Key events
Thanks Scott. Could anyone ‘do a Nick Faldo’ today and have a full set of 18 pars. Russell Henley is giving it a go as he’s up to 10 pars and counting. I’ll keep an eye on that one which inevitably means he’ll bogey the next.
Matthieu Pavon nearly drains an uphill 50-footer on 17 for eagle and a share of the lead, having driven the green. The ball stops one turn short, but he joins the group at -3. Patrick Reed meanwhile bogeys 9 to complete his front nine in 34, but his mark of -1 doesn’t tell half the story: four pars, one birdie, three bogeys and an albatross. So let’s update the old leaderboard.
-4: Spaun (F)
-3: Lawrence (F), Im (9*), Pavon (8*), Neergaard-Petersen (6)
-2: Kim (F)
… and with that, I’ll hand you back to superstar DJ David Tindall. Hope his set went well. I assume he played Come On Eileen at least twice.
Im Sung-jae missed a big chance to join JJ Spaun at the top of the leaderboard at 17. Having found the bunker front left of the drivable par-four green, he splashed out to five feet only to miss the putt. Just a par. He now makes another at 18, and he’s played a blemish-free back nine in 32 strokes. He’s -3.
Scottie Scheffler lands his wedge at 9 pin high, but like JT before him, the ball spins back down the false front to the front of the green. He chips up as well, but it’s a curiously ginger attempt that stops five feet short. But like Koepka up on 10, he displays his moxie by making a damage-limiting bogey putt. He’s +2. It could easily have been way worse.
Trouble for Brooks Koepka at 10. He drives into the thick stuff down the left, and takes his medicine by chipping out, but his third sails over the flag, and he’s left with a 55-footer for par. He races that through the break, seven feet past, but limits the damage by tickling in what’s left. Just a bogey, and he’s -1.
Scottie elects to lash his ball out of the penalty area. It’s a risky gambit, with the chance of a JT-style flyer across the fairway and into more thick rough, but he executes the escape well. He’ll still need to get up and down from 90 yards to save his par.
Scottie Scheffler loses all rhythm on the 9th tee box. He lets go of his driver upon completing his follow through, having pulled his ball towards the chin-high grass down the left of the fairway. It disappears. It’s a penalty area. Trouble ahoy.
JT’s good pal Jordan Spieth is going along nicely, though. The 2015 champion hasn’t done much in the majors since a tie for fourth at the 2023 Masters, but he’s due another run at one of the big titles, he surely is. He’s too damn good. And he’s just birdied 16 and 17 in short order to move from the black into the red. He’s -1, has been threatening to emerge from his long slump of late, and has the absurd get-out-of-jail short-game magic that should suit him well around a course like this. A long-overdue fourth major for the 31-year-old Texan?
Things unravel at pace for Justin Thomas on 9. His tee shot isn’t egregiously off-line. But it is off-line, a couple of yards to the left of the fairway, and that’s enough at Oakmont. He lashes out of the thick oomska, but only into similar trouble on the other side of the fairway. He can only muscle the next wedge 62 yards up the hole. His chip in lands a few feet in front of the flag, but the spin takes his ball back down the sloping green, 40 feet away. Facing a huge slope, he elects to chip – probably best for the weekend player not to try this at your local club, unless you’re specifically spoiling for an exchange of thrown hands with the greenkeeper – and does well to knock up to three feet. A bit more and that was in, because it was bang on line. The two-time PGA champion scribbles a double bogey onto his card, and he’s turning in 39. He’s +4.
A sandy par for Im Sung-jae at the par-three 16th. But Sam Burns can’t get up and down from the front of the lo-o-o-ng par-three 8th. Im remains at -3 but Burns slips back to -2.
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen is playing in his first US Open. It’s only the 25-year-old Dane’s second major appearance; he missed the cut at Quail Hollow last month. But he’s off to a flyer here. Birdie at 1, and now a chip-in from the fringe at the par-five 4th for eagle. Time for a leaderboard update, then … and with birdies at 12 and 14 for Matthieu Pavon, who finished in fifth place in this tournament last year, it’s a fascinating one.
-4: Spaun (F)
-3: Lawrence (F), Burns (7), Im (6*), Neergaard-Petersen (4)
-2: Kim (F), Koepka (8), Reed (6), Pavon (5*)
Bounce-back birdie for Scottie Scheffler as well! His comes at 7, the result of an approach sent from 171 yards to 11 feet. He strokes in the gentle left-to-right slider and moves back to +1. Not a flicker of emotion. He’s just going about his business in the usual Scottie-on-Thursday way. No need to fret about anything yet.
Bounce-back birdie for Patrick Reed! This one at the par-three 6th, reward for a tee shot clipped to ten feet. His card so far: par, bogey, par, albatross, bogey, birdie. Just an eagle, double bogey and hole-in-one required for the full set. Rule nothing out. He’s -2 again.
Dustin Johnson, the champion here in 2016, hasn’t started well. Bogeys at 11, 12 and 15. Now on the 222-yard par-three 16th he finds himself in more bother. His tee shot flies over the long, thin bunker running down the left side of the green. Only just, though. It sticks on the steep but heavily-grassed bank. DJ’s hardly got a stance, the ball way below his feet, one foot planted a good three feet above the other. He’s slashing out from thick grass with a downhill lie, and there’s not much green on the other side to play with. So how on earth does he manufacture a shot that lands gently just the other side of the fringe? That’s sensational, though even then, his ball’s taken away by the camber towards the collar on the other side of the green. He’s left with a 40-foot putt, which is about the best he could do, an illustration of the almost impossible position he’d put himself in. He can’t salvage his par with a long rake, and so it’s yet another bogey. But numbers be damned, that wedge, executed with such grace and balance, will go down as one of the shots of the week. He’s +4.
Im Sung-jae strings together three birdies in a row! The burst on 12, 13 and 14 launches the Masters specialist – the 27-year-old Korean has finished tied for second, fifth and eighth at Augusta – up to a share of second at -3. He’s trending in the right direction in the majors, having tied for seventh at Troon last year before that fifth-placed finish at the Masters in April. Let’s just ignore the missed cut at Quail Hollow last month.
From the sublime to the ridiculous. After the albatross on 4, Patrick Reed finds himself miles off piste to the left of 5. He’s a good 75 yards off line! And almost sock deep in filthy rough. He does pretty well to limit the damage to bogey, whipping out onto the green, then taking two putts from 50 feet. But that’s bogey, his second in a four-hole stretch that also included that double-eagle. He won’t be carding a run like that too many times in his career. He’s -1. Meanwhile Scottie Scheffler can’t make his par saver on 6, his putt always dying to the right, and he drops to +2.
Scottie whips his bunker shot high into the air, landing it softly inches from the flag. But he can’t get any action on the ball, which trundles 13 feet past the hole. He’ll need to make that coming back if he’s not to card a third bogey in four holes.
Scottie Scheffler seems oddly out of sorts right now. He carves his tee shot at the par-three 6th into a bunker to the right of the green. He’s left with a lot of sand to cover, and not much in the way of green to play with. That’ll test his up-and-down skills.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout hasn’t achieved anything in the majors. The 31-year-old South African’s best result in one of them: a tie for 30th at the 2021 PGA. His game deserves better – though he’s got a couple of ties for 13th at the unofficial fifth major, the Players – and perhaps this will be the week? He birdies 11 and 15 to move to -2.
Some belated news of Scottie Scheffler giving away another shot. It’s uncharacteristically careless. This one stems from the centre of the fairway at the par-five 4th. His approach finds the green, but well short of the flag and to the right. He sends an aggressive putt miles past the hole, and can’t make the one coming back. The world number one, the pre-tournament favourite, is +1.
How about this start by Sam Burns, whose dreams were so abruptly shattered in Canada last week by Ryan Fox and his 3-wood? Birdies at 1, 3 and now 5, and the 28-year-old from Louisiana, who finished in the top ten last year, whistles up the leaderboard. Speaking of which, let’s have a good catch-up …
-4: Spaun (F)
-3: Lawrence (F), Burns (5)
-2: S Kim (F), Koepka (6), Im (4*), Reed (4)
THE BUG HAS BEEN DEFEATED. In your box, nasty bug. No dinner for you. So we’re back up and running. Apologies for the interruption to your beloved service.
Reed makes albatross!
Albatross for Patrick Reed on 4! A fairway wood creamed from the middle of the track, 286 yards out, into the heart of the green. One soft bounce that rolls gently from right to left and in! He’s not immediately aware of what he’s done, shrugging his shoulders and asking folks up ahead for confirmation. When he gets it, a broad smile of supreme satisfaction! And why not? That’s only the fourth double-eagle, as the Americans call it, in the US Open record books, following those made by TC Chen at Oakland Hills in 1985, Shaun Micheel at Pebble Beach in 2010, and Nick Watney at Olympic Club in 2012. Reed’s making a habit of this sort of thing, too, having holed out from distance for eagle on 17 on Masters Sunday back in April.
Apologies for the long radio silence: a bug in our publishing system has decided to kick me out of the blogging tools and refuses to let me post anything. A bright future in editorial awaits the bug, some would doubtless argue. Anyway, while the tech bods look at the problem, I’m emailing this across to a colleague who is still able to post.
So what have we missed?
Eagle for the two-time winner Brooks Koepka at 4! A 40-foot rake across the green moves him to -2.
Scottie Scheffler birdies 2, then hands the shot back on the very next hole. He did well to limit the damage on 3 to bogey, having found a fairway bunker, sent his next through the green, then underhit a wedge that performed a u-turn and nestled on the fringe. Two putts from there, no mean feat, salvaged the situation somewhat. The world number one is level par.
Thriston Lawrence – who you’ll remember leading the Open at one point on Sunday afternoon last year – birdies 17 and makes it back to the hutch with a three-under 67.
Ryan Fox, who hit one of the shots of the season last week to win the Canadian Open, a carpe-diem 3-wood to seven feet to beat Sam Burns on the fourth hole of a play-off, is at it again. This time he rakes home a 27-footer on 2 to move into red figures.
More updates soon! Maybe! Hopefully!
Dustin Johnson, the 2016 US Open champion here at Oakmont, starts par-bogey. Talking of DJs, I’m about to be one for a while so will hand you back to Scott for a good chunk of time while I dig out my Dave Pike Set ‘Mathar’ 7”.
Four clubhouse scores in the 60s now after excellent efforts from Si Woo Kim, Ben Griffin and Thomas Detry following Spaun’s 66. J.T. Poston joins the 1-unders with a chip-in birdie at his opening hole.
-4: Spaun (F)
-2: S Kim (F), Lawrence (16)
-1: B Griffin (F), Detry (F), van Rooyen (2*), Bezuidenhout (2*), Burns (2), Hatton (1*), Poston (1*).
Datagolf have a live model showing the chances of each player making the cut. The good news for Rory McIlroy is that his chances of playing on the weekend are currently 72.7%. Lowry is at 9% and Rose 14%.
A textbook opening par for Scheffler. Drive into the fairway, iron to 17 feet and two putts for an opening four. Morikawa also makes par but Hovland takes three swishes with the putter from 35 feet and walks off with a clumsy bogey.
Mark Schmidt emails: “I’m in the US watching the Peacock ‘Featured Group’ of McIlroy, Rose, and Lowry. Lowry is doing a bit of effing and jeffing just now out there.” And it’s pretty easy to see why, Mark, after a 9-over 79. The Irishman was runner-up at Oakmont in 2016. Now, he’ll have it all on to make the cut. He only broke par on one hole today and that was due to holing out from the fairway at 3. There’s always Royal Portrush next month for Shane. As for Justin Rose, the other member of the three-ball featuring McIlroy and Lowry, the 2013 US Open winner also struggled badly, shooting a 77 comprising 11 pars, seven bogeys and no swearing.
And as McIlroy and DeChambeau come to terms with disappointing days, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler strides onto the 1st tee. Is it his week? Can the tournament favourite make it back-to-back majors after his victory in last month’s PGA Championship? Scheffler is out with Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa. It’s a narrow fairway but all three find the short grass thanks to impressive drives.
Rory opens with 74; Bryson with 73
After turning in even par, Bryson DeChambeau won’t be happy with his 3-over 73. Too much loose stuff from the defending champ and he’s currently down in tied 39th. When he won his two US Opens, Bryson opened with a round in the 60s both times. He was 14th after day one (69) at Winged Foot in 2020 while a 67 left him fourth after 18 holes at Pinehurst No.2 last year.
The 73 is one better than Rory McIlroy, who drops six shots coming home for a 74. A round of two halves, Rory’s second nine bound to fuel the doubts that he had pre-tournament after that shocking missed cut in Canada when he beat just four players in the field after shooting 9-over.
