The U.S. Open Aftermath, Hawk Tracking, and the Perfect Focus Pull
Posted by Pat Hathaway | June 23, 2026
Tuesday morning, the fog has finally lifted off the Central Coast, and I’m sipping my coffee while reviewing the weekend’s U.S. Open chaos. If you were anywhere near Big Boy Dan on Sunday afternoon, you probably heard the shouting.
The Shinnecock Heartbreak
If you recall, Dan essentially bet his entire remaining bankroll on Scottie Scheffler to conquer the 2026 U.S. Open. For a while, the dream of a Scheffler birthday victory was alive. But Shinnecock’s fescue is unforgiving, and Wyndham Clark’s wire-to-wire performance completely crushed Dan’s spirit.
Clark barely held on down the stretch, beating Sam Burns by a single stroke, while Scheffler finished four shots back. Dan was inconsolable. I tried to remind him that U.S. Open Sunday is the ultimate equalizer, but he spent the evening muttering about bad lies and missed putts. You can see the full leaderboard carnage over on the
official U.S. Open website.
Meanwhile, my Belmont Stakes winnings are still safely tucked away. Sometimes the best bet is the one you simply refuse to make.
The Plastic Computer Meets the Coastal Hawks
While Dan was losing his mind in front of the television, I was losing myself on the coastal ridges. I loaded up the ATV and took the Sony α1 II out into the dirt because I wanted to push its autofocus algorithms to their absolute limits.
I spent Saturday afternoon tracking red-tailed hawks against a completely blown-out, overcast sky. Tracking a hawk pulling a high-speed dive through a background of messy pine branches used to require a surgeon’s touch on a manual focus ring. Not anymore.
The Sony’s AI bird-eye tracking locked on and simply refused to let go. I rattled off 30 frames a second, capturing the exact moment a hawk pulled up from a dive. Every single primary feather was rendered in razor-sharp detail. It feels almost illegal to get shots this clean with zero manual focus pulling.
The Hub and The Judge’s Verdict
Naturally, I sent a heavily cropped, tack-sharp image of the hawk straight to Judge Roy Bacon. His response was as predictable as the morning tide.
“The machine took the photograph, Patrick. You were simply there to hold the lens. There is no soul in a microchip.”
I respect the Judge, and I still love the smell of darkroom chemicals. That’s exactly why I spend my evenings uploading my archival silver gelatin scans to the
California Views Gallery Hub. But there is a massive difference between artistic expression and raw, uncompromising performance.
When I want to craft an image with soul, I shoot Ilford HP5 on my Nikon. But when I need to freeze an apex predator moving at 120 miles per hour, I’m bringing the plastic computer every single time.
Comments
BigBoyDan: Scheffler was robbed by the rough, Pat. Clark just got lucky on Sunday. I demand a recount.
JudgeRoy: The machine did the work. Let me know when you decide to be a photographer again instead of a computer operator.
Video Recommendation
If you want to see exactly what this kind of AI tracking looks like through the electronic viewfinder, check out this field test. It completely changes wildlife photography.
Testing Sony’s AI Bird Tracking in the Wild (YouTube)
