Jordan Spieth continues to fight and have fun to the same extent. After missing the green field on par-three 6th a few miles to the right for his fourth mascot of the day, he twisted his approach 7 to 5 feet and rolled into a birdie putt. Only one face value for Spieth during his first seven holes and he is +2.
One of the aforementioned 15 birdie-pars for Rory McIlroy. He scores his shot with a tee at 15 in a thick oomska on the right. Forced to pull it out, he leaves himself with a 15-foot kick down to save his money … and rolls it confidently in the center of the bowl. This is his second good fight: he got into trouble on the right at 13, but found the front of the two-stage green and made a lot of test steam with two strokes. McIlroy is currently playing with the confidence of a man who came out of the final round of 62 and won the Canadian Open last week.
Abraham Anser finished in the top ten at the PGA last month. The 31-year-old Mexican will not repeat his heroism from Southern Hills this week. He is forced to retire after falling ill, and Patton Kizir will take his place. Ricky Fowler is the next taxi in the rank if anyone else retires.
Matthew NeSmith has no record in specialties. Well, that’s not quite true: the missed game of the 2015 US Open in Chambers Bay and that’s all for the 28-year-old South Carolina. But now he is the joint leader of this one. Part of the second group came out early this morning, he followed the bird at 5 with another on par-pet 8th. Meanwhile, on the other nominal fifth in Brooklyn, 14th, Xander Schaufele spins in a ten-footer to go -1.
-2: NeSmith (8), Morikawa (7), Henley (4 *)
It was a solid start for Rory McIlroy. Four parts, 10 to 13, for what some claim is the most challenging part of the course. McIlroy is paired with Xander Schaufele and Hideki Matsuyama. Schaufele – who has never finished lower than seventh in his five US Open appearances – has so far equaled Rory’s shot. Not so for the 2021 Masters champion Matsuyama, who followed the birdie at 11 with a double strike with three strokes at 12. He is +1.
Rory McIlroy starts on the 12th. Photo: Charlie Riedel / AP
Updated at 14.11 BST
Jon Rahm warmed the launcher. Back to back birds at 5 and 6, and he is in red figures for a short time. He is -1. The defending champion travels with Colin Morikawa today; the Open champion leaves his take-shot in par-three, 6th short and right, but slips out of the thick cabbage four feet away and mixes up his pair. This is the US Open and more often these babies feel like birds. He remains in the lead with Russell Henley at -2.
2015 champion Jordan Spiet is currently demonstrating the benefits of finding the fairway. He has never been the most accurate of these, he has not hit one yet and as a result he has missed shots at 1, 3 and 4. This week he will need all his climbing genius and he also demonstrates this by becoming up and down from the sand at the short pair-four 5th to go back to +2. Spieth’s combined score for the last four opening rounds of the US Open is +18. He will have to walk a bit to break this surprisingly terrible record today.
Colin Morikawa quickly joins Henley at the top. The reigning Open champion could be very dangerous here this week, with play in the approach coming first compared to Brooklyn’s often small and heavily guarded greens. The best iron player in the world birdies 2 and 5, and while it’s early, the rankings are already being formed.
-2: Morikawa (5), Henley (3 *) – 1: Buckley (7 *), NeSmith (7), Vic-a- (6), Scott (4), Munoz (3)
Russell Henley makes his eighth start at the US Open this week. The 33-year-old from Georgia has not yet finished in the top ten, but he has tied for a low amateur in 2010 at Pebble Beach and is enjoying his best result last year at Tori Pines with a draw for 13th. He started fast today, following a birdie at 10, almost rising from 180 yards to 12. He joined for a second bird and became the first person to reach -2.
Should we start with news about the title defender? It just looks right. Jon Rahm won last year’s Torrey Pines race by pointing two big switches from left to right at 17 and 18. Golf is golf, his flat stick disappoints him as he begins to defend himself. Short shots missed at 3 and 4, one for equal, another for birdie, and he is +1 so far. The second pass was particularly embarrassing as he sent a delightfully short iron into the 4, using the right-to-left tilt of the green to collect his ball to four feet. Having said that, it was a blow down and you don’t want to keep too many of them this week.
Preamble
Yes, yes, the LIV Tour was about preparing for the 122nd US Open in Brooklyn as a bad smell. But let’s not allow this to be delayed, as none of the players on the breakaway tour are considered particularly likely winners in the USGA flagship event. In fact, three of this week’s top four favorites – Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and reigning champion John Ram – were vocal in their defense of the PGA Tour, while the other – new Masters champion Scotty Scheffler – gave some side to the new format. Canadian Open last week, stating that “maybe outside the DJ”, he “really did not notice anyone missing this week.” Oh!
Other guys need to be taken seriously. The Champion of Players and Masters almost disappeared from Cam Smith. FedEx Champion Patrick Cantley. Sam Burns, three-time Tour winner this season. Informed Matthew Fitzpatrick. PGA runner-up Will Zalaris. Two-time big winner Colin Morikawa. Hideki Matsuyama. Shane Lowry. Im Sung-jae. Xander Schaufele. Tony Finau. Victor Howland. Jordan Sleep. The Sonics. The Sonics. The Sonics.
Brooklyn is mostly remembered these days with the 1999 Ryder Cup, Justin Leonard, the Ollie Line, all that. But it has hosted three previous US Opens, won by Curtis Strange in 1988, Julius Boruss in 1963 and the most famous of all, amateur Francis Wimet in 1913. Personal fame saturated with fame.
Speaking of which, some of the big names come out early. The day will be long, so without further ado, here are the starting hours for the first round. Choose your favorite and stay for four days of golf from a major championship. Three rounds of hunting rifles have nothing to do with the US Open, darling. It’s included!
Starting from Hole 1:11:45 Matt McCarthy, (a) Michael Thorbjornsen, Eric Barnes11: 56 Matthew NeSmith, Patrick Rogers, (a) Travis Wick12: 07 Troy Merritt, (a) William Moe, (a) William Moe, Andrew Putnam12: 18 Colin Morikawa, James Payot, John Ram (Spa) 12:29 Max Homa, Adam Scott (Australia), Jordan Spy12: 40 Daniel Berger, Patrick Cantley, Billy Horschel12: 51 Sebastian Munoz (Cole), Alexander Noren (Schwe), Harold Warner III13: 02 Joaquin Niemann (Chi), Cameron Young, Will Zalatoris13: 13 (a) Stuart Hagestad, Grayson Murray, Adam Schenk13: 24 Brandon Grace (Rsa), Mackenzie Hughes (Cannes), Guido Migliosi (Ita) 13:35 Bo Hosler, Satoshi Kodaira (Jpn), Kale Samooja (Finn) 13:46 Richard Mansel (Eng), Roger Sloan (Cannes), Tomoyasu Sugiyama (Jpn) 13:57 Keith Green, Benjamin Silverman (Cannes), (a) Caleb Manuel17: 30 Kevin Chapel, Andrew Novak, Chase Seifert17: 41 Thorbjorn Alessen (Den), Brian Steward, Nick Hardy17: 52 Sam Horsfield (English), Sean Norris (Rsa), Cameron Tringale 18:03 Sung Je Im (Cor), Guillermo Mito Pereira (chi), Eric van Royen (Rsa) 18:14 Tony Finau, Victor Howland (Nor), Justin Thomas18: 25 Ju-Hyung Kim (Cor), Min-Woo Lee (Australia), Seamus Power (Irl) 18:36 Matthew Fitzpatrick (Eng), Dustin Johnson, Web Simpson 18:47 Shane Lowry (Irl), Phil Mickelson, Louis Ostheusen (Rsa) 18:58 Danny Lee (Nzl), (a) Keita Nakajima (Jpn), Nick Taylor (Can) 19:09 (a) Nick Dunlap, Jim Furyk, Adam Hadwin Cannes 19:20 Richard Bland (English), Ryan Fox (Nzl), Rikuya Hoshino (Jpn) 19:31 Jonas Blix (Shwe), Bo Hoag, Todd Son (Australia) 19:42 Sean Jacqueline (Shko), a) Charles Reiter, Isaiah Salinda
Starting from a Hole 10:11:45 Hayden Buckley, Fran Quinn, Callum Taren 11:56 Sam Bennett, Kurt Kitayama, Denny McCarthy 12:07 Will Besseling (Ned), Wyndham Clark, Brandon Matthews 12:18 Wu Kim (Cor), Sepp Straka (Ed), David Lingmert (Shwe) 12:29 Victor Perez (Fra), Davis Riley, Scott Stallings12: 40 Hideki Matsuyama (Jpn), Rory McIlroy (NIrl), Xander Schaufele12: 51 Brian Harman, Russell Henley, Kevin Kisner13: 02 Keegan Bradley, Mark Lishman (Australia), Aaron Wise13: 13 Stuart Zinc, Francesco Molinari (Ita), (a) Laird Shepard (English) 13:24 Marcel Schneider (Ger), Joseph Bramlett, Chan Kim 13:35 Joel Damen, Lanto Griffin, Ginichiro Kozuma (Jpn) 13:46 (a) Fred Biondi (Bra), Harry Hall (English), Chris Gotterrup 13:57 Luke Gannon, Chris Nigel, Andrew Beckler17 : 30 Sean Crocker, Jedi Morgan (Australia), Taylor Montgomery17: 41 MJ Daffue (Rsa), (a) Maxwell Moldovan, Yannick Paul (Ger) 17:52 Adria Arnaus (Spa), Talor Guch, Tom Hoge18: 03 Sergio Garcia (Spa), Tyrell Hatton (English), Kevin Na18: 14 Abraham Anck’s (Mex), Sam Byrne with, Thomas Peters (Bell) 18:25 Brooks Koepka, Scotty Scheffler, Cameron Smith (Australia) 18:36 Corey Connors (Cannes), (a) Austin Grazer, Luke Liszt18: 47 Bryson Deschambo, Justin Rose (English), Gary Woodland 18:58 Tommy Fleetwood (English), Gyeong-Hoon Lee (Cor), Patrick Reed19: 09 Harris English, Lucas Herbert (Australia), Jason Kokrak19: 20 (a) Ben Lorenz, Davis Shore, Samuel Stevens19: 31 (a) Adrian Dumont (Bell), Daijiro Izumida (Jpn), Sebastian Soderbergh (Sweden) 19:42 Brady Calkins, Ryan Gerard, Jesse Mueller
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