The last
The US Open, one of the most fearsome tests in golf, is heading to its final round at the Los Angeles Country Club. Although the course has at times seemed more forgiving than previous open spots, any championship round has the potential to become unbearable, especially when the final round begins with a tie at the top of the leaderboard.
Rickie Fowler, who shot a par-par 70 in the third round, left the course Saturday night tied up with Wyndham Clark, who birdied the 18th hole to get within one under for the day. Both men are 10-under for the week, leaving them with a one-stroke lead over Rory McIlroy.
Golf awaits its third major tournament champion of 2023, with Jon Rahm, who won the Masters Tournament, and Brooks Koepka, who won the PGA Championship, well below the rankings.
why does it matter: Someone will earn a (other) place in sports history at sunset.
Of the players in the top five, only McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler have won majors.
McIlroy’s last big win was in 2014, and a win on Sunday would be his fifth major title. Scheffler, the highest ranked player in the world, won the Masters in 2022; He rocketed up the Los Angeles standings when he holed out from 196 yards for an eagle at No. 17. He finished Saturday at 7-under-par, putting him three shots off the lead.
But Fowler is a perpetually popular talent with a long history of close but not very important endings. On Thursday, he, along with Xander Schauffele, shot a 62, an open record. Fowler drew gasps Saturday when he sank a 69-foot birdie putt on the 13th hole. He drew groans later when, at No. 18, he missed a par putt from under five feet.
Clark is playing his third US Open, and this is the first time he’s made the cut. His best performance of him in a major before this one? A tie for 75th in the 2021 PGA Championship.
Harris English, trailing Fowler and Clark by four shots, came close at that year’s US Open, finishing third.
Background: The US Open takes place during a turbulent period in golf.
With major tournaments offering some of the biggest prizes in golf and the surest paths to greatness—Koepka noted last week that a golfer’s tally of major wins is what “judges” his career—players they usually like to focus on golf, and golf alone.
That has not been so easy in this Open. On June 6, the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the force behind the LIV Golf circuit that divided the sport, announced a plan to form a partnership. The deal, if finalized, could end golf’s most painful clash in generations, but it has already created widespread uncertainty about the game’s future.
In public and in private, players have spent much of the past two weeks pondering what that future might look like.
For what it’s worth, the PGA Tour and LIV are tied for one big win each this season: Rahm plays for the tour, while Koepka is a headliner for LIV.
Whats Next: 18 holes for everyone and, perhaps, the first playoff since 2008.
NBC will broadcast coverage of the final round beginning at 1 pm ET. The tournament’s presence on the West Coast means the Open won’t be settled until late at night in much of the United States, with the championship expected to be decided around 10 pm ET.
However, all bets are off if there is a tie at the top after everyone has finished 72 holes.
The Open hasn’t reached a tiebreaker since 2008, when Tiger Woods won at Torrey Pines. Since then, the format has changed: if the leaders are tied after regulation play, there will be a two-hole aggregate playoff, played on the first hole and the 18th hole. If the leaders are still tied after those two holes, a competition will begin. of sudden death. The idea is to have a winner on Sunday night, not Monday, as has happened in previous Opens.
