'That was brutal': US Open conditions leave everyone muttering after third round | Opinion
BROOKLINE, Mass. — The temperatures were dropping into the 50s, the weather was raw. This is June? More like October. The winds were swirling, wreaking havoc on the meticulous calculations of the best golfers in the world. Shots were flying everywhere but where they were intended.
“That was brutal,” said Will Zalatoris.
He was in the lead of the U.S. Open when he said that.
And that’s where he finished when all the three-putts and bogeys and errant shots into the gallery were over, and the third round had mercifully come to an end Saturday night at The Country Club.
A couple of youngsters, Zalatoris, 25, who finished second at the 2021 Masters and second again at the recent PGA Championship, and Matt Fitzpatrick, 27, who tied for fifth at the PGA Championship last month, tied at 4-under par on the eve of Sunday’s final round.
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But did they sound like leaders? No, they did not.
“I put my sun cream on before the round, and I was thinking, 'Oh, it's going to get nice and warm,'” Fitzpatrick said, “but it was quite the opposite by the end of the day. The wind was strong. The wind was really strong. It made it tough.”
It was bad for everyone, but perhaps even worse for reigning U.S. Open champion Jon Rahm, who was in the lead and playing the most consistent golf of them all when he found himself sizing up a relatively routine approach shot from a fairway bunker on the 18th hole.
Then he drilled the ball right into a tuft of long grass at the edge of the sand just a few feet away. The ball rolled right back to where he had been standing. His happy day had suddenly changed. He ended up with a double bogey. Instead of leading by one shot, he was behind by one at 3-under.
“Quite frankly, it was a little dark and it was hard to see,” Rahm explained later. “I tried to be a little too perfect with the shot. Maybe I was trying to get too cute, looking for another birdie. It is what it is. I think I got a little bit too cute with the shot.”
Every single man on the leaderboard was muttering about something or other when he walked off the course Saturday.
“It was one of the toughest days on a golf course I've had in a long time,” said Rory McIlory, who lost three shots in the first six holes, righted the ship and finished at 1-under, still very much in it. “I just needed to grind it out, and I did on the back nine. Just kept myself in the tournament. That's all I was trying to do. Just keep hanging around. I felt like I did well to get it in under par for the tournament at the end of the day.”
Joel Dahmen, who started the day tied for the lead, gave back four strokes throughout the third round but still was tied for seventh at 1-under.
“I knew it was going to be hard; I didn't know it was going to be that hard,” he said. “The wind flipped, made some of the easy holes really hard, and the first four holes were brutal. Then the back, a lot of those hard holes got a little bit easier as well. I wouldn't say it was a wash. It was way harder today. But it was a true U.S. Open setup, that's for sure.”
Masters champion Scottie Scheffler burst into the lead and reached 6-under par at one point, only to fall back as well and finish at 2-under.
“I think the U.S. Open is very taxing, mentally and physically,” he said. “I think that's all part of what makes this tournament so fun. You're going to get tested all different kinds of ways, whether it be physically, mentally, whatever it is. That's why I show up here. I think that's kind of the fun of it. If every golf tournament was like this, it would be in for a long season for all of us. A few times a year, I think it's a ton of fun.”
That’s one way to look at it. Zalatoris and Fitzpatrick, not surprisingly, were the only two to start out near the lead and steadily get better as the brutal day wore on.
“I think it took a lot of discipline today,” Zalatoris said. “I mean, we didn't aim at a single flag even with some wedges just because you really only have a foot or two to deal with on these greens in some situations.
“Normally guys out here when they have wedges in their hand, they're firing at pins no matter what the situation was, but it's just a lot of patience and giving myself as many 15- to 25-footers as I could, and obviously, a couple happened to go in today, and it felt pretty good.”
But when all was said and done, there was universal agreement on one simple concept: They are ready for more.
Said Justin Thomas, the PGA champion who stood at 3-over: “It’s very difficult. Par is a great score on a lot of holes. Bogeys aren't going to kill you. I said to Bones (his caddie) walking up 18, ‘This is how a U.S. Open should be.’”