Rumor of rain hung low over Oakmont Country Club for a few days before the first round of the U.S. Open officially began at 6:45 a.m. Thursday with Denny McCarthy’s tee shot flying straight and true up the fairway of the first hole. Crowds moved en masse, but uneasy eyes saw storm clouds coming.
The first rain delay proved the foreboding forecast correct. The next two were for good measure.
Air horns sounded around the golf course at 3:51 p.m., signaling a third stoppage in play after .22 inches of rainfall, and the round was formally abandoned shortly thereafter. Exactly half of the 156 players in the field did not tee off Thursday, with only nine finishers beating the rain and the fading light.
Amateur Scottie Scheffler carded a 1-under round to claim the mantle of leader in the clubhouse, if only because the leader on the course, Andrew Landry, stuck at 3 under, was lining up a birdie putt on his final hole of the round when he heard the third air horn.
“I was trying to get it in,” Landry said. “We were trying really hard. But it’s hard, you know, when you’ve got a couple 60-footers out here, and it’s the U.S. Open. So you’ve just got to stay patient.”
For cousins Aaron Yorio, 16, of Waynesburg, and Ethan Yorio, 15, of Annapolis, Md., there was a silver lining to the gray day. As they sat in the grandstands at the second tee box waiting for Jordan Spieth to appear, the boys spotted a waddle of Penguins players inside the ropes. They leaned down and got high-fives from Phil Kessel, Chris Kunitz, Nick Bonino and Sidney Crosby.
“I’m Sidney,” the captain said.
They were Ethan and Aaron, they replied.
Ethan Yorio and his father, who is from the area, drove back to Annapolis in the evening, heading east on the same Pennsylvania Turnpike that bisects the Oakmont golf course. The boys said the one-day visit, which carries a steep price tag, was worth withstanding the rain and the early exit. The best part, Aaron Yorio said, was seeing all the famous people they know from TV.
Who’s his favorite?
“Sidney,” he said.
No, no, favorite golfer.
“Oh, probably Jordan Spieth,” he corrected. “It was cool to see him and Sid next to each other.”
Spieth, the defending U.S. Open champion, was 1 over through 11 holes and readying an approach shot from the third fairway when his round was waved off. He guessed earlier this week the winner will be anybody with a red number after four days — but he was assuming Oakmont would stay fast and firm.
“Completely different golf course than we played in the practice round,” he said. “Night and day.”
The course played soft and slow after the showers. Rickie Fowler, who was 6 over through 13 holes, said the early conditions were “probably about as easy as the course was going to play.”
If Oakmont takes drivers out of hands, rain puts them back. The course played longer, but easier than usual. Fairways seemed wider, as balls along the edges didn’t spring so quickly into the rough, so players could take more chances off the tee. The greens were more forgiving.
It explains why Phil Mickelson quoted Stephen Hawking after a practice round Wednesday.
“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change,” Mickelson recited. “That’s going to be critical here at Oakmont, because as the conditions change, the tee shots change.”
On Monday, Fox Sports analyst Brad Faxon, a former PGA Tour golfer, said Oakmont Country Club superintendent John Zimmers’ job this week “is — what do you call the opposite of a rain dance?” He added, “We want to see firm and fast conditions. The players probably don’t.”
Zimmers’ job now is restoration. By the time the course emptied, with patrons leaving behind them the despair and deluges of a washed-out day, walking paths were mudslides, and rainwater streamed across fairways and spilled into the bordering grasses and sunken bunkers.
Lee Westwood, a 43-year-old veteran, dunked an eagle at the 14th hole Thursday and later shared a suggestion for surviving long rain delays: “Drink a lot of coffee.” The U.S. Open always is a long slog. This one simply will be longer and sloshier than expected.
Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.
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