By DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer
SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Wyndham Clark rapped his 35-foot putt and immediately rose from his crouch, worried it might have too much pace down the slope on the 18th green on Friday in the U.S. Open. It curled into the side of the cup for a final birdie and another standard he set at Shinnecock Hills.
It wasn’t his best putt, just another birdie for a 1-under 69, and it summed up his week.
Clark doesn’t feel he is playing his best, but he’s four shots ahead going into the weekend with the lowest 36-hole score – 7-under 133 – for a U.S. Open at fearsome Shinnecock Hills.
“Hopefully, I can bring my A-game on the weekend,” Clark said.
His four-shot lead was the largest at a U.S. Open through 36 holes since Dustin Johnson led by four at Shinnecock Hills the last time it was here in 2018. That didn’t end well for Johnson when the USGA lost control of the frightening greens on Saturday.
What now?
The USGA promised it wouldn’t let the course get away like it did in the third round in 2018 and the final round in 2004, when the average score on the last day was 78.7 and no one broke par. Shinnecock began to bake under a warm sun late Friday afternoon, with more of the same – and stronger wind – in the forecast.
“The golf course can change pretty quickly, and so a lot of that depends on do they want to water the greens, how fast they want to get them, where is the wind direction coming from, can they get them much quicker,” said Scottie Scheffler, who kept the career Grand Slam in play.
Scheffler ended his drought of 10 consecutive U.S. Open rounds without breaking par with a steady diet of fairways and greens for a 68, leaving him seven shots behind.
“We’ll see what they want to do,” Scheffler said. “My job is to out there and play it.”
Clark is getting the job done. He returned Friday morning and made two pars to complete a 64, the lowest start to a U.S. Open at Shinnecock. Then he delivered two birdie putts in the 30-foot range along the back nine to pull further ahead.
“I really felt like I could be in double digits (under par),” Clark said. “But you know, the great thing about that is I didn’t feel like I had my best, and I still am leading as of right now.”
Xander Schauffele, with the best U.S. Open record of anyone without a U.S. Open title over the past 10 years, had a 66 to finish at 137 along with Matt Fitzpatrick, a former U.S. Open champion who birdied two of his last three holes to salvage a 70.
They were joined at 137 in the afternoon, when the course began to dry, by Sam Stevens (69) and Tom Kim (67).
Rory McIlroy was closing on Clark until starting the back nine with three straight bogeys, and erasing a pair of birdies by chipping from the back of 15th green into a bunker and making double bogey. He shot 71 and joined Scheffler in the group at even-par 140.
So much depends on Clark. Maybe more depends on Shinnecock.
“If there’s a course where you feel like you still have a chance if you’re seven back going into the weekend like I am, it’s definitely this one,” McIlroy said.
It’s a better chance than Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, the two biggest stars from LIV Golf who missed the cut. DeChambeau left early from his third straight major. Rahm, a runner-up at the PGA Championship last month, went 21 holes without a bogey. But he shot 41 on the back nine for a 78 to match his highest U.S. Open score, last shot at Shinnecock Hills in 2018.
The most remarkable day belonged to Joaquin Niemann. He made a 9 on No. 6 – his 15th and final hole of the fog-delayed first round that was halted by darkness – only for it to become an 11 when the USGA penalized him two shots for bad behavior.
Niemann hit two drives off the property, chopped his way up the fairway and finally lost it by heaving his club. The USGA deemed it serious enough to skip the warning and go straight to the harsh two-shot penalty, giving him a 78.
Niemann headed out for his second round, made five birdies in six holes and shot 65 to make it to the weekend at 3-over 143. It was the first time in 97 years at the U.S. Open someone made 10 or worse in a U.S. Open and still make the cut.
“All the frustration that came inside me and had my club in my hand, and I couldn’t resist to throw it away,” Niemann said. “There was no people, obviously. No one there. I’m not proud of it, but yeah, sometimes all the expectation of trying to play well and things doesn’t go your way, you get frustrated. And that was me there.”
Collin Morikawa also shot 65 to match Niemann for the low score Friday, and was five behind. Justin Thomas and Sam Burns each shot 68 and were another shot back.
Clark was on a heater coming into Shinnecock Hills, winning The CJ Cup Byron Nelson with a 60 in the final round, contending in the Memorial and the Canadian Open the last two weeks. Frustration peaked a year ago at Oakmont and in the months that followed. Now, he appears to be more comfortable with each day.
“Momentum is a huge thing in golf, and I feel like I have it right now,” Clark said.
Schauffele has seven top-10 finishes in his nine U.S. Open appearances, a Southern Californian who keeps his cool even amid a tough test.
“It’s a brutal week,” Schauffele said. “Everyone watching at home wants to see guys shooting in the 80s and doing crazy things. I get it. You know, it’s once a year you get to see some carnage, and it’s at a U.S. Open. Try to embrace it as much as you can.”
DJ MELTS DOWN
Dustin Johnson was one shot out of the lead on Friday as he walked onto the tee on the par-3 11th, looking like the major contender he once was instead of someone who had been MIA on golf’s biggest stages since leaving for LIV Golf.
And then it all changed in a New York minute.
Four holes later, he was 11 shots behind and scrambling just to make it to the weekend.
“Just rocks,” Johnson said.
It was a little more than pebbles in the sand that caused this stunning meltdown in the second round, but it left him a little dazed and more than a little frustrated.
His mishaps started on the 11th when a gust knocked down his tee shot and it wound up in the right bunker. The next shot came out soft, rolled back down the false front into another bunker, and he failed to get up-and-down, making double bogey.
“Where I was standing it felt firm, but it came out soft,” he said of the first sand shot. “These bunkers are very difficult – or at least I’m having a hard time with it.”
Two soft bogeys followed, one of them on the 13th hole when he had a lob wedge from a 117 yards that went so far it landed on the slope at the back of the green. His pitch went past the pin and off the green and he had to scramble from there.
But the real damage came on the 15th from the right rough, and a shot that wound up in the right bunker guarding the green. He thought that would be fine, an easy place to make par, until it was anything but that.
His first shot took a hard turn to the left, went down the false front and into the left bunker. The next shot stayed in the bunker. The third one was a rocket that sailed over the green and caused two volunteers sitting next to the grandstand to scramble for cover.
“Three in a row with rocks,” Johnson said. “I hit a rock coming out and it shot it straight left. The next one hit a rock and it came out soft. And the third one hit rock and went into the ball.”
When he chipped cautiously to avoid going back into the bunker, he had a 25-foot putt that nervously ran 3½ by the hole. He made that for an 8.
The upside is he should be safe for the weekend, his third straight cut he made in the majors. But he couldn’t help but wonder where he could have been except for the rocks.
“It’s the ones you can’t see,” Johnson said. “Obviously, the big ones on top you can move them. I could see them but there we in the sand, and it’s one of those things whether you can move them. If I move them it would improve my lie.”
At least he bounced back by hammering a drive – his ball speed has measured as high as 194 mph this week – and a 7-wood to 25 feet on the 615-yard 16th hole for a two-putt birdie. He finished with a pair of pars for a 77 and was at 3-over 143.
Most frustrating is Johnson, who is in the last year of his U.S. Open exemption from winning in 2016 at Oakmont, felt like he was on the right track. He made a rash decision to change back to the old loft on his irons before the LIV event in South Korea, finished fourth and then tied for fifth in Spain.
And here he was, chasing Wyndham Clark until he was hanging on by the seat of his pants. He lost an opportunity, but not all hope.
“The swing is good. I feel good,” Johnson said. “On this golf course, you’re never really out of it. A couple of good days, I can get back in the mix.”
PRESSURE STARTS EARLY FOR QUALIFIERS
William Mouw had one of those brutal golf moments where a good shot produced a bad result, his approach on No. 16 hitting the flagstick and spinning back into a bunker.
Tied for second at the U.S. Open at the time, he ended up with a double-bogey 7 that quickly dropped him out of the top 10. Mouw recovered nicely with pars on his final two holes Friday to finish with his second straight round of even-par 70, and said afterward players sometimes have to accept bad breaks and keep fighting.
For those like Mouw, 25, that lesson didn’t start at Shinnecock Hills. It began with surviving sectional qualifying just to make it there, and he was one of 43 players in the field who earned their way in on June 8. He needed to advance from a playoff in Canada where eight players were competing for three spots.
“I think it would have been obviously nice to not have to qualify, but it gives you an opportunity to compete and gain some momentum and confidence,” Mouw said. “I put up two good scores in Canada and made two very big putts on my 36th hole and the playoff hole to get in. It gave me a lot of confidence and carried it into this week.”
He was tied for 11th and joined by 21-year-old Ryder Cowan, who briefly held the lead in the first round and followed his 2-under 68 with a 72 Friday. Ben James and Max Greyserman, who both made it from the New York qualifier, shot 69s in the first round that had them in the top 10 when they started their second rounds, but they dropped back after James shot 72 and Greyserman shot a 73.
Cowan, who will be a senior at Oklahoma, also had to deal with even more than 36 holes when his qualifier in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, required a three-man playoff for two spots.
“I mean, they call it the ‘Longest Day in Golf’ for a reason. It’s a long day, and you have like a week to prepare for the U.S. Open, maybe one of the most prestigious tournaments in golf,” Cowan said. “It’s hard, because you come off of qualifying, you’re tired, you’re exhausted, and you don’t want to play.”
He remained in Florida and did play the next day, then flew home and took a day off to rest and recover.
Mouw missed the cut in his U.S. Open debut in 2022, a year after helping Pepperdine win the NCAA title. He turned pro in 2023 and won his first PGA Tour title last year at the ISCO Championship, when his 9-under 61 in the final round allowed him to make up a seven-shot deficit.
That got him a spot in this year’s PGA Championship, where he made the cut, but his ranking wasn’t high enough for an automatic entry into the U.S. Open. So he went out and earned one, and certainly showed a major championship mindset when he bounced back from his bad break.
“I would like to be under par, but I’m happy with two pars on the last two holes,” Mouw said. “Golf is a game of inches, and sometimes the breaks fall your way, sometimes they don’t. I’ve accepted that for today. I did get some good breaks today, too, so you can’t just look at the bad breaks. So I just took that.”
AP sports writer Brian Mahoney contributed to this story.