Fowler, Schauffele break US Open record with 62s

LOS ANGELES –

Rickie Fowler can always say he was the first to shoot 62 in the US Open.

But only with about 15 minutes.

Xander Schauffele soon matched him on the North Course at Los Angeles Country Club with an 8-under 62 of his own, making Thursday an extraordinary day to score in the major known as the toughest test in golf.

The tricky part was keeping track of their birdies.

“It’s not really what you expect when you play a US Open,” said Schauffele. “But see monkey, do monkey. Was just chasing Rickie in the standings. Glad he was just ahead of me.”

Fowler was first, a round so remarkable it included two bogeys as he missed the green on the 254-yard 11th and missed the fairway on 17th on his front nine. But starting with a 15-yard birdie putt on the 18th, he ran off four consecutive birdies. The streak ended on the par-3 fourth when he was 2 inches from a long bunker shot.

He set the record with a two-putt just under 60 feet on the par-5 ninth. Then he also saw the leaderboard.

“I knew where I stood,” Fowler said. “I would say from the middle of the round to the ninth green, our last hole, I didn’t know or see any scores. And then I saw that Xander was on 7 (below) at the time, and I’m not sure whether he knew where I was or something.

“But it was kind of cool when he did that to see him hold on a little bit and we took off a little bit.”

Schauffele was two groups behind and was never too far away. He lost a birdie opportunity on the short par-4 sixth by attempting to drive the green, but then grabbed a rare birdie on the 258-yard seventh hole with what he called a “tomahawk 4-iron” to 5 feet.

“That’s pretty much all I have in my body,” Schauffele said.

He went up and down from just short of the green on the par-5 eighth, then had a birdie opportunity from just within 9 yards that would have bested Fowler and sent him to the major championship record book alone. He left it short and settled for a 62.

They now share the major championship record with Branden Grace, who had a 62 in the third round at Royal Birkdale in the 2017 British Open.

Their record day fell on the 50th anniversary of Johnny Miller posting the first 63 in US Open history. Since then, five players have shot 63 times in a US Open, most recently Tommy Fleetwood in 2018 at Shinnecock Hills.

Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf each shot 63 in the opening round at Baltusrol in the 1980 US Open, which Nicklaus eventually won.

The conditions were excellent for scoring: cloudy, mild and hardly any wind. Condensation in the morning felt like a fog and it kept the greens receptive.

Still, the morning golf’s next-best score was a 3-under 67 by a group that included Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau.

The low score certainly raised questions about LACC, a century-old club hosting a major championship for the first time. Schauffele was not interested in that.

“My job is just to play. I try not to speculate too much,” he said. “I’m going to take what the course can give me, and today I got a low.”

He hadn’t expected it to continue like this. The USGA’s idea of ​​a good test is about right, and there wasn’t much that could be done against the increasing depth of talent in golf and pristine weather conditions.

“It’s only Thursday. It’s literally the first day of a tournament. It’s a good start,” said Schauffele. “Wait until things calm down here. It’s getting nasty.’

For some players this already turned out to be the case. Justin Rose, this year’s Pebble Beach winner who is back in shape, opened with 76. Justin Thomas, Jason Day and Tommy Fleetwood could only get 73.

PGA Champion Brooks Koepka was among the late starters and was 3 over through his first five holes.

Masters champion Jon Rahm, playing alongside Schauffele, opened with a 69. That’s typically a solid start in the US Open. This one left him seven shots.

Schauffele tends to play his best in the US Open — five top 10s in his six appearances, and he’s been among the elite on the PGA Tour in recent years, even without winning a major.

Fowler is different. He once finished in the top 5 of all four majors in 2014. But a recent slump made getting into it a challenge. He was the first alternate at Brookline last year and had to go home without a shot.

But he went back to Instructor Butch Harmon in September and has played well enough to get back into the top 50 in the world after falling out of the top 200 a year ago.

And there he was with a major, putting his name in the record book for the right reasons.

“It’s certainly been long and hard — much longer in that situation than you could ever want,” Fowler said. “But it’s what makes it so rewarding to have gone through that and to be back where we are today.”

But even he offered some caution for the rest of the week.

“There is still plenty of golf to be done. It’s going to be tough tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “But at least we got out of the gate and we’re off to a good start.”