US Open golf 2021: first round – live! – The Guardian

This par-three 3rd is one hell of a hole, the wind getting up to all sorts of mischief, grabbing the ball and throwing it this way and that. It holds Cabrera Bello’s tee shot up so much that it lands shy of the bunker guarding the front of the green. Chipping from thick rough and with not much green to play with, that’ll be quite the up and down from there. Time to dip into Seve’s Big Book of Escapes, issued to all Spanish golfers the minute they show an interest as kids.

Thanks Will. I’m back just in time to see Matthew Wolff run up a double from that awful position down the right of 7. His round is nothing short of absurd: 16 holes played, eight birdies, three bogeys and two double bogeys. Just three pars. The vicissitudes of the US Open, ladies and gentlemen. He’s still -1, mind, just a couple off the lead.

Wolff gets a par 4 on the on his 15th hole of the day to stay in joint lead. He looks in pretty confidence mood, too.

Koepka on six sends the ball to the right of the fairway but he’s not in a bad position as that rough is reasonable.

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Paul McGinley arrives eating his lunch. I hope it’s Hamburger Helper.

Schauffele gets himself out of the bunker with a fine shot. Mickelson is also in the sand, but he has no issue extricating himself either. Someone with issues is Fleetwood who chips from one bit of rough to another, much to his chagrin. Schauffele fails to get par as his putt kisses the rim on 11 to remove him from the top section of the leaderboard. Wolff becomes joint leader in Schauffele’s place.

Ancer nails a decent put from distance on 11 to secure a par. You’ve got to make sure you’re in fine putting form when the wind is playing havoc with drives.

Patrick Rodgers joins Koepka in the lead at -4. He’d sent his second at the par-five 13th into a bunker at the back, but nearly holes out for eagle with a delicate splash. Birdie, and he’ll have the lead to himself soon, because Koepka’s tee shot at 3 ballooned into a penalty area. He drops, then chips to eight feet, and will have to knock that in to limit the damage to bogey.

Having hit the front, Koepka makes his first mistake of the day, pulling his tee shot at the 192-yard par-three 3rd miles left. The ball takes an unwelcome angular bounce further left, and disappears behind a spiky bush. He’ll be needing some luck there … as will Thomas, who sends an equally dismal tee shot way right! Meanwhile news of erstwhile co-leader Sahith Theegala, who tumbled out of the equation after a disastrous triple-bogey at 12, the result of a wayward drive. He’s stuck his approach at 14 to 18 inches, and will be tidying up for a birdie that’ll take him back to level par. That’s an impressive response by the 23-year-old Tour newcomer.

A tie for eighth last September at Winged Foot was Justin Thomas’s best result at a US Open. His bid this year has started in Faldoesque fashion: ten pars in a row. He’s going round with another former PGA champ, Collin Morikawa, whose round has been nowhere near as steady. Morikawa follows up that eagle at 18 with birdie at 1, and in the blink of an eye, all the damage of those three early bogeys is repaired. Two players at level par, going about their business in very different ways.

Mickelson steers in his gentle right-to-left birdie slider, and the gallery erupts! That’s one of the three bogeys negated, and yesterday’s birthday boy, 51 years young, will be feeling a whole lot better with the par-five 18th coming up. Back-to-back birdies for Adam Hadwin, meanwhile; the 32-year-old Canadian has no record to speak of at the US Open … other than the one he jointly holds for consecutive birdies. He made six in a row at Erin Hills in 2017, matching the feat of George Burns (not that one) and

Gracie Allen
Andy Dillard, who both managed it at Pebble Beack in 1982 and 1992 respectively.

Eagle for Collin Morikawa at 18! That’s reward for a towering second into the green and a laser-guided 25-foot putt. It’s repaired a hell of a lot of damage, and suddenly the 2020 PGA champion is turning in 37 and only +1. Meanwhile some belated news of his PGA successor Phil Mickelson, who is now +3 having bogeyed 15, the result of sending his drive into deep rubbish down the left, then preposterously attacking his ball with a fairway wood. It barely made it into the semi-rough, and that was that. He’s now going up 17, where he was inches away from spinning his second into the cup from 130 yards. He’ll have a look at a momentum-shifting birdie putt from eight feet.

Schauffele bounces straight back with birdie at 16, creaming his tee shot to five feet and tidying up. He’s -2 again. Tommy Fleetwood loves this tournament as well, having finished second at Shinnecock Hills in 2018 thanks to that sensational final-day 63. He started slowly with bogey at 11, but has since birdied 14, 16 and now 18, turning in 34 and joining the crowd leading at -2. Nobody’s made a break for -3 since Matthew Wolff briefly got there earlier in the day. Anyone?

When things start unravelling at US Opens, they do so at speed. It’s now four shots gone in three holes for the early leader Matthew Wolff. The bogey at 17 reduces him to +1, and in the blink of an eye he’s gone from first to a tie for 35th. Meanwhile another of the great young American hopes, Collin Morikawa, misses the green at the par-three 16th, can’t get close from a godawful lie, and it’s his third bogey of the day. He’s +3.

Three former champions are going round together this morning. The 2012 winner Webb Simpson has bogeyed 1, 2, 4 and 5; Martin Kaymer, No1 at Pinehurst No2 in 2014, has dropped shots at 1, 3 and 4. They’re +4 and +3 respectively. The 2019 champ Gary Woodland is keeping the side up, though; a run of pars through 6 interrupted by birdie at 3. He’s -1.

Xander Schauffele is one of this week’s hot tips. Not only is he a local lad who knows the course, his record at the US Open is astonishingly good: in four appearances, he’s finished T5-T6-T3-5. He’s also coming off the back of a close call at the Masters. He’s entered 16 major tournaments, and finished in the top ten in exactly half of them. It’s an absurd record, and the 27-year-old from nearby San Diego is surely a major champion in waiting. This could be his week if his serenely confident start – birdies at 12 and now 14 – are anything to go by. He joins the pack at -2, as does his compatriot Russell Henley after back-to-back birdies at 7 and 8.

Shane Lowry appears to have cleared his head after that mini-meltdown at 4. He knocks his second at the long par-four 6th from 200 yards to four feet. Birdie, and he’s back to +1. Meanwhile it’s all falling apart at supersonic speed for Matthew Wolff, who follows birdie by missing the green at the par-three 16th, getting nowhere near with his chip, then three-putting from 25 feet. Double bogey, and clatters all the way back into the pack: he’s level par.

Bogey for the early leader Matthew Wolff at 15. His second at 15 finds the heart of the green but spins back down onto the bottom tier, and three putts later he’s joining a cosmopolitan pack that co-leads at -2, also featuring Patrick Rodgers from Indiana, Italy’s only major winner Francesco Molinari, Seoul’s Kim Si-woo, and Tyrrell Hatton of High Wycombe.

Mickelson flips out gracefully from the thick rough to the side of 13, and knocks in the six-footer he leaves himself for bogey. He drops to +2; I guess it could have been worse. This isn’t the first time the 13th at Torrey Pines has done for Lefty at the US Open, incidentally; during the third round in 2008, he needed four chips to get his ball over the false front of the green, eventually running up a quadruple-bogey 9. “I’ve had a nine on that hole before,” he told reporters afterwards. “I was eight years old.”

Mickelson winning the US Open at long last, at the storied age of 51, would be one hell of a story. A fairytale for the ages. It’s not looking likely right now, though, the way he’s stumbled out of the traps. Already +1, he sends a fairway wood at the long par-five 13th into a bush on the left. Having taken a penalty drop, he lobs high onto the putting surface, but the ball clatters the flag and rebounds into thick greenside rough. The ball disappears. That’s awful luck – you suspect had the ball not hit the flagstick, the spin would have left a decent chance to scramble par – but the golfing gods are punishing him for that dreadful second shot. He’s got to make a hellishly difficult up and down for bogey.

A brisk start by 2017 Players champion Kim Si-woo. The 25-year-old from Seoul, who won the Desert Classic back in January, is enjoying his return to the Golden State. Birdies at 1 and 2, and he joins Rodgers and Hatton in second spot at -2. Kim is coming off the back of a very decent showing at the Masters, finishing 12th at Augusta despite knackering his putter during one round in a glorious fit of pique. He tidied up on each of the four holes he’d still to play with his 3-wood. Calm in a crisis, if you exclude the rush of blood that caused the problem in the first place. Anyway, a good attribute to have when playing the toughest tournament of the year.

The still-reigning Open champion Shane Lowry had started promisingly, with birdie at 2. But he’s suffered a complete meltdown on 4, sending his tee shot into unplayable nonsense, then three putting from close range, running up an extremely ugly triple bogey. He crashes down to +2 in double-quick time. It won’t hurt as much as that final-round 76 at Oakmont in 2016, but it’s certainly going to sting some.

It’s been a poor start by the man Lefty deposed last month. The 2020 PGA champion Collin Morikawa, another Californian playing on home turf, has bogeyed 11 and 12, and now misses a ten-foot birdie putt on the par-five 13th that would have repaired some of that early damage. He’s +2.

Phil Mickelson is looking to complete the career grand slam this week at the age of 51. Given what just happened at Kiawah Island, nothing’s impossible, but he’s not started his bid for that elusive US Open – six second places on his CV – particularly well. A bogey at his opening hole, 10, was the result of pulling his second into a bunker and leaving himself shortsided. He’s since had to make two very missable par putts to hang on in there at +1. A reminder that you can’t win a major on Thursday, but you can sure play your way out of it. Giddy up, Phil!

Preamble

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