Jason Day goes bold with a practice round outfit as the world's best players prepare for toughest US Open ever

News.com.au

a day ago

Jason Day wouldn't have needed USGA approval for a practice round outfit that turned heads at the US Open at Oakmont where the world's best players are preparing for a layout so punishing that Rory McIlroy was glad to have 'spotters' to help find balls that only just miss the fairway.
Day had to his have outfits approved by Masters officials this year after pushing the boundaries a touch too far in 2024. But he showed no shyness in a Tuesday practice round donning stars and stripes shorts in an ode to the national open.
The Queenslander, who has lived in the US for nearly 20 years, is one of six Australians in the field for the year's third major being played on a course Dustin Johnson, who won his US Open at Oakmont in 2016, said was the hardest he'd ever played.
Masters champion McIlroy labelled every miss 'penal' and revealed he shot an 81, with two final birdies, in a practice round last week around the 6740m monster.
'I'm glad we have spotters up there because I played last Monday … and you hit a ball off the fairway and you were looking for a good couple of minutes just to find it,' he said.
'It's very penal if you miss. Sometimes it's penal if you don't miss. But the person with the most patience and the best attitude this week is the one that's going to win.
'Last Monday felt impossible. I birdied the last two holes for 81. It felt pretty good. It didn't feel like I played that bad.
'It's much more benign right now than it was that Monday. The pins aren't going to be on 3 or 4 per cent slopes all the time.
'If you put it in the fairway, it's certainly playable. But then you just have to think about leaving your ball below the hole and just trying to make as many pars as you can. You get yourself in the way of a few birdies, that's a bonus.'
World No.1 Scottie Scheffler remains the favourite to secure a fourth major, and a first US Open, but even he has to concede golf will be played differently this week, with caution taking priority over power.
'I'd say there's definitely a strength factor coming out of the rough,' he said.
'This golf course, there's not many trees out there, but there's so many bunkers. I don't really know if this is a golf course you can necessarily just overpower with kind of a bomb and gouge-type strategy, especially with the way the rough is.
'You have to play the angles. Some of the greens are elevated, other ones are pitched extremely away from you.
'There's not really many areas where you step on the tee box and you're like, 'hey, I can miss it right here, hey, I can shade towards the left side of the fairway because right is really bad'.
'Actually, if you hit it in the right rough, you're probably not going to get it to the green; if you hit it in the left rough, you're probably not going to get it to the green. So might as well try and split the difference there and hit it in the middle.'