The world stopped at 7:33 Thursday morning.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson were approaching the tee at the ninth hole of the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club — it was their first hole. And the entire planet, at least the crowd at the Olympic, was in a state of pure anticipation.

The air was heavy with mist and the sun barely visible, and fans lined the tee box and the fairway seven-deep all 449 yards to the green. They waited.

To read the rest of the column, please click here. You’ll notice this column is a little more general than usual. I wrote it for A1, the front page of the paper. I didn’t write it for the sports section, which means it’s for a general audience as opposed to strict sports fans.