Try to recall all the games and events you've gone to over the course of your life. As a sports fan, you may have been to Wembley Stadium, seen basketball or hockey in Toronto, and even taken a trip to such famous stadia as Roland-Garros or Fenway Park. But, regardless of the number of games you’ve attended, regardless of how thrilling any of the matchups may have turned out, regardless of how many championships for which you may have been in attendance, not once were you able to sympathize with what the competitors were experiencing. You couldn't. You're not a professional athlete and have never suited up to play on any of the same playing fields or arenas as the teams that are your favorites. However, when it comes to the U.S. Open, you're afforded the rare chance to see the pros tangle with each other on the same layout that you've played with your friends for years. It's golf live, in your own backyard.

In a fitting match between the PGA's most difficult championship and the most grueling public course known to its faithful, the Open makes its way back to Bethpage Black for the second time in eight years. In 2002, the Black Course became the first completely public course to host the Open and was, aptly, won by fan favorite, Tiger Woods. What was likely more of a pleasure to the throng, however, was witnessing professionals survive the same troubles they, themselves, experience every week. The lone difference, maybe, being that Luke Donald and Anthony Kim didn't have to sleep in their cars to get early start times. Take away the tents, cameras and media, though, and you have golf live, in color.

Still of the opinion there's not a ton of interest? Ask one of the golf fans sneaking the feed onto his desktop at work; trying to hide the screen from his boss while watching the game's best players with the same start times that the every day golfer gets from a track that takes no reservations. "Lehman's gonna have some job facing into the sun on this shot. Happens to me every time" is something you won't hear from a fan while he's watching golf live from Muirfield. But, at the Black Course, there are many thinking the same thing. Especially on Thursday and Friday, as those unable to break free from work download links to get a glimpse of the first two rounds.

Enjoy the Open this year as it's a little sweeter than usual. You'll never hit a jump shot at Madison Square Garden, run the bases at Dodger Stadium or find the end zone in the Super Bowl. But you might have occasion to turn to your kids after Tiger makes bird on Sunday and say, "I birdied that hole, too." That's golf live in your own backyard.