The 2022 U.S. Open is already at the halfway point, and The Country Club is showing plenty of teeth.
The leading score? Five under — right in that U.S. Open sweet spot. The leaderboard’s potential for serious drama remains promising, with plenty of big names within a few shots of the lead.
What’s in store for Round 3? Here are five things to know for Saturday at Brookline.
Moving Day awaits
Rory McIlroy carries 2 TaylorMade 3-woods for a good reason
Although birdies are plentiful, bogeys (and worse!) are a constant threat at The Country Club, so leaps up the leaderboard will likely be rare.
There are currently 30 players within five shots of the lead, and you can expect that number to dwindle significantly after Saturday’s round as the top players start to separate themselves from the pack.
Rory’s grit
Rory McIlroy is the only player in the top seven on the leaderboard to have a double bogey on his card over the last two rounds.
His recovery on the par-4 3rd on Saturday — draining a 25-footer for double after taking three shots to escape the heavy green-side fescue — may well be the defining moment of the tournament for him.
Despite the adversity he faced, he’s still four under overall, and only one shot back.
Collin’s major mojo
Pardon us for waiting this long to get to the tournament co-leader, Collin Morikawa, who leads the field by one shot at five under par overall, along with Joel Dahmen.
Morikawa has had a relatively quiet PGA Tour season over the last few months. In fact, his last finish better than T26 was at the Masters, when he finished fifth. But with two major championships already under his belt, his performance this week should be no surprise.
A win would give him a major tally of three, and leave only the Masters to win in order to complete the career grand slam. Did we mention that he was 5th at Augusta this year? And that he’s only 25? Yeah. Game on!
A major breakthrough?
Mixed in with names like Morikawa, McIlroy, Rahm and Scheffler are slightly less familiar names like co-leader Joel Dahmen, Hayden Buckley, Nick Hardy and Matthew NeSmith.
Between those four players, you’ll find exactly one PGA Tour win. That was Dahmen’s, at last year’s Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship.
But, as we know in golf, anything can happen. These four will be banking on that.
The forecast
The players apparently lucked out in terms of weather on Friday, given the threat of thunderstorms looming for the afternoon. No delay of play was necessary, and according to Weather.com, Saturday appears to be free of storms.
Saturday is also expected to bring mostly cloudy skies, and the temperature is dropping a bit, with a high of 67 in the mid-afternoon. There will also be a slightly more significant breeze to contend with, gusting around 16 mph for most of the day.
Ahhhh — U.S. Open Saturday. Bring it on!