Danger lurks at almost every hole at Oakmont Country Club. Miss the fairway and you’ll be penalized severely if you land in the rough. Land in a bunker and par will be an excellent score.
Saturday, on Day 3 of the U.S. Open, one of the most dangerous holes was No. 8, where conservatism trumped the riverboat gamblers who tried to muscle the monstrous 281-yard hole that made history this tournament as the longest par 3 in U.S. Open history.
First-round leader Andrew Landry made double bogey there after hitting into the greenside bunker off the tee.
“The only bad shot I hit was on No. 8,” Landry said. “I left myself in a bad situation. I was trying to hack it out on the green, and I had to two-putt.”
That poorly executed shot was the difference between being the leader going into the third round and tailing by one.
But Landry was far from alone in his misery at No. 8. Four others made double bogey in the second round and 44 made bogey.
The clubs many players selected off the tee were irons with designs to simply to clear the Sahara bunker — thusly named because of its size — that’s 240 yards from the tee.
“I hit a 2-iron there just to try to land it over that bunker,” said Marc Leishman, who made par on No. 8 in his second-round 69 that got him within striking distance.
“Get it 4 yards short and roll it up onto the green. It would have been soft. You have to take a little more club. Normally you could land that a lot shorter. But I just tried to get something to run up on the front edge,” Leishman said.
Only 11 players made birdies in the second round. No. 8 proved to be the seventh-most difficult hole on the course for the second round.
It also was the seventh-most difficult hole in the first round, when only seven players made birdies.
Three of the four par 3s at Oakmont haven’t been holes where players have been able make up shots in this tournament.
The 13th hole was the only par 3 yielding low scores. The others — Nos. 8, 6 and 16 — have been scoring well over par.
The players looking to make up shots in the final round today will look to the par 5s and shorter par 4s to make up some ground.
“Obviously, the par 5s [have] potential,” Jason Day said.
“If you can go through those and birdie those, and then some of the short ones — I know they are going to have some driveable par 4s on the weekend — so you can pick up a few cheap ones there. [No.] 17 is obviously one of those as well where you can pick one up if you drive it in the correct spot.”
Ray Fittipaldo: rfittipaldo@post-gazette.com and Twitter @rayfitt1.
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