Key events
Bounce-back birdie for Scottie Scheffler as well! His comes at 7, the result of an approach sent from 171 yards to 11 feet. He strokes in the gentle left-to-right slider and moves back to +1. Not a flicker of emotion. He’s just going about his business in the usual Scottie-on-Thursday way. No need to fret about anything yet.
Bounce-back birdie for Patrick Reed! This one at the par-three 6th, reward for a tee shot clipped to ten feet. His card so far: par, bogey, par, albatross, bogey, birdie. Just an eagle, double bogey and hole-in-one required for the full set. Rule nothing out. He’s -2 again.
Dustin Johnson, the champion here in 2016, hasn’t started well. Bogeys at 11, 12 and 15. Now on the 222-yard par-three 16th he finds himself in more bother. His tee shot flies over the long, thin bunker running down the left side of the green. Only just, though. It sticks on the steep but heavily-grassed bank. DJ’s hardly got a stance, the ball way below his feet, one foot planted a good three feet above the other. He’s slashing out from thick grass with a downhill lie, and there’s not much green on the other side to play with. So how on earth does he manufacture a shot that lands gently just the other side of the fringe? That’s sensational, though even then, his ball’s taken away by the camber towards the collar on the other side of the green. He’s left with a 40-foot putt, which is about the best he could do, an illustration of the almost impossible position he’d put himself in. He can’t salvage his par with a long rake, and so it’s yet another bogey. But numbers be damned, that wedge, executed with such grace and balance, will go down as one of the shots of the week. He’s +4.
Im Sung-jae strings together three birdies in a row! The burst on 12, 13 and 14 launches the Masters specialist – the 27-year-old Korean has finished tied for second, fifth and eighth at Augusta – up to a share of second at -3. He’s trending in the right direction in the majors, having tied for seventh at Troon last year before that fifth-placed finish at the Masters in April. Let’s just ignore the missed cut at Quail Hollow last month.
From the sublime to the ridiculous. After the albatross on 4, Patrick Reed finds himself miles off piste to the left of 5. He’s a good 75 yards off line! And almost sock deep in filthy rough. He does pretty well to limit the damage to bogey, whipping out onto the green, then taking two putts from 50 feet. But that’s bogey, his second in a four-hole stretch that also included that double-eagle. He won’t be carding a run like that too many times in his career. He’s -1. Meanwhile Scottie Scheffler can’t make his par saver on 6, his putt always dying to the right, and he drops to +2.
Scottie whips his bunker shot high into the air, landing it softly inches from the flag. But he can’t get any action on the ball, which trundles 13 feet past the hole. He’ll need to make that coming back if he’s not to card a third bogey in four holes.
Scottie Scheffler seems oddly out of sorts right now. He carves his tee shot at the par-three 6th into a bunker to the right of the green. He’s left with a lot of sand to cover, and not much in the way of green to play with. That’ll test his up-and-down skills.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout hasn’t achieved anything in the majors. The 31-year-old South African’s best result in one of them: a tie for 30th at the 2021 PGA. His game deserves better – though he’s got a couple of ties for 13th at the unofficial fifth major, the Players – and perhaps this will be the week? He birdies 11 and 15 to move to -2.
Some belated news of Scottie Scheffler giving away another shot. It’s uncharacteristically careless. This one stems from the centre of the fairway at the par-five 4th. His approach finds the green, but well short of the flag and to the right. He sends an aggressive putt miles past the hole, and can’t make the one coming back. The world number one, the pre-tournament favourite, is +1.
How about this start by Sam Burns, whose dreams were so abruptly shattered in Canada last week by Ryan Fox and his 3-wood? Birdies at 1, 3 and now 5, and the 28-year-old from Louisiana, who finished in the top ten last year, whistles up the leaderboard. Speaking of which, let’s have a good catch-up …
-4: Spaun (F)
-3: Lawrence (F), Burns (5)
-2: S Kim (F), Koepka (6), Im (4*), Reed (4)
THE BUG HAS BEEN DEFEATED. In your box, nasty bug. No dinner for you. So we’re back up and running. Apologies for the interruption to your beloved service.
Reed makes albatross!
Albatross for Patrick Reed on 4! A fairway wood creamed from the middle of the track into the heart of the green. One soft bounce that rolls gently from right to left and in! He’s not immediately aware of what he’s done, shrugging his shoulders and asking folks up ahead for confirmation. When he gets it, a broad smile of supreme satisfaction! And why not? That’s only the fourth double-eagle, as the Americans call it, in the US Open record books, following those made by TC Chen at Oakland Hills in 1985, Shaun Micheel at Pebble Beach in 2010, and Nick Watney at Olympic Club in 2012. Reed’s making a habit of this sort of thing, too, having holed out from distance for eagle on 17 on Masters Sunday back in April.
Apologies for the long radio silence: a bug in our publishing system has decided to kick me out of the blogging tools and refuses to let me post anything. A bright future in editorial awaits the bug, some would doubtless argue. Anyway, while the tech bods look at the problem, I’m emailing this across to a colleague who is still able to post.
So what have we missed?
Eagle for the two-time winner Brooks Koepka at 4! A 40-foot rake across the green moves him to -2.
Scottie Scheffler birdies 2, then hands the shot back on the very next hole. He did well to limit the damage on 3 to bogey, having found a fairway bunker, sent his next through the green, then underhit a wedge that performed a u-turn and nestled on the fringe. Two putts from there, no mean feat, salvaged the situation somewhat. The world number one is level par.
Thriston Lawrence – who you’ll remember leading the Open at one point on Sunday afternoon last year – birdies 17 and makes it back to the hutch with a three-under 67.
Ryan Fox, who hit one of the shots of the season last week to win the Canadian Open, a carpe-diem 3-wood to seven feet to beat Sam Burns on the fourth hole of a play-off, is at it again. This time he rakes home a 27-footer on 2 to move into red figures.
More updates soon! Maybe! Hopefully!
Dustin Johnson, the 2016 US Open champion here at Oakmont, starts par-bogey. Talking of DJs, I’m about to be one for a while so will hand you back to Scott for a good chunk of time while I dig out my Dave Pike Set ‘Mathar’ 7”.
Four clubhouse scores in the 60s now after excellent efforts from Si Woo Kim, Ben Griffin and Thomas Detry following Spaun’s 66. J.T. Poston joins the 1-unders with a chip-in birdie at his opening hole.
-4: Spaun (F)
-2: S Kim (F), Lawrence (16)
-1: B Griffin (F), Detry (F), van Rooyen (2*), Bezuidenhout (2*), Burns (2), Hatton (1*), Poston (1*).
Datagolf have a live model showing the chances of each player making the cut. The good news for Rory McIlroy is that his chances of playing on the weekend are currently 72.7%. Lowry is at 9% and Rose 14%.
A textbook opening par for Scheffler. Drive into the fairway, iron to 17 feet and two putts for an opening four. Morikawa also makes par but Hovland takes three swishes with the putter from 35 feet and walks off with a clumsy bogey.
Mark Schmidt emails: “I’m in the US watching the Peacock ‘Featured Group’ of McIlroy, Rose, and Lowry. Lowry is doing a bit of effing and jeffing just now out there.” And it’s pretty easy to see why, Mark, after a 9-over 79. The Irishman was runner-up at Oakmont in 2016. Now, he’ll have it all on to make the cut. He only broke par on one hole today and that was due to holing out from the fairway at 3. There’s always Royal Portrush next month for Shane. As for Justin Rose, the other member of the three-ball featuring McIlroy and Lowry, the 2013 US Open winner also struggled badly, shooting a 77 comprising 11 pars, seven bogeys and no swearing.
And as McIlroy and DeChambeau come to terms with disappointing days, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler strides onto the 1st tee. Is it his week? Can the tournament favourite make it back-to-back majors after his victory in last month’s PGA Championship? Scheffler is out with Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa. It’s a narrow fairway but all three find the short grass thanks to impressive drives.
Rory opens with 74; Bryson with 73
After turning in even par, Bryson DeChambeau won’t be happy with his 3-over 73. Too much loose stuff from the defending champ and he’s currently down in tied 39th. When he won his two US Opens, Bryson opened with a round in the 60s both times. He was 14th after day one (69) at Winged Foot in 2020 while a 67 left him fourth after 18 holes at Pinehurst No.2 last year.
The 73 is one better than Rory McIlroy, who drops six shots coming home for a 74. A round of two halves, Rory’s second nine bound to fuel the doubts that he had pre-tournament after that shocking missed cut in Canada when he beat just four players in the field after shooting 9-over.
In contrast to McIlroy, Xander Schauffele has turned a poor day into a pretty acceptable one. The Open champion twice had to scribble ‘6’ on his scorecard (double bogey at 7, bogey at 12) and another dropped shot at 13 left him at +4 for the day. But quitting is one thing he never does. “I play to the whistle. Always,” said Schauffele when asked last week about his superb US Open record. And he’s shown that today with a birdie-birdie finish. Don’t rule him out securing a remarkable eighth top 10 in his nine US Opens (the other was 14th!).
This is all going wrong for Rory McIlroy. Par 3s measuring 276 yards aren’t supposed to be easy but making a 5 on one (the 8th) is a bit of a nightmare given what’s just gone. McIlroy played his opening nine in 2-under; on his second nine he’s 5-over. His score of +4 overall now leaves him in a tie for 44th when it seemed he’d been in the top 10 for most of the day. A crumb of comfort: he’s found the fairway with his final drive of the day.
Si-Woo Kim moves to within a shot of the lead by holing a putt from 18 feet at 7, his 16th. The detail is that he putted through the apron to make it so the degree of difficulty was higher than on first glance! That’s a second straight birdie for the Korean, who despite his win in the 2017 Players Championship, only secured his first top 10 in a major when eighth in last month’s PGA Championship.
-4: Spaun (F)
-3: S Kim (16*)
-2: B Griffin (17*), Detry (15), Lawrence (13)
-1: R MacIntyre (16)
An e-mail. John Mc Enerney writes: “Hi David, just thinking if Oakmont was a movie villain it would be Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men! Pure evil!” Good shout!
A new name appears under par and it’s good news if you’re a fan of left-handed Scottish golfers. Robert MacIntyre, a two-time winner on the PGA Tour last season, has birdied 12 and 15 to leap up to sixth place on his own. The details of his gain at 15 need fleshing out a little as the birdie came via a 39-foot putt. He’s also found the green at the par-3 16th.
Rory’s putter is deserting him now and that means par saves are now turning into bogeys. Another shot goes at 7 as he fails to hole from six feet. And that after a 323-yard drive into the fairway. McIlroy’s third dropped shot in the last four holes and fourth blemish of this second nine takes him back to +2. That’s currently tied 14th so let’s not get too down on him.
JJ Spaun posts clubhouse lead with 66
Stop what you’re doing, put your phones/cups of tea down and break out in a round of applause for J.J. Spaun. The 34-year-old from Los Angeles has just shot 66 around the fiendishly difficult Oakmont Country Club. His 4-under lap is currently good enough for a two-shot lead. Although he was runner-up in this year’s Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, showing his appetite for tough courses, Wiki readers will notice the lack of top 10 yellow on Spaun’s majors record. His best at this level is tied 23rd in the 2022 Masters while his only other US Open start resulted in a missed cut at Torrey Pines in 2021. To be fair, he has made the weekend in both majors this year: 50th at Augusta and 37th at the PGA Championship. But today’s round is taking it to a new level. It would be a huge surprise if he’s not leading at the end of play.
I mean, we know it’s tough. But let’s go for some historical context. Conclusion: it’s bloody, ruddy difficult.
Field scoring average in relation to par right now is +4.78
Only 1 opening round in the last 10 years at the U.S. Open has been higher than that in relation to par – Shinnecock in 2018 (+6.47).
— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) June 12, 2025
We’re down to five players under par. Let’s see who they are via this leaderboard below.
-4: Spaun (17*)
-2: S Kim (15*), Detry (14)
-1: B Griffin (16*), Lawrence (11)
Bryson DeChambeau is a collage of hunched shoulders and mutters as he makes his third bogey in five holes with a dropped shot at 16. A poor tee-shot did part of the damage, a three-putt the rest of it. The defending US Open champion is leaking oil and now lies seven off the pace. Tough gig this Oakmont.
Leader J.J. Spaun simply refuses to put a bogey on his card. His latest test of resolve comes at that crazy-long par-3 8th where he has just over eight feet for par. No bother. In it goes. Par at the 463-yard 9th – the hardest hole on the course let it be known – and he’ll be signing for a rather splendid 4-under 66.
McIlroy makes par at 5 and then, unsettled and twitchy over what club to pull at the 204-yard par-3 6th, finds a greenside bunker left. Indecision: the bane of all golfers, even Grand Slam winners. Rory splashes out to just over five feet but can’t make the putt, smashing it through the break. That’s three shots gone in six holes on his second nine. And if you’re wondering if he can get one or two back over his final three holes, erm, this is what he faces between now and the clubhouse.
7th – 487-yard par 4
8th – 276-yard par 3 (vidiprinter: three)
9th – 463-yard par 4
McIlroy is currently +1 and tied for 12th.
A quick mention of some notable afternoon tee-times. These are all BST. US unless stated.
Starting at hole 1
18.03 Brooks Koepka, Min-Woo Lee (Aus), Justin Thomas
18.25 Viktor Hovland (Nor), Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler
Starting at hole 10
18.14 Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm (Spa), Jordan Spieth
18.25 Tyrrell Hatton (Eng), Sung-Jae Im (Kor), Sepp Straka (Aut)
A quick delve into McIlroy’s numbers behind his basic scorecard tally of even par after 13. He ranks 9th for Strokes Gained: Putting so far but is actually losing strokes to the field on Approach. He’s 10th for Off The Tee so the driver is behaving after he switched back to his trusty model after his tinkering in Canada. Leader J.J. Spaun ranks 1st for SG: Putting which kind of makes sense.
Gary Woodland’s strong start takes a double hit after bogeys at 12 and 13. It drops the 2019 US Open winner back to -1 and three adrift of rock-solid J.J. Spaun. The two unrelated Griffins remain side by side in fourth.
-4: Spaun (15*)
-2: S Kim (12*), Detry (11)
-1: Scott (14*), G Woodland (13), B Griffin (13*), L Griffin (11)
Amateur Noah Kent holes a Woganesque putt at the 9th. It’s measured at a whopping 95 feet. Some effort that. It’s a rare good moment though as he’s played the front nine in +5. Jackson Koivun leads the race for Low Amateur right now at +1. The 20-year-old from North Carolina was actually -1 after his opening nine but has just made double. Note the name though as the Low Amateur here at Oakmont in 2016 was a certain Jon Rahm (T23).
Rory McIlroy! Staring at a seven, or even an eight on a course where three-putts are commonplace, McIlroy drains his 30-foot putt at the par-5 4th to escape with a bogey. He drops back to even par but that’s still inside the top 10. The less good news is that he’s started his second nine with two bogeys and two pars so just needs to gather himself to protect what remains a strong start.
Talking of gutsy putts, J.J. Spaun holes from 16 feet for par at the 204-yard 6th after finding another bunker. His lead is now two over Gary Woodland, Si Woo Kim and Thomas Detry.
Jordan Smith is one of the DP World Tour’s best drivers of a golf ball and he’s going nicely here in tied 10th. The Englishman has a bit of US Open history having finished 20th at LA Country Club in 2023 and he’s just four holes from the clubhouse after an excellent morning’s work featuring two birdies, two bogeys and 10 pars.
Oh dear, Rory. Is the Masters champ unravelling at the 621-yard par-5 4th? Anyone without TV pictures and following on the official leaderboard will have noted the dreaded use of “native area” to describe the destination of his drive. He’s then needed three more hacks to get it back to the fairway. All hands on hip stuff as he takes in what’s just happened. He plays his fifth with a 6-iron from 203 yards and it slaps down safely on the green. A two-putt from 30 feet for a double-bogey 7 looks the most likely outcome now.
Tommy Fleetwood started bogey-bogey today but he’s holding firm. The Englishman, a US Open runner-up at Shinnecock in 2018 after a stupendous closing 63, has played his next 11 holes in even par after a birdie at 5 and a dropped shot at 9. At +2, he has a six-time US Open runner-up for company – Phil Mickelson (11 holes). One shot worse at +3 is Open champion Xander Schauffele (12).
Bryson DeChambeau is staring at a big number on the 618-yard par-5 12th. A drive of 366 yards into the intermediate doesn’t hint at anything too bad but he’s then hacking around in rough up by the green and still hasn’t reached the putting surface after five shots. The American isn’t a two-time US Open champion for nothing thought and, from the fringe, he sinks a 25-footer for bogey. Phew! He picks the ball from the hole and swishes a fist in defiance. It’s back to +1 for the tournament but that could have been really ugly.
Fun fact: I’m not sure if he’s mentioned it in commentary yet or is being modest but the surprise leader after 18 holes in the 2007 US Open at Oakmont – the one won by Angel Cabrera with +5 – was none other than Sky commentator Nick Dougherty. His 2-under 68 put him one clear of Cabrera while double Masters winners Jose Maria Olazabal and Bubba Watson were tied third after even-par 70s.
A smile, but a kind of weary one, as Shane Lowry holes from the fairway at 3 for eagle! That’s a nice way to wipe out the double bogey from the previous hole although at +4 he’ll still need a lot more magic to save this round and stop slipping too far back.
At the top, our leader J.J. Spaun keeps his card clean with a sturdy par save at the 621-yard par-5 4th, his 13th. He’s playing from sand for his fourth but splashes out to around eight feet and curls in the par putt to stay one clear at -4.
While we’re focusing on the good stuff at the top, there are plenty of big names currently losing the battle with Oakmont. Look away now if you’re cheering any of these on:
+6 Shane Lowry (11*)
+5 Patrick Cantlay (10*)
+4 Justin Rose (11*), Keegan Bradley (11)
A total of four US Open champions are inside the top 11. That’ll be Gary Woodland (-3), Rory McIlroy (-1), Bryson DeChambeau (Evs) and Wyndham Clark (Evs). Rory’s bid to join the mini-leaderboard below fails as his putt for birdie at 2 pulls up just short. He lets out a sigh followed by a rude word.
-4: Spaun (12*)
-3: Woodland (10), Detry (9)
-2: Åberg (12*), S Kim (10*), Lawrence (6)
The good news for McIlroy is that the 2nd is a short par 4 so he only has to chunk one out from the juicy stuff. He judges it very well, the ball releasing forwards nicely from its chop and pulling up about 16 feet away. Wary of the sloped green, McIlroy does a little dad jog up up the fairway to mark his ball before it tumbles back towards him. Birdie chance coming up.
Hmmm. Rory is in the thick stuff after a pulled drive at 2. “It’s alright there, isn’t it,” he says to caddie Harry Diamond although our TV pictures show his ball fully disappearing into the grass. Camera angles and all that. Perhaps he knows something we don’t.
After his miserable halfway exit and mini-existential crisis in Canada when he revealed feelings of ‘now what?’ after completing the Grand Slam with that thrilling Masters win, McIlroy was a popular bet to miss the cut. But we underestimate him at our peril and here’s an interesting tweet about his ability to bounce back from adversity.
Rory in his Last 15 starts after a missed cut:
3 wins
8 top 5s
0 missed cuts
I’m not buying the death of Rory just yet https://t.co/QUmkZX9KQc— Josh Culp (@futureoffantasy) June 12, 2025
Rory makes his first bogey of the day. Not a great way to start his second nine and it came after pumping a 378-yard drive down the admittedly sloping fairway at the 484-yard 1st. A three-putt from 38-feet causes the first blemish on his card and drops him three back from leader J.J. Spaun.
Pleasing to see a leaderboard showing Griffin and Griffin next to each other at -1. They’re not related. Ben, 29, is one of golf’s in-form players after a win (Charles Schwab Challenge) and a second (Memorial) in his last two starts. Lanto, 36, was brought up by hippy parents and came through qualifying.
Thanks Scott. Funnily enough, I was just about to open with McIlroy having a spring in his step after hitting that tee shot. The springy motion must have been pretty prominant I guess. It’s certainly been an excellent first nine for the 2011 US Open champion: 2-under for that stretch is basically three-and-a-half shots better than the field average.
