Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Crowded atop leaderboard
Four tied for first; Six of world’s Top 10 don’t make cut
ERIN, Wis. — It’s not the kind of leaderboard that makes someone want to cancel their weekend plans to stay home and watch the last two rounds of the U.S. Open.
Paul Casey. Tommy Fleetwood. Brooks Koepka. Brian Harman.
One shot back. Jamie Lovemark. J.B. Holmes.
And then there is Rickie Fowler, also one back. Thank goodness.
Between them all you won’t find one winner of a major and only Fowler with star power.
In fact, you have to go down to 19th place to find a winner of a major, Sergio Garcia at threeunder.
There are 23 golfers within four shots of the lead and 42 players under par.
This assortment at the top was made possible when the wheels came off Fowler’s game after his lights-out, record-setting 65 at Erin Hills golf course on Thursday. He was coasting along, playing par golf and hanging out at the top of the leaderboard. Then, inexplicably, he lost his putting touch. He bogeyed the 11th, 12th and 13th holes and missed an easy birdie putt on the par five 14th.
“I just hit a three-wood a touch left on 11, and I had to try and hit something out of the rough, and ended up in a tough spot behind the green,” Fowler said. “Then three putt the next two holes. So I really could have been through there with just one bogey.”
He’s still very much in play after Friday’s round, at six under after shooting a 73.
Casey was the only golfer who went in the morning. Starting on the back nine, he exchanged a birdie on 11 with a bogey on 12. No harm, no foul.
Then came the par five 14th hole. His second shot drifted off the fairway, third shot was over the green in the fescue. He failed to advance his fourth shot more than a foot as the plants grabbed the club. It didn’t get any better when he made the green. Triple bogey, eight.
He then bogied the 15th hole, hitting it short of the green in two and failing to get the up and down. So there he stood at two under and seemingly out of the picture.
But then, starting at 17, he reeled off five straight birdies with putts of 13 feet, 7, 3, 11 and 10.
Casey said he couldn’t remember the last time he had five birdies in a row or an eight in a competitive round.
“Not every day you enjoy a round of golf with an eight on the card,” Casey said. “But, I’m a pretty happy man. Yeah, it was a bit of a roller coaster. … [It’s tough to get through] a U.S. Open or any major without some kind of hiccup.”
Koepka, from Cardinal Newman, is one of those players that the smart guys like to put in their fantasy league. Lots of talent, just looking for that one breakout moment.
This is his sixth year on the Tour and fifth U.S. Open. His best finish was fourth in 2014 at Pinehurst. He was 13th last year at Oakmont. He has won one tournament on the PGA Tour.
Koepka birdied four of his first seven holes. Then his game flattened out on the front nine, bogeying one and six. He missed a six-foot putt on his last hole, which would have given him sole possession of the lead.
“I made two bad swings on the front nine,” Koepka said. “I got in a hazard on one. And I pulled the fouriron on the par three [sixth]. If you do that you’re going to deserve a bogey out there.”
Fleetwood found his way to the top with a rather ordinary four birdie, two bogey round. The 26-year-old Englishman has never won the PGA Tour but has won four times on the European Tour. This is only his second U.S. Open, finishing 27th in 2015.
The cut was at one-over par, allowing 68 golfers to make it to the weekend rounds.
Six of the top 10 golfers in the world didn’t make the cut.
Among those that didn’t make it were Justin Rose (+2), Adam Scott (+3), Bubba Watson (+4), Dustin Johnson (+4), Rory McIlroy (+5), Jon Rahm (+5) and Jason Day (+10).