A WIDE-OPEN OPEN
Zalatoris, Fitzpatrick share lead after averting disaster; top 9 separated by 3 shots
BROOKLINE, Mass. — Will Zalatoris and Matt Fitzpatrick avoided the carnage and calamity that took down the best players in golf Saturday at a U.S. Open that set the tone for a final day of survival.
Zalatoris, who lost to Justin Thomas in a three-hole playoff last month at the PGA Championship, made only one bogey — a staggering feat on a beast of a Brookline course — for a 3-under-par 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, already a champion at The Country Club with his U.S. Amateur title in 2013, was equally steady and ran off three birdies on his last five holes for a 2-under 68. He will be in the final group of a major for the second consecutive time.
Most telling was that they didn’t make any double bogeys.
That’s what knocked defending champion Jon Rahm out of the lead on the 18th hole.
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. Two putts later, he had a 1-over 71 and went from one shot ahead to one behind.
Rahm wasn’t upset with his swing on the final hole. If anything, he said it was getting dark and he didn’t notice his ball sitting down in the sand. The U.S. Golf Association sent the last group off at 3:45 p.m. Eastern time to maximize television exposure.
Afterward, Rahm was looking ahead instead of what he left behind.
‘‘I have 18 holes, and I’m only one shot back,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s the important thing.’’
Zalatoris and Fitzpatrick were at 4-under 206, the same score of the 54-hole lead when the U.S. Open was last at The Country Club in 1988.
It’s not as though Rahm had full rights to the lead. The round was so wild that Rahm was among 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 with Joel Dahmen, had double bogeys on the seventh and 13th holes and might have had a third after a chunked wedge on the fourth, except that he made a 25-foot putt for bogey. He finished with a 7-over 77.
Masters champion Scottie Scheffler was not immune from mistakes, either. The top-ranked player in the world looked to be pulling away when he holed a wedge from some 80 yards for an 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. It took him two shots to get to the green, and he no longer was leading two putts later. And it only got worse. Three consecutive bogeys followed, and he shot a 71.
Seven of the top 12 players going into the round made at least one double bogey in strong winds and cool temperatures that made this sweater weather in June.
Rory McIlroy was not on that list. His was more of a slow bleed, mostly from a putter that wasn’t behaving. He made one birdie in his round of 3-over 73.
All that, and this U.S. Open was far from settled.
‘‘It was one of the toughest days on a golf course I’ve had in a long time,’’ McIlroy said. ‘‘I just needed to grind it out, and I did on the back nine. To play that back nine at even par was a really good effort, I thought. Just kept myself in the tournament. That’s all I was trying to do, just keep hanging around.’’
Twenty-three players were under par going into the third round. Only nine remain with 18 holes remaining, all of them separated by three shots.