Michaux (here) filed entertaining accounts of their Monday rounds at Olympic and I was pleased to see Michaux came away a tad critical of the fairway widths that I noted left something to be desired in my Golf World story.

But even better was Michaux's defense of the Bill Burger that validated which I love and which came under intense scrutiny and criticism in the media center when overcooked impostors were served up to the dastardly ditchdiggers each afternoon.

Olympic’s famous Bill’s Burger Dogs are the greatest thing ever served at a halfway house. GREATEST THING EVER!

I’m not talking about the version of the curious hamburger shaped to fit on a hot dog bun that was served to folks who attended the U.S. Open. That was like eating imitation crab meat. Not the real thing.

“Terrible ... inedible,” is how Patricia, the woman who was cooking them up fresh in the halfway house near the 10th green, described the mass-produced facsimiles during the Open. She explained how the California Board of Health came in and mandated that each burger be eviscerated to 160 degrees until they were leathery slabs of meat that would eventually reach the person eating it about two hours after coming off the grill.

The version Patricia cooked fresh to request for everyone (the preferred color was just a little pink unless you really wanted it cooked more) and put on a toasted bun was sublime. It is the perfect mid-round snack/lunch that is easy to grab and go without making the mess that a normal burger would.

Davis May Have Missed His Secret Service Calling: First Noticed 'Jungle Bird' On The Seventh Tee

Brett Cyrgalis talked to Mike Davis at the airport and learned this about the Executive Director's Sunday, which ended with a takedown of a strange man invading the trophy ceremony.

“I was officiating the last group [Jim Furyk and Graeme McDowell], and the first time I saw him was on the seventh tee,” Davis said. “He was shouting a ‘cuckoo’ there, but when they were set to play he stopped and was respectful.

“I just thought, ‘Boy, look at that way he’s dressed,’ ” Davis said. “It’s just one of those things.”

FYI Mary Lopuszynski: Next Year's Must Have Merion Merchandise Tent Item

Thanks to reader Emile for discovering this item that MUST get on the radar ASAP for Mary Lopuszynski, the USGA's director of U.S. Open Merchandising.

I can easily see the U.S. Open/Merion logo on the front near the end of the faux 'hawk.

Maybe Jungle Bird could pose in the tent with buyers?