Survival the best US Open golfers could hope for in third round

Eight players spent time atop the leaderboard, all of them getting kicked around — some worse than others — on a US Open course that felt every bit like the toughest test in golf on a cool, windy afternoon at The Country Club yesterday.

It was classic US Open, all about survival, a highlight reel of golf carnage.

Will Zalatoris and Matt Fitzpatrick kept the damage to a bare minimum, giving them another crack at a major championship that is 18 holes away and feels so much longer.

Zalatoris, who lost in a playoff at the PGA Championship last month at Southern Hills, made only one bogey — a staggering feat on a beast of a Brookline course — for a 3-under 67.

“Felt like I shot a 61,” Zalatoris said. “Whenever I made a mistake I was able to get away with it or pull off something miraculous.”

Fitzpatrick played in the final group at the PGA Championship. Now the 27-year-old from England is on familiar turf at The Country Club, where he won the US Amateur in 2013. He was equally steady and ran off three birdies over his last five holes for a 68.

Most telling: They didn’t make any double bogeys. That’s what knocked defending US Open champion Jon Rahm out of the lead on the final hole. The Spaniard thought he had seen it all — including a shot he played backhanded from the base of a tree on the eighth hole — until he took three swipes from sand in two bunkers.

Rahm’s first shot from a fairway bunker hit the lip and nearly rolled into his footprint. His next shot found a plugged lie in a greenside bunker, and two putts later he had a 71 and went from one ahead to one behind.

He was in no mood to look anywhere but ahead.

“I have 18 holes, and I’m only one shot back,” he said.

Zalatoris and Fitzpatrick were at 4-under 206, the same score of the 54-hole lead when the US Open was last at The Country Club in 1988.

It’s not like Rahm had full rights to the lead. Yesterday at Brookline was so wild that Rahm was the last of eight players who had at least a share of the lead at some point. Three of them didn’t even finish among the top 10, including two-time major champion Collin Morikawa.

Morikawa, who shared the 36-hole lead, had double bogeys on the seventh and 13th holes, and might have had a third after a chunked wedge on 4 except that he made a 7m putt for bogey to finish with a 77.

Masters champion Scottie Scheffler was not immune. The world’s No. 1 player looked to be pulling away when he holed a wedge from some 80 yards for eagle on the par-5 eighth.

He was at 6 under and cruising until his wedge to a back pin on the 141-yard 11th hole bounced hard over the green and into deep rough. He took two to the green and two puts later was no longer leading. And it only got worse as three straight bogeys followed and he shot 71 to end up two strokes behind

Kiwis Ryan Fox and Danny Lee were spectators to the carnage after both missed the cut.