PINEHURST, N.C. — The U.S. Open is now in the hands of a player who has never won a U.S. Open this weekend.
Ludvig Åberg is at the top of the rankings at the US Open, despite the fact that this is his first US Open. Plus, he had never played in a major before this year. And yet here he is, taming — or at least surviving — a course that has consumed everyone from Scottie Scheffler to Brooks Koepka to Tiger Woods.
“A US Open is supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be tough, and it’s supposed to challenge every aspect of your game. And I feel like it really does,” Åberg said after his round. “But we are extremely lucky with the way things have gone over the last few days, and hopefully we can keep this going.”
“The man is like a machine, from what I saw,” Tony Finau said of Åberg, with whom he played on Thursday and Friday. “He’s hit a lot of fairways and a lot of greens. He makes it look pretty easy.”
Thursday night’s leaders, Patrick Cantlay and Rory McIlroy, struggled but are still within striking distance. Matthieu Pavon kept pace with Åberg and even held the lead for much of the afternoon. Bryson DeChambeau completed an up-and-down -1 lap to finish at -4. Thomas Detry and Finau also lurk in the top seven, with only DeChambeau and McIlroy posting big wins.
A total of fourteen players within a radius of Åberg are heading into the weekend – a traffic jam that the USGA will be happy to maintain into the weekend.
Friday afternoon’s best moment didn’t happen anywhere near the top of the leaderboard. Francesco Molinari, who had missed the cut in eight of his last ten majors, made a hole-in-one on his final hole of the day to make the cut on the number:
So far, Pinehurst hasn’t really shown its teeth at the top of the rankings. But with scorching temperatures and clear skies in the forecast, the course could – power – become much more difficult to manage.
“This golf course is going to be very challenging this weekend, especially with the forecast we have,” Cantlay said. “So I think if you’re smart and you’re patient, it’s inevitable that mistakes will be made, but that’s just part of playing a US Open.”
At this point, the question is who is better equipped to deal with that kind of carnage: players who have been here before, or a player who doesn’t know what to be afraid of.
