The USGA always makes pairings with certain interesting traits for the first 2 days of the US Open. There is the all major champions pairing, the all defending champions pairing, the top-ranked players pairing, the "jerk" pairing (will explain further down in the post), etc, etc. So here is an analysis of the interesting pairings for this US Open:
Group 6: Thomas Levet, Brian Gay, Gregory Havret. In this group, the 3 last names all rhyme (Levet and Havret are from France, and in French the last consonant is usually silent.)
Group 9: Matt Kuchar, Paul Casey, and KJ Choi. A group of fairway hitters. Very consistent players.
Group 10: Padraig Harrington, Stewart Cink, Angel Cabrera. A group of recent, former major champions.
Group 11: Graeme McDowell, Peter Uihlein, Louis Oosthuizen. A group of defending champions. (McDowell = US Open, Uihlein = US Amateur, Oosthuizen = British Open)
Group 12: Ryo Ishikawa, Anthony Kim, YE Yang. A group of Asian players.
Group 13: Henrik Stenson, Johan Edfors, Fredrik Jacobson. A group of all-Swedish players.
Group 14: Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer. The group of the #1, #2, and #3 players coming into the US Open.
Group 15: Ernie Els, Davis Love III, and Jim Furyk. A group of grizzled veterans, also they're former major champions.
Group 16: Jonathan Byrd, Bill Haas, Webb Simpson. A group of American players who have played well this year. Also they're relatively SLOW players.
Group 17: Justin Rose, JJ Henry, Jason Day. All these 3 first names began with "J". Not sure whether or not this was intentional.
Group 19: Jeff Overton, Ryan Palmer, Gary Woodland. A group of American young guns.
Group 35: Miguel A. Jimenez, Sergio Garcia, Alvaro Quiros. A group of all-Spanish players.
Group 36: Steve Stricker, Retief Goosen, David Toms. Another group of veteran players. They're also well-known for their consistency off the tee.
Group 37: Francesco Molinari, Edoardo Molinari, Matteo Manassero. A group of all-Italian players.
Group 38: Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson. A group of CHOKE ARTISTS!!! Nah, kidding. Probably a made-for-TV group that would likely attract the viewers the most.
Group 40: Charl Schwartzel, Trevor Immelman, Zach Johnson. A group of former recent one-time major champions.
Group 41: Rickie Fowler, Ian Poulter, Hunter Mahan. A group of very flashy players. Very well-known for the way they dress.
Group 42: Nick Watney, Lucas Glover, Geoff Ogilvy. Hmm...Glover and Watney were past US Open champions. Nick Watney is a potential US Open Champion, maybe??
Group 43: Camilo Villegas, Aaron Baddeley, Brandt Snedeker. Another group of young-ish, but not very young, guys.
Last but not least, Group 44: Rory Sabbatini, Ryan Moore, Robert Allenby. Ah, the "jerk" pairing. It's true, there is such a thing as a "jerk pairing". A jerk pairing is when the USGA pairs three players in which either they dislike or are generally disliked by the public. They are not allowed to disclose who they actually pair up, so fans have to guess who the pairing is. This is a pretty obvious "jerk pairing", because of Rory Sabbatini's presense.
Sabbatini has done enough things to get others to despise him. Just earlier this year he was fined for yelling at a teenage volunteer because Sabbatini suspected that he moved Sabbatini's ball. And afterwards he got in a profanity-laced argument with Sean O'Hair.
As for why Ryan Moore got paired in the jerk pairing, it was likely because Moore complained about the USGA setup for the previous year's Open at Pebble Beach. Moore complained about the bumpiness of the greens and how that was unfair for the players. As a result, this made the USGA express disdain towards Moore.
As for Robert Allenby, the likely reason why he was labelled a "jerk" was because of the incident that happened at the Las Vegas Open the previous year. Anthony Kim was supposed to be in that field, but he withdrew the day before the tournament, citing injuries. That raised a lot of eyebrows because people thought AK's health was all better. That's when Robert Allenby began fanning the fire by saying that AK withdrew because he faked an injury to go partying, and Allenby also mentioned that AK did not deserve to be on the Ryder Cup (which AK was not on the team). Allenby's actions of fanning the fire and declaring unverified claims regarding AK probably made the USGA have disdain towards him.
So that's the analysis of the 2011 US Open pairings.
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