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Early US Open leader J.J. Spaun is just fine being ‘uncomfortable'

Early US Open leader J.J. Spaun is just fine being ‘uncomfortable'

New York Post19 hours ago

OAKMONT, Pa. — 'I like feeling uncomfortable.''
Those words came from J.J. Spaun about an hour after he seized the early first-round lead in the U.S. Open at mighty Oakmont with a bogey-free, 4-under-par 66.
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As it turns out, the 34-year-old from San Diego is in the right place if he embraces uncomfortable as he tries to conquer what the best players in the world say might be the most difficult golf course in the world.
'All you've been hearing is how hard this place is,'' Spaun said. 'It's hard to not hear the noise and see what's on social media. So, I was actually pretty nervous. But I actually tried to harness that, the nerves, the anxiety, because it kind of heightens my focus, makes me swing better.

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BetMGM Bonus Code WIREBG150: Bet $10, Win $150 for NBA Finals Game 4 & More Tonight
BetMGM Bonus Code WIREBG150: Bet $10, Win $150 for NBA Finals Game 4 & More Tonight

USA Today

time28 minutes ago

  • USA Today

BetMGM Bonus Code WIREBG150: Bet $10, Win $150 for NBA Finals Game 4 & More Tonight

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Scheffler: ‘Definitely not out of the tournament' after another US Open round over par
Scheffler: ‘Definitely not out of the tournament' after another US Open round over par

Hamilton Spectator

time32 minutes ago

  • Hamilton Spectator

Scheffler: ‘Definitely not out of the tournament' after another US Open round over par

OAKMONT, Pa. (AP) — Scottie Scheffler made yet another visit to Oakmont's famous Church Pews. He also bogeyed a hole after nearly driving the green. That wasn't enough to knock the top-ranked player out of contention — in the eyes of the betting markets and Scheffler himself. 'Overall definitely not out of the tournament. Today was I think with the way I was hitting it, was easily a day I could have been going home and battled pretty hard to stay in there,' Scheffler said. 'I'm 4 over. We'll see what the lead is after today, but around this golf course I don't think by any means I'm out of the tournament.' Scheffler battled his way to a 1-over 71 at the U.S. Open on Friday, a slight improvement on his first-round 73 but still not the type of performance that's made him the game's dominant player the past three years. He has 36 more holes to try to unleash the form that produced wins in three of his last four tournaments. But at 3 p.m. Friday, only four players had shorter odds on the BetMGM Sportsbook money line, where Scheffler was at 10-1. He was tied for 34th on the real leaderboard. Scheffler began his second round with a birdie on No. 10. After a bogey on 15, his tee shot on the par-4 17th ended up just short of the green. But he needed four more strokes to complete that hole. 'I think it's just giving it your best on each shot. There was some times today where you feel like you could give up, just based on how difficult the golf course is, how my swing was feeling,' Scheffler said. 'I'd get in position there on 17 and make a mess of the hole, and feel like I was making birdie, walk off with bogey. Then I hit it in a bunker on the next hole, and it's like I'm going to be struggling for par.' He alternated bogeys and birdies on holes Nos. 1-4. After ending up in the Church Pew bunker on both the third and fourth holes Thursday, his tee shot went in there again on No. 3 a day later. Still, it could have been much worse. Scheffler got up and down for par from the rough on No. 5 and from a bunker on No. 6. 'Mentally this was as tough as I've battled for the whole day,' he said. 'There was a lot of stuff going on out there that was not going in my favor necessarily.' At last year's U.S. Open at Pinehurst, Scheffler played all four rounds over par for the first time at a major championship. He's halfway to a repeat of that. Or he could storm back into contention. His patience was on display on No. 9, his final hole of the day. After his tee shot went into the rough, he used a wedge to hit out instead making an aggressive attempt at the green. He ultimately missed a 17-foot putt and took a bogey. If he's going to make a significant climb up the leaderboard, that will have to wait. 'Going out early tomorrow, maybe get some easier conditions than the guys late in the afternoon. At the U.S. Open I don't think you're ever out of the tournament,' he said. 'I may be in 25th or 30th place or something like that after today, and like I said, by no means is that out of the tournament.' ___ AP golf:

The US Open at Oakmont is a brutal test that takes a long time
The US Open at Oakmont is a brutal test that takes a long time

Hamilton Spectator

time32 minutes ago

  • Hamilton Spectator

The US Open at Oakmont is a brutal test that takes a long time

OAKMONT, Pa. (AP) — There's a lot to think about at the U.S. Open. Particularly when it visits brawny Oakmont, where danger always seems to be one swing, one bounce, one 'wait, where is that putt going to end up?' away. Good thing — or bad thing, depending on who you ask — there's plenty of time to think (or overthink). The physical demands at the sprawling par-70 layout carved into a hilly slice of Western Pennsylvania so big it's divided by an interstate are obvious. Step into the 5-inch-plus rough and your shoes (not to mention your ball) disappear. Put too much spin on approach shots to greens so fast and so frustrating that Edward S. Stimpson invented his now-eponymous and ubiquitous tool to measure their actual speed, and the ball may start spinning back toward you and threaten to never stop, as qualifier Will Chandler found out Friday in the second round. The mental demand of keeping it all together during rounds that can stretch far beyond what the pros encounter during a weekly tour stop can be a little more subtle, but no less daunting. Scottie Scheffler , Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa needed 5 1/2 hours to slog their way through a muggy opening round Thursday. Barely 12 hours after they shook hands on the 18th green, they were back on the 10th tee Friday for the second round, then needed nearly six hours to navigate their way to the ninth green. 'It felt long to me,' the top-ranked Scheffler said after a 1-over 71 left him 4 over for the tournament, seven shots behind Sam Burns , who sat at 3-under following a crisp 65. Yet Scheffler didn't find himself checking his watch too often, not even during waits that stretched to 15 minutes or more between shots. 'I've got too many concerns other than the pace it takes to get around this place,' he said with a shrug. Scheffler and company might have gotten off easy. It took Thriston Lawrence's group well over an hour to play the first three holes as part of the late wave Friday. Part of the issue at Oakmont is the combination of the layout — where players literally have to cross a bridge to get from the first green to the second tee, and again while going from the eighth green to the ninth tee — and the decisions the course forces you to make. There's typically a backup at the par-4 17th, for example, because at around 300 yards (albeit uphill ones) it's drivable, meaning the group on the green typically has to putt out before the group behind them can go. Throw in the stakes — the lure of golf immortality (or at the very least, a healthy paycheck for making the cut) for the pros and the walk of a lifetime for amateurs like dentist turned qualifier Matt Vogt — and yeah, things can drag on a bit. Hovland's second trip through Oakmont was an adventure. His 1-under 69 included only eight pars. There was an eagle thanks to a pitch-in on 17, five birdies, three bogeys, and a double. During a regular tour event, when scores are lower and the pace is a far more palatable 4ish hours, Hovland isn't sure he would have been able to keep things from spiraling out of control after the second, when a poor drive into the right rough was followed by a mangled pitch into a bunker and eventually a double-bogey that threatened to rob him of the momentum he'd build over his first 10 holes. 'If it would have happened at another tournament, for example, I could have potentially lost my mind there a little bit,' he said. 'But I felt like I kept things together very well.' The fact Hovland had time to let his frustration melt away before his driver on the third tee may have helped. The 27-year-old Norwegian knows his game well enough to know that he tends to speed things up when a round threatens to go sideways, and not in a good way. There was no chance of that on Friday. 'Yeah, you might have had a bad hole on the last hole and then you're sitting on the tee box for 10-20 minutes,' he said. 'At least it gives you a good opportunity to get that out of your system and reset and think about the next shot.' Hovland calmly parred the third, then followed with back-to-back birdies on the par-5 fourth and par-4 fifth and will head into the weekend in contention to claim his first major, something that felt like an inevitability in 2023 but not so much of late. Though he won at Valspar in March, Hovland arrived in western Pennsylvania with relatively modest expectations. Those might be raised Saturday, when the rounds figure to speed up when the threesomes of the first two rounds turn into twosomes. Maybe the rhythm of the day will feel more like normal, or at least as close to normal as Oakmont and the one major that leans into the pressure (mentally, physically and otherwise) it puts on its players allows. ___ AP golf:

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