Johnson maintains share of lead despite a 77
didn’t look half-bad.
“I didn’t feel like I played badly at all,” Johnson said. “Seven-over usually is a terrible score. But, I mean, with the greens the way they got this afternoon, they were very, very difficult.”
Finau and Berger, who accounted for two of the day’s 3-under-par rounds, each had six birdies and two bogeys. Those red numbers were rare as the day wore on, the sun and wind dried the greens, and even putts that were intended to be conservative rolled well past holes without as much as a peek into the cup.
In the most bizarre moment of the tournament, Phil Mickelson was so exasperated by a runaway putt that he jogged over to it and hit it back at the hole before it stopped moving. He incurred a two-stroke penalty, but risked disqualification by doing so.
“I didn’t mean to disrespect anybody,” said Mickelson, who finished with 81, his worst-ever round in a U.S. Open. “I know it’s a two-shot penalty. At that time, I just didn’t feel like going back and forth and hitting the same shot over. I took the two-shot penalty and moved on.”
The conditions deteriorated to such a degree in the afternoon that the U.S. Golf Association conceded in an evening news conference that the course setup was unfair.
“It was a tale of two different golf courses today,” said Mike Davis, chief executive of the USGA.
“We want the U.S. Open to be tough, but we saw some examples late in the day where well-executed shots were not only not being rewarded, but in some cases penalized. And specifically, I think the one that was most troubling was the 15th green, that hole location. It worked fine most of the day, but it didn’t work fine later in the day.”
Davis said the wind speeds were higher than expected, the grass began to dry almost to the point of wilting, and there simply wasn’t enough of it to hold the shots.
“We didn’t have a situation in terms of ’04 where we had to suspend play because you couldn’t play the golf course,” he said, referring to the last time Shinnecock played host to the U.S. Open and grounds workers were frantically watering the greens between groups. “But we certainly had a condition in a few places where you’d say, Y`ou know way, it was tougher than we wanted.’”
Davis said the grounds crew has been instructed to do what it can to slow the course for the final round, mostly by watering the surface as much as possible without negatively impacting play.
There were plenty of complaints from golfers Saturday.
“In the afternoon, when the greens get baked and with some of those pin positions – I mean, the greens aren’t running perfectly smooth in the first place,” said Henrik Stenson, who was even par for the tournament at the turn but had five bogeys on the back nine. “In the afternoon, when [the greens] get crusty and baked, it’s like glass around the hole. You can barely touch some of those putts going downhill, and could easily three- or four-putt from 3, 4, 5 feet.”
Asked about the putting surface on No. 15, Koepka said: “I don’t have anything nice to say about that green and the pin location, so I’m just not going to say it.”
Said Zach Johnson in an interview with Sky Sports: “Unfortunately, they’ve lost the golf course.”
The USGA might have lost the golf course, and the tournament’s overwhelming leader. But it regained something else heading into the final day: Intrigue. 73-70-75 75-72-72 73-73-73 73-72-74 73-71-75 69-73-77 75-66-78 69-71-79 72-73-75 73-71-76 71-72-77 76-72-73 72-76-73 73-75-73 74-73-74 79-68-74 73-73-75 74-72-75 73-71-77 72-72-77 74-69-78 76-72-74 71-77-74 73-74-75 Peter Uihlein Sam Burns Patrick Cantlay Brian Harman 223 (+13) Dean Burmester Aaron Baddeley a-Will Grimmer Jason Dufner 224 (+14) Cameron Wilson H. Matsuyama Jimmy Walker Mickey DeMorat 225 (+15) Kevin Chappell Calum Hill Tyler Duncan 226 (+16) Tim Wilkinson Ross Fisher Rickie Fowler 227 (+17) Phil Mickelson Patrick Rodgers 228 (+18) Byeong Hun An A. Johnston