Couples Looks For Hometown Win At Senior Open

Sammamish, Washington, United States (AHN) – Seattle was Fred Couples’ childhood home and he hopes to make a splash this week at the U.S. Senior Open, just to the east at the Sahalee Country Club.

The towering pines that line Sahalee’s fairways will greet Couples and the rest of the field when first round play begins Thursday.

Couples is the honorary chairman of the event and skipped last week’s British Open to be closer to home. He played in the Canadian Open in Toronto but missed the cut and that gave him an excuse to head to Seattle for a little early practice.

Couples wasn’t the only player to skip the British. It is an unusual quirk on the senior schedule that had the events falling back-to-back.

With many American stars absent at Carnoustie, Bernhard Langer and Corey Pavin battled down the stretch, with Langer outlasting the American Ryder Cup Captain for the 2010 title.

Pavin and Langer will be part of the field along with 2009 U.S. Senior Open champion Fred Funk, who dismantled Crooked Stick last year with a record-setting 20-under-par performance, highlighted by his closing 65.

With that type performance by Funk, it’s a certainty that the USGA will make things tougher this week at Sahalee.

Weather conditions are expected to be perfect, temperatures will be in the high 70s without much threat of rain during the week.

Couples, who dominated the early part of the Champions Tour season, has been quiet as of late.

There will be plenty of contenders in the field besides him. Langer and Pavin will have to overcome the jet lag and time changes from the U.K. Tom Lehman and Mark Calcavecchia played at Carnoustie and may have the same recovery problem.

Same with Loren Roberts. One player who has quietly had a good season is Dan Forsman, and he’s looking for that first major of his career.

Sahalee’s tree-lined fairways will require accurate drives. It’s a par-70 course and slightly more than 6,800 yards. It was the site of the 1998 PGA Championship won by Vijay Singh.

Sahalee means “high heavenly ground” and it will be that for one player come Sunday.

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