SOUTHAMPTON, NY – Early morning tee times and a pairing together proved just what some of the U.S. Open favorites needed as Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg, and Tommy Fleetwood all posted solid rounds to Open the 126th playing of the national golf championship. McIlroy, reigning back-to-back Masters Champion, and Swedish wunderkind Aberg fired 1-under 71s, currently tied for ninth place. Englishman Fleetwood, last season’s FedEx Cup and Tour Champion, is one shot back in a nine-man logjam for 18th at EVEN par.
Blustery winds and overcast skies sent scores soaring for most of the field. As we go to press, the course is playing to a stroke average of 73.4, almost three-and-a-half strokes over par. Worse still, a fog delay of two hours will require several groups to complete the final few holes of their round early Friday morning. As we go to press, 2023 U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark stands atop the leaderboard at 6-under with two holes of his round left to play. Clark leads by four shots over seven golfers, including four former U.S. Open champions.
“With the conditions today, anything under par or anything around even par is a good score. It was a day to really just keep yourself in the tournament and not shoot yourself out of it, which is exactly what I did eight years ago here,” McIlroy noted gratefully. “So I sort of went out with the mindset that pars were going to be good, and if you could pick up a couple of birdies here and there, that’s always a bonus. But really just minimizing the mistakes. I did that for the most part today.”
It was actually a mercurial round for such a conservative game plan. McIlroy balanced three birdies and an eagle against four bogeys, including back-to-back bogeys at eight and nine, his final two holes of the day.
“It’s so difficult. I didn’t feel like I hit two bad iron shots on the last two holes and put myself in pretty difficult spots and wasn’t able to get it up-and-down, but overall a really good day,” McIlroy continued. “It’s a challenging golf course already, and you put 30-mile-an-hour winds on top of it, it tests the best players in the world pretty well.”
It was a well-timed caution from McIlroy on Monday that helped ensure the bloodletting of the golfers by a sharpened Shinnecock didn’t get totally out of hand. The green speeds pre-tournament were getting so fast, and storms and high winds were predicted. Fearing a repeat if the disasters of 2004 and 2018 on Shinnecock’s already ferocious greens, the USGA announced yesterday they would water the greens today and keep the Stimpmeter speed to a reasonable 10.5.Good idea. With the poa annua already showing signs of wear and 156 players to get around the course twice, the USGA is laser focused on trying to dot every I and cross every T.
Aberg’s round was slightly steadier than McIlroys, three birdies against two bogeys. Interestingly, both players bogeyed the 620 yard par-5 16th. That’s going to be something to watch carefully this week. Rather than bombing for eagle on both par-5s, many players will play two shots to a comfortable wedge shot distance and try to make birdie with the putter. Golfers often have to lay back and play the par-5s here as three-shotters, unlike Augusta National or most PGA Tour stops.
“16 is a big hole today. It’s probably one of the harder par-5s on the PGA TOUR or in major championships,” Aberg admitted candidly. “Obviously with the wind blowing in today, it’s difficult, but that’s also the way it should be. We all knew it was going to be windy. I thought it was a fair test.”
Greens in Regulation was the key to Aberg’s 69; he hit 13 of 18 for 72%, This far the field is averaging just 56%. He hit 10 of 14 fairways and took 30 putts.
Tommy Fleetwood birdied both par-5s – holes five and 16 en route to his Even par 70. His four birdies and four bogeys were the result of hitting a mere 10 of 18 greens in regulation, but taking just 28 putts. It was late birdies at five and six, his 14th and 15th holes of the day, that buoyed him back to Even par.
“The round started to get away from me a little bit when I made the turn, I made two poor three-putts. But I think sometimes it almost helps when you’ve got two guys going really well. That they can kind of drag you up if you’re struggling…Those two were having two of the best rounds of the day. So, it kind of helps you in a way,” Fleetwood offered, kindly throwing a nod to Aberg and Rory. He currently stands two shots behind the leaders.
Of the early starters, Sam Stevens was a surprise leader after a self-described “weird” start to his day.
“I got off to kind of a weird start with the double on 10. We had the delay. Teed off and didn’t get to hit my second shot for 2 1/2 hours or whatever it was,” Stevens laughed good-naturedly. “Yeah, got off to kind of a weird start, but made a birdie on the very next hole. So, it kind of felt like I settled in after that.”
Stevens drove and putted beautifully, hitting 13 of 14 fairways and taking 28 putts. That was food enough for T-5 in putting on the day on the toughest greens the pros will face all year. Born in Fort Worth, Texas and raised in Wichita, Kansas, golf runs deep in Stevens’s family. His grandfather, Johnny, played on the PGA Tour in the 1960s, and his father, Charlie, competed on the Korn Ferry Tour. He played four seasons of collegiate golf as an Oklahoma State University Cowboy, and he was a keystone of the Cowboys’ 2018 NCAA Division I National Championship team, playing alongside prominent PGA Tour players Viktor Hovland and Wyndham Clark. He has not yet won on the PGA Tour but has three runner-up finishes in three seasons.
Meanwhile pre-tournament favorite Scottie Scheffler, looking to complete the career Grand Slam just 14 months after Rory McIlroy did it, fired a 2-over 72, putting him in a tie for 47th. Still, Scheffler was optimistic.
“It was a really challenging day. If you told me when I was staring at my par putt on 9 that I would post 2-over today, I would definitely have taken it at the time,” Scheffler stated, relief showing on his face despite having won four major championships. “We were going out early. When it was foggy, I was trying to get a good judge for how much — or how much shorter the ball would go with the moisture on it, especially into the wind. After the fog kind of cleared, the ball started drying up…. Overall, it was a good battle. Get some rest, and we’ll see how the course changes over the next day.”
In other news, 2015 PGA Championship winner Jason Day has withdrawn from the Open with a back injury. This was his 14th U.S. Open start.
