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On day one of the U.S. Open, the winner was Shinnecock Hills. The classic, incredibly demanding track bloodied some of the world’s best, with the likes of Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, and Tiger Woods all going at least +8 on day one.
Strong winds and a dry course made it a rough day for many of the players in the field, including Rickie Fowler. He’s 3-over after shooting a 73 in round one. All things considered, he’s in pretty great shape headed into round two.
As we saw, you can’t win the tournament on day one, but you sure can lose it.
Fowler was even par until he tallied a double-bogey on the 14th, but had a fantastic par save on 18 to stay at +3.
With the given conditions, you’ve got to think Fowler was pleased with his score. It’ll be interesting to see how he responds today in round two.
Par is a good score in the #USOpen. Rickie Fowler and Jason Day got took divergent paths there. pic.twitter.com/H21zHeTaQU
— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 14, 2018
Fowler is only four shots behind the current leader (at the time of publication), which is really all you could ask for after brutal conditions on day one. While he doesn’t necessarily have anything to worry about quite yet, odds are he‘ll have a little work to do tomorrow if he wants to stay in a good spot for moving day on Saturday.
Rickie tees off at 12:58 CDT on Friday. You can watch the action live on FS1 before the action moves over to a national FOX broadcast.