No doubting Thomas at Erin Hills
Record round of 63 lights up U.S. Open on moving day in Wisconsin
Honest, this really is the U.S. Open.
At a championship that usually leaves most of the field bloodied and battered, only the scoreboard is red this year. There are 42 players under par at Erin Hills heading into Sunday and Justin Thomas put an exclamation mark on the day by making an eagle at the 18th hole to shoot a 9-under 63.
“I’m not sure when it’s going to sink in or when I’m going to realize what I did,” Thomas said.
What he did was make nine birdies and an eagle, drive a par-4 green with a 3-wood, and shoot the lowest score in relation to par in the history of the U.S. Open.
All of that, and he’s still one back of leader Brian Harman, who is 12-under par for the week after shooting a 5-under 67 on Saturday.
The diminutive Harman has been getting every last drop out of his game this week and will be the first to tell you he’s played the game with a chip on his shoulder for a long time.
“I think since my dad dropped me off at football practice and told me not to be disappointed if I didn’t get to play at all,” Harman said. How’d that work out? “I played a lot,” he said. The 5-foot-7 Harman has two PGA Tour wins and until this week had missed the cut in both U.S. Opens he had played in. With another round to go and the U.S. Open hanging in the balance, Harman wasn’t about to let go of the chip on his shoulder a day early and had a message for the media at Erin Hills.
“Everything I read says that I hit it super short,” he said. “I don’t think I do. Maybe I do, I don’t know. Ends up where it ends up.”
Playing in the final group with Harman will be Thomas, who is nearly as small but one of the longest hitters in the game. Tied at 11-under with Thomas and in the second to last group are Brooks Koepka and Tommy Fleetwood. Koepka is built like a linebacker and another of the game’s bombers.
Whether this has been a good U.S. open so far seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Record scoring and constant movement at the top of the leaderboard is usually exactly what fans want from a golf tournament. But for years the U.S. Open has been the one tournament fans relied on to watch the world’s best golfers be roughed up and spat out like weekend duffers.
In another odd twist this year, the game’s three top players — Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and Jason Day — all missed the cut. And while the leaderboard is packed tightly together heading into an exciting Sunday, there are no past major winners on the first page of the leaderboard.
Rickie Fowler who got everything started on Thursday with a 65, seemed to be fading out of contention until he birdied three of his final five holes on Saturday to shoot a 4-under 68. He’s alone in fifth place and two shots back of Harman.