Clubs were thrown but the towel was not. Rory McIlroy battled Oakmont’s treacherous setup and his own frustrations to survive for the weekend at the 125thUS Open. As McIlroy clung on, high-profile exits from Pennsylvania included the defending championBryson DeChambeau, Tommy Fleetwood, Dustin Johnson, Joaquin Niemann, Justin Thomas and Shane Lowry. In epitomising how Oakmont can mess with the mind, Lowry earned a one-stroke penalty after lifting his ball on the 14thgreen while forgetting to mark it. The Irishman could only laugh and, to be fair, did.
McIlroy’s day began with two double bogeys inside three holes. By the 12th, the Masters champion flung his iron 30 yards down the fairway in anger at a loose shot. Five holes later, McIlroy broke a tee marker after cracking it with his three-wood. Yet amongst this was admirable fighting spirit; McIlroy fired an approach shot to within 4ft of the 18thhole, a birdie ensuring a 72 for a six-over aggregate. McIlroy last four, played in two under, were crucial. The madcap nature of thisUS Openis such that McIlroy will believe he has a squeak of winning. Only three players – Sam Burns, JJ Spaun and Viktor Hovland – are under par. Burns leads the other two by one at minus three.
Welcome to Grindsville, Pennsylvania. Any golfer standing still was doing wonderfully well. They assessed four foot putts as if they were instead the Gaokao Exam. Smelling salts might as well have replaced energy drinks in the locker room. George Duangmanee shot 86, 89 on his US Open debut. The poor fella did not birdie a single hole amid a string of unmentionables. If watching elite golfers being reduced to quivering wrecks is your thing, this major constitutes essential viewing.
DeChambeau’s departure at 10 over is still a shock. The Californian added a 77 to Thursday’s 73. Thomas four-putted from 22ft, the low point in back-to-back rounds of 76. Johnson, who won here in 2016, continues his slide towards early retirement.
Denny McCarthy branded five and a half hour Oakmont rounds as “a punch in the face.” The steam was just about visible from Jon Rahm’s ears as he assessed his 75. “I’m too annoyed and too mad right now to think about any perspective,” said Rahm. “I am very frustrated. Very few rounds of golf I played in my life where I think I hit good putts and they didn’t sniff the hole, so it’s frustrating.” Whether Rahm thought pin placements were unfair was left for others to ponder. At four over, he remains a contender.
Scottie Scheffler has matched Rahm’s aggregate. “Gosh, dang it” bawled Scheffler after a wayward drive, which is as close as he will ever come to an expletive-laden tirade. “I battled really hard,” Scheffler said. “It’s challenging out there. I was not getting the ball in the correct spots and paying the price for it. Felt like me getting away with one over today wasn’t all that bad. It could have been a lot worse. Around this golf course I don’t think by any means I’m out of the tournament.” Scheffler was still on the practice range three hours after he walked from the final green.
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Against this grisly backdrop, the Friday performance of Burns was exceptional. Burns converted from 20ft at the 9th, his last, for a five under par 65. Three under par claimed the clubhouse lead; Burns could sit back and watch the rest suffer. “The golf course is really too difficult to try to figure out what’s a good score and what’s not,” Burns explained. “You’re really just shot by shot and trying to play each hole the best you can. If you try to be too perfect with putting it can drive you crazy, so I just try to really read it, put a good roll on it, focus on the speed and hope for the best. I have tried to play too perfect and tried to force it a little bit at times. So now I am trying to really be patient and take what the golf course gives me.”
Hovland lurks. The Norwegian found himself in precisely the place you would rather not be on this course, 80ft from the hole on the final green. Hovland calmly two-putted, his 68 meaning one under par at halfway. In this Ryder Cup year, Hovland’s return to form is excellent news for Europe and their captain Luke Donald.
“I’ve just been in a really nice mental state this week,” said Hovland. “Both of my rounds have been very up and down. I feel like a couple times if it would have happened at another tournament, for example, I could have potentially lost my mind there a little bit. But I felt like I kept things together very well.” Indeed, Hovland played his closing stretch in level after a double bogey on his 11th.
Brooks Koepka twice reached three under on the back nine, his front half. Koepka bogeyed three in succession around the turn before dropping further shots at the 4th, 8thand 9thfor a 74. Two over par might frustrate Koepka given his second round start but he is firmly in the mix.
Koepka is arguably the most fascinating actor in this show; a one-time major specialist, he has produced inauspicious results since winning the 2023 US PGA Championship. Koepka missed the cut both at that event and the Masters this year. At Quail Hollow last month, Kopeka was heckled over his decision to accept tens of millions to perform on the LIV Tour. Whether it was that viral moment, a heart-to-heart with his straight-talking coach Pete Cowen or simply the ironing out of technical flaws, Koepka suddenly looks a threat once again. Oakmont is unlikely to faze him. It has already done exactly that to countless others.