Why Jason Day bent his putter but did not break the US Open rulebook at Oakmont
Aussie star turns his Oakmont around with some DIY
Quick-thinking Jason Day turned his US Open around after choosing to stamp on his own putter and bend it.
The Aussie star endured a horrific Thursday on the greens and set about some home DIY to get things fixed for day two.
Day elected to start reshaping his putter himself to improve and it paid handsome dividends as he bettered his score by nine shots to stay in the mix for the title at the halfway mark.
He explained: 'I bent my putter. I just manually bent it myself. Stood on it. That's kind of how I used to do it back in the day. It just hadn't been looking very good to me personally, kind of looks a little bit hooded, the grip's on a little bit closed, too.
'So that's not a positive for me. But I bent it enough to make it look more open, which is good.'
Day's action at the end of day one are completely legitimate and do not infringe any rules because it was not done during a round and done by himself intentionally.
It worked a treat and he added: 'I putted a lot better. Obviously I hit it nice on the front side, which was the back side. I got into a little bit of trouble kind of midway round.
'Just didn't, just started missing a few greens. Then kind of settled it a little bit with a birdie on six and seven for me.
'So that was, it was a big day to come back and shoot three-under to make the cut.
'I feel like you're going to make bogeys out here and try and get the birdies when you can. Three-over right now, if I can just keep climbing the leaderboard, get into contention on Sunday that would be great.'
While Day and Adam Scott are fighting at the top, it was another Major nightmare for Cameron Smith.
The Aussie is a pale shadow of the star who won The Open at St Andrews before moving to LIV Golf and he missed the cut for the fourth-straight time at one of the big events.
Smith is officially in the worst stretch of his career in the majors after missing the cut by two shots and former Australian professional James Nitties said: 'We've all known about his driver struggles but it's that club in the bag that has kind of left him.
'We all know how good of a putter he is, but it's a little too late.'
While Smith heads home, LIV mate Marc Leishman is around for the final two days having scrambled through despite despite shooting the worst round of the day among his Aussie countrymen with a 75.
Leishman, who is playing his first major since 2022, held his nerve to make the cut across the back nine after reaching the turn in 40.
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