Zalatoris, Fitzpatrick survive beast of Open to share lead
BROOKLINE, MASS. >> Eight players spent time atop the leaderboard, all of them getting kicked around — some worse than others — on a U.S. Open course that felt every bit like the toughest test in golf on a cool, windy afternoon at The Country Club.
Saturday was a classic U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 back-handed 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