When one of the toughest golf courses in the world joins forces with the nastiest of weather systems, even the high and mighty can run for cover.
Thursday’s US Open first round at unforgiving Oakmont turned out to be a survival of the fittest, with three rain delays due to thunderstorms ending in the white flag being raised at 4:34pm.
When the dust had settled, leading the way were the world’s 624th ranked player, Andrew Landry, and 19-year-old US amateur Scottie Scheffler, while big guns like Rory McIlroy, Danny Willett and Rickie Fowler were a combined 16-over par after just 12 holes.
Photo: AP
Landry, a 28-year-old Texan, and Scheffler were in the first two groupings out and they enjoyed benign early playing conditions to duck under par before the bad weather bared its teeth.
Scheffler has the clubhouse lead at one-under 69 and Landry has a 10-foot putt at his last hole to finish with a 66.
Scheffler acknowledged that for once, the first-out players, usually little-known, had enjoyed a distinct advantage.
“I was excited to get done on 18. I tapped in like a two-and-a-half footer kind of quickly, which maybe wasn’t the smartest idea,” he said. “I wanted our group to get done so we didn’t have to come back in the morning because we were up at 4am this morning. Some rest would be good tonight, and honestly, I really wanted to watch the basketball game [NBA Finals] tonight. I wanted to get done so I could stay up late to watch that.”
McIlroy and Willett (both four-over), and Fowler (six-over), on the contrary are facing a troubled night, knowing that they will have to perform well right away tomorrow morning if they are not to badly compromise their campaigns.
Masters champion Willett was upset that there was no practice time allocated to the players after the first 79-minute break.
“You’re in a US Open, they don’t give you a chance to even hit a few balls. It’s not like you are playing a Sunday medal, you’re in a US Open, they don’t give you a chance to even hit a few balls,” he said.
“Hopefully, we can get back at it tomorrow,” Willett said.
Fowler, who has missed the cut in his last two tournaments, knows that he is in distinct danger of making it three in a row after an error-strewn performance that he blamed on the delays making it tough to get into a rhythm.
“Not the start I wanted, that’s for sure,” he said. “But I’ll go get a little bit of rest, come back out early, and see if we can get some back coming in. I have a par putt on 13. It would be nice to roll that in and kind of get a couple things going, make a couple birdies coming in.”
Not every player was raising an angry fist at the weather gods though, with the rain softening up Oakmont’s lightning-fast greens and slowing down the narrow, rolling fairways.
Bubba Watson for one saw little cause for protest as he mixed up five birdies with three bogeys in 14 holes to be nicely placed at two-under.
“The weather didn’t affect my play. The golf course affects the play more than anything,” the two-time Masters champion said. “We always got off the golf course before the rain. So the rain had no chance to affect us or anything. So the weather has no effect.”
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