UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. — Cole Hammer was being interviewed Monday evening at Chambers Bay when Cody Gribble, a fellow Texan with whom Hammer had just finished a nine-hole practice round, sneaked up from behind, lifted the 125-pound Hammer off his feet in a bearhug, set him down, and started to walk away.
Halfway up the hill, Gribble turned around and said, “Are you done for the day?”
Hammer replied, “Are you?”
Gribble said he was going to putt for a while.
“I’ll see you up there,” Hammer said.
This week amounts to summer school for the 15-year-old Hammer, the third youngest man to qualify for the United States Open.