With all players through one round of play and only some through their second, due to rain delays on day one and darkness on day two, the U.S. Open has found an unlikely leader in Andrew Landry and an old friend in Dustin Johnson.
Both Landry and Johnson are sitting at 4-under for the event, but Johnson played a 36 hole marathon and Landry has yet to even start his second round.
Landry did set a U.S. Open record over the course of his past two rounds. Landry’s final putt for his first round secured him the record of the lowest opening round for a U.S. Open at Oakmont. Landry will start his second round on Saturday morning at 7:11 AM ET.
For Johnson, leading a major isn’t something new. Winning a major is a different story. Johnson has 11 top-10 finishes in 28 starts at the four major championships that the PGA Tour hosts. One of those 11 finishes came last year when Johnson three-putt the 18th hole to lose the U.S. Open last year at Chambers Bay. Luckily this year, Oakmont is playing to one of Johnson’s strengths, distance off the tee. Johnson’s driving average after the first hole was 320.5 yards while the rest of the competition was at a much more conservative 282.9 yards.
Dustin Johnson is leading a major championship.
(Note: This tweet is recyclable ♻️)
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 16, 2015
Johnson has also been pretty accurate hitting into the fairways and really accurate when he was taking aim at the greens. Over his 36 hole marathon yesterday, Johnson hit 20 of 28 fairways and 31 of 36 greens. Johnson hasn’t had the best luck putting so far needing 32 and 33 putts in his first and second rounds respectively. Oakmont Country Club’s greens are extremely difficult, arguably the hardest in golf with green speeds approximated at 14.5 on the stimpmeter. (If you’d like to read up on the stimpmeter, you can do so by clicking here.)
While Landry and Johnson have been playing extremely well given the conditions, many others have been struggling profusely.
Jordan Spieth posted a two-over 72 in his first round but will look to best Oakmont during his second round.
Jason Day fared even worse than Spieth, posting a six-over 76 in his first round, but he managed to regain a stroke in the first 15 holes of his second round bringing his total back to five-over with 3 holes still left to play. Day is currently in danger of missing the projected five-over cut line which still has plenty of time to shift forward or backward given the golfers play.
Play will resume tomorrow at 7 AM ET with television coverage starting at 10 AM ET on Fox Sports One.