J.J. Spaun leads Thriston Lawrence by one shot after the first round of play in the 125th U.S. Open Championship.
Spaun is atop of the leaderboard after one round of play thanks to a bogey-free round of 66 (-4). This his 27th career round in a major championship but his first played bogey-. He started on the back nine and he birdied four of his first eight holes. His four-under 31 was the lowest opening-nine score in 125 years of this championship being played.
Spaun gained just over four strokes on the greens after making six par putts from seven feet or farther. Dustin Johnson is the only other player to have a bogey-free round during the last two U.S. Opens played at Oakmont Country Club. Spaun’s opening round of 66 matched the lowest Andrew Landry’s opening round score at the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont.
Sungjae Im, who sits two strokes behind Spaun at two-under, took the lead at five-under par after his first 11 holes. He would bogey three of his last seven holes to drop to a three-way tie with Si Woo Kim and two-time U.S. Open Champion Brooks Koepka, who birdied his last two holes of the day.
Defending champion Bryson DeChambeau opened his title defense with a 73 (+3). After an opening-nine score of even par 35 that saw him make two birdies and two bogey, DeChambeau shot a three-over 38 on the closing-nine holes.
The favorite heading into the tournament, Scottie Scheffler, struggled during the first round, also shooting a 73 (+3) to sit seven strokes back of Spaun.
All the talk leading up to the tournament was about how hard Oakmont was going to play. After the first round, there are only 10 players who are under par compared to 16 players who had shot rounds in the 80s. The players who teed off in the morning wave had a scoring average of 75.08 while players who teed off in the afternoon wave had a scoring average of 74.19.
The shot of the day came from Patrick Reed, who made an albatross on the par-5 fourth hole. He holed out his second shot from 286 yards for the fourth albatross recorded in the U.S. Open – and the first since 2012.
