The air was still, the greens soft, and the Bermuda rough unforgiving today at the Los Angeles Country Club. Golfers from around the world gathered in southern California for a chance to win the US Open. There were many questions going into round one today. Can Max Homa handle the spotlight? Will an American win the US Open for the first time in three years? Can Brooks Koepka maintain his winning reputation when it comes to majors? Those questions only scratch the surface of the many storylines revolving around this tournament.
Course Has Bite
This course has been difficult for the golfers to grapple with. The thick, Bermuda rough bogs down and ensnares any ball that dares travel within its depths. The greens aren’t any more forgiving as golfers struggled early to discern the speed these greens were running at. The sixth hole was a real problem today, due to pin placement. The hole location didn’t allow golfers any runway which gave them an extremely small landing zone to aim for.
Omar Morales Impresses Early
20-year-old, amateur got the US Open started after teeing off around 7 am local time. He hit the ball off the tee into a gloomy morning and got off to a hot start. He would hit the first 8 greens in regulation. Not bad for the local amateur. He would spend his entire front nine leading the tournament. That is as good as it would get for him, however, as he would finish +1 over after missing an 8-foot putt to enter the clubhouse at an even par for the round.
Miraculous Shots
There were some SportsCenter Top 10 shots on display today. The first one came from Michael Brennan. Brennan’s approach shot on the third missed long and snagged in the Bermuda rough. Even as I’m writing this I am having trouble comprehending what we saw next. Brennan aimed past the hole and way to the left and hit the ball back out onto the fairway. Then, as if Brennan was manipulating the ball with this brain, the ball rolled back onto the green and broke perfectly into the hole.
Matthieu Pavon did not want to be left out of the fun. He nailed an ace on 15 to draw to an even par. Viktor Hovland would also get in on the miracle train and re-rail his chaotic round with a 165-yard hole out on hole 11 to earn an eagle. That would move him from one over to one under. That is where VIktor would end his day, sitting at a tie for 25th.
Schauffele, Fowler Start Red Hot
You know that moment, in any sport, where you take notice of a player’s gait and the look on their face and you say to yourself, “That player is locked in”? That is how it was today for Ricky Fowler. The man was all business. He approached every tee box like James Bond approaches every mission…with less sexual harassment, of course. No fairway was safe, no green secure from Fowler’s deadly accuracy. When Fowler made a mistake, he would erase it on the very next shot.
There was one par 3 today, where Ricky missed short and to the left. His ball went straight into a bunker standing guard of the green. On the very next shot, Ricky goes simply plucks it out of the bunker and lays the ball down less than a ball width from the hole. The man was colder and more precise than Mark Wahlberg in his hit 2007 film “Shooter”. He would end the day 8 under, scoring the best round in US Open history…for about 45 minutes
While Fowler hogged much of the screen time, Xander Schauffele made noise of his own. Xander would tear up the front nine, scoring 4 birdies. He would continue the momentum on the back nine and net three more birdies, ensuring Fowler would not be all by his lonesome at the top of the leaderboard.
It always bodes well for a major when the top of the golfing world is at the top of their game. Not to have one, but two record-breaking rounds just on the first day shows that golf fans are in for a real treat for the next few days. I can’t wait to see what else is in store for us this Father’s Day weekend.
