Russell Henley shares US Open lead after fog-affected day one at Torrey Pines
Russell Henley
While he last visited Torrey Pines golf membership for the Farmers coverage Open extra than seven years
in the past, Russell Henley holed a complete-swing flop shot on the 18th to complete with a seventy-nine
and pass over the cut with the aid of six strokes. It’s no surprise he wasn’t precisely in a rush to come back
again.
“I don’t certainly recollect [it] besides just leaving the course feeling like I just got beat up,” Henley said. “I
performed it that one time and in reality struggled and it became like, properly, I’ll simply not play it to
any extent further. Maybe that’s no longer the quality cause.”
US Open golf 2021: first round – as it befellExamine greater
The Georgia native’s return to the town-owned oceanside tune for Thursday’s first spherical of us Open
played out particularly greater favorably.
After starting with a bogey, the 32-yr-vintage Henley made the
flip in two below and introduced 3 birdies on the again 9 for a four-below-par sixty-seven and a one-shot
lead over Francesco Molinari and Rafa Cabrera Bello.
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The early target nearly held through the afternoon wave till Louis Oosthuizen, the 2010 Open champion,
joined him atop the leaderboard till his round became suspended for darkness with holes to play.
A number of the 5 players photographs off the joint leaders have been the two-times US Open champion
Brooks Koepka, San Diego native and crowd preferred Xander Schauffele, reigning Masters champion
Hideki Matsuyama and third-ranked Jon Rahm, who in large part lived as much as the oddsmakers’ billing
because the pre-event favorite in his first-round when you consider that he changed into compelled to
withdraw from last month’s Memorial due to a fantastic coronavirus take a look at whilst main by way of
six strokes after fifty-four holes.
Russell Henley
Rory McIlroy was considered one of a swath of gamers a shot, in addition, returned on one underneath par,
after creating a birdie at 18.
The 2011 champion changed into joined, among others, through the English
a trio of Matt Fitzpatrick, Tyrrell Hatton, and Richard Bland.
The first round will now not be finished till Friday way to the thick blanket of fog that rolled in off the
The Pacific Ocean at dawn, delaying Thursday’s begin by an hour and a 1/2. The dense marine layer
enveloped
the direction and rendered it unplayable, prompting one 15-minute delay after every other because the
kind of one hundred fifty spectators dotting the grandstand surrounding the primary tee container
shuffled inside and outside of the gallery.
The fog showed no signal of burning off nor transferring out to sea for greater than an hour amid 17C
(63F) temperatures and 90% humidity till ultimately clearing sufficient for nearby player Sahith Theegala,
grouped with Italy’s Edoardo Molinari and Greyson Sigg of the USA, to ultimately smack a tee shot into
the gray San Diego morning at eight. 15 am.
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The primary fog postpones
at a US Open on account that 2004 at Shinnecock Hills pushed the scheduled
2.42 pm tee times to 4.12 pm, main to a halt in the action at around 8 pm with 36 gamers left on the
route. A marine layer also not on time play in 2000 at Pebble seaside, in which Tiger Woods famously won
through a report-placing 15 strokes over Ernie Els and Miguel Ángel Jiménez inside the maximum
dominant overall performance in essential championship history.
The morning gloom quickly gave manner to a solar-splashed afternoon at the par-71 South route, that is
playing host to us’s the national championship for the first time considering that Woods’s famous triumph in
2008, with Bryson DeChambeau seeking to shield his identity and local hero Phil Mickelson attempting to
become handiest the 6th player to finish the professional grand slam on the essential that’s brought about
him so much pain down the years.
Mickelson’s bid
was given off to a rocky beginning because the six-time US Open runner-up, who grew to
become fifty-one on Wednesday and required a unique exemption for entry previous to the remaining
month’s history-making win at us PGA Championship became repeatedly out of role off the tee and made
three bogeys in his first six holes and two greater overdue to finish with a four-over 75.
At one factor Mickelson become compelled to backpedal his 2nd shot multiple times on the 613-yard
the thirteenth hollow as a spectator’s smartphone, again and again, went off.
He proceeded to ship a shot into the timber, earlier than asking the fan: “I don’t apprehend why you just
can’t flip that little button on the facet into silent.”
“I used to be combating difficult throughout the spherical,” stated Mickelson, who has become the oldest
ever participant to win a main last month at Kiawah.
“I wasn’t virtually getting something going and I fought without a doubt hard, and then to allow two
bogeys slide on six and seven when I certainly shouldn’t have.”
DeChambeau, who captured his first fundamental at final yr’s US Open at Winged Foot, spent a good deal
of the opening day of his title defense in the dense, punishing difficult, desiring birdies at the closing 5
holes to escape with a two-over seventy-three.
The USGA payments
its exhibit occasion as the toughest take a look at in golfing and the slim fairways,
dense hard and glassy veggies that comprised the set-up on the 7,652-yard South course – the 8th-longest
track in predominant championship records – accompanied what has grown to be a familiar recipe.
Mickelson became hardly ever the only large name to buckle underneath its rigor on Thursday.
Former US Open champions Webb Simpson (79), Justin Rose (79), Martin Kaymer (seventy-seven), and
Jordan Spieth (77) had been some of the acquainted names in the direction of the bottom of the
leaderboard, with last yr’s PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa (75) not faring much better.
Max Homa, grouped with Mickelson and Schauffele in a threesome of southern California gamers that
drew massive crowds all morning, four-putted from 20 ft for a triple bogey on the twelfth and 3-putted for
a double-bogey at the 14th to finish with a five-over seventy-six.
As an alternative, the day belonged to Henley, who has received 3 tour activities in view that turning pro a
a decade in the past however has never finished in the top 10 in any of his 26 principal event appearances.
“I experience like the remaining yr I’ve been playing golf that I sense like I’m a top-50 participant in the
international. I’ve had a ton of top 10s.
I’ve competed,” he said. “I feel like I simply form of nevertheless gambling properly.
That doesn’t suggest
I’m going to do that the following three days, but I without a doubt felt cozy obtainable.”
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Russell Henley playing cards sixty-seven holds first-spherical
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Russell Henley shares US Open lead after fog-affected day one at Torrey Pines
